(Rapaport…July 12, 2000) A U.S. congressional panel agreed to join forces with international governments to end the trade of conflict diamonds.
In backing the UN Security Council’s 18-month embargo of Sierra Leone conflict diamonds, a House Appropriations subcommittee voted to require U.S. customs to prevent conflict diamonds from being traded in Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and Sierra Leone.
“Until the link between diamonds and war is severed, these African wars will not end,” said Representative Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican who sponsored the measure.