By Alphonso Toweh
Liberia warned on Thursday it would punish any diamond miners caught without a licence with a $10,000 (around R72 000) fine and a year's imprisonment as it tries to regulate the trade following the lifting of a UN ban on exports.
Trade in rough diamonds sifted from river beds and mud pits fuelled interlinked wars in the 1990s in Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone, in which a quarter of a million people were killed in brutal fighting.
Peace has since returned and the United Nations Security Council lifted a six-year ban on Liberian gem exports in May in recognition of the government's moves to stamp out the trade in "blood diamonds" - used to fund armed groups during the war.
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Government officials have in the past few weeks warned that illicit miners are still operating in Kumgbo, a diamond-rich western area more than 100 miles (160 km) from the capital Monrovia, near to the Sierra Leonean border.
"Anybody who doesn't have a mining licence, you are not allowed to buy... you are not allowed to mine. If you are caught, you'll be fined $10,000 and one year in prison," said A. Kpandel Fayia, Deputy Minister for Planning and Development.
The United Nations imposed sanctions on Liberian diamond exports during the rule of former president Charles Taylor, accused of using the profits to support rebels in Sierra Leone and now on trial for war crimes in The Hague.
Following the lifting of the ban, the Liberian government began issuing licences to artisanal miners and foreign companies at the end of July, for the first time since war finished.
So far, more than 20 licences had been awarded in three classes: "A" and "B" for local and foreign mining firms and "C" for alluvial miners, Fayia said.
But he said the government was finding it hard to police all of the diamond mining areas of the former British colony, partly because gems can be smuggled across the borders easily.
"Due to the fact that the government is not able at this time to police every square inch of territory in the west, we have people doing illicit mining," he said, adding most of the illegal miners were either former fighters or foreigners.
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