A team from the Kimberly Process’ Permanent Secretariat has just completed an awareness campaign in Gbiti, Kette and Toktoyo, all on the border with the Central African Republic (CAR), to finance those involved in the political crisis simmering in the country since March 2013.

The CAR being provisionally suspended from the Kimberly Process, Cameroon may act as an underground base for diamond smuggling to meet the financing needs of armed gangs stirring in Cameroon.

In addition, the Kimberly Process’ permanent secretariat affirms that it is not inconceivable for the Central African rebels, who have already conducted two bloody incursions in Cameroon (Gbiti and Toktoyo), to pillage Cameroon’s diamond resources to finance their guerrilla activities.

It is in an effort to avoid these scenarios that the permanent secretariat met with small-scale miners, collectors, purchasers and Kimberly Process focal points in the areas bordering the CAR.

The global diamond trading platform, the Kimberly Process, forbids anyone to be complicit in the sale of “blood” diamonds.

Countries found to be in clear violation of its guidelines against the use of diamond trading to finance wars will automatically be excluded from the global diamond trade. Cameroon hopes to avoid this penalty being imposed only a year after joining the Kimberly Process on August 14, 2012.