Clarence Roy-Macaulay
Associated Press

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) Facing calls for a world boycott of Sierra Leone's lucrative and bloody diamond trade, Britain vowed Thursday to help the war-battered West African nation stamp out illicit gem dealing.

Yet Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain, on a visit to the capital of Freetown, stopped short of supporting an all-out embargo of all diamonds traded from Sierra Leone and its neighbors Liberia and Ivory Coast.

''I am determined to look for ways to stamp out the theft of Sierra Leone diamonds and the way they have been used to fund conflict,'' Hain told journalists on the second day of the visit in which he earlier met with President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and toured military and refugee camps.

''Diamonds must be used to help rebuild Sierra Leone's schools and hospitals, not destroy them,'' he added.

An international policy research organization, Partnership Canada-Africa, went even further.

The Ottawa-based group issued a report Wednesday accusing international diamond mining companies, dealers and sellers of helping Sierra Leone's brutal rebel Revolutionary United Front wage a brutal eight-year civil war.

The report called for a boycott of all diamonds from Sierra Leone and its neighbors, saying Liberia exports more than 20 times more gems than it can produce. The group also condemned the role of Canadian and European-based mining companies some of whom allegedly back the rebels and encouraged the international community to support Britain's efforts to beef up a U.N. peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone.

Thousands of innocent civilians were killed and many others mutilated in the rebels' terror campaign against the government. Although the warring sides signed a peace deal in July, the U.N. and human rights groups report continued rebel atrocities.

The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday began considering Britain's proposal to nearly double the size of a U.N. peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone from 6,000 to 11,500 troops and to give it broader authority to maintain security.