Competencia de la Administración Pública

of stones being mined. By the mid 1960*s gemstones comprised only 1*F to .19% of the caratage, although

80

90

In the 1970’s 50% of N.D.M.C. production went to three U.S. dealers, Templesman 27-5%* Winston 20% and Kaplan 2-J% and G.D.O./ DICOR 50%, who had diamond export licences (Marriot 1971)* Ot­ her diamond exporters later obtained licences and established offices in.Kono and Kenema, but their share of the trade was insignificant. In Kono DICOR had offices in Koidu and Jaiama Nimikoro, south of the company lease. The establishment of other diamond buyers and exporters in the country, provided competition with DICOR, thus ensuring fair prices and a re­ duction in smuggling. A diamond polishing factory was set up in Freetown during 1965 (Akinwunmi 1967) but all diamonds are still sold uncut in Freetown to the principal exporters.

When the All People’s Congress party (A.P.C.) returned to power after the military N.R.C. had been deposed, Siaka Stevens as leader (earlier as Minister of Mines he had worked on the 1952 and 1955 agreements with S.L.S.T.) promised the national­ isation of S.L.S.T. The Sierra Leone press had always been fairly anti-S.L.S.T., but they stepped up the campaign of att­ acking the company during 1969 as a prelude to nationalisation, with editorials, (Freetown Daily Mail 23*10.69* and 21.10.69*)* and accounts of all manner of small incidents and nonsense, aimed against the company, even including an allegation that the S.L.S.T. helicopter had tried to bomb a magistrate’s car (Unity 16.11.70.).

In October 1970 S.L.S.T. was incorporated as a private company with the Sierra Leone government owning 51% of the shares (Un­ ity ^f.12.70., N.D.M.C. Annual Report 1970). The compensation paid to the company by the government was probably to the advan­

tage of S.L.S.T., as deposits were running out and investment in the future in Sierra Leone would not have been great. At the time, though, the second diamond rush was in full swing and to the public, the diamonds seemed inexhaustible.

The contract mining scheme continued on the lease but was not very successful. Equipment was rented from the company, deposits had to be mined by strip techniques, in areas where the company admitted they could not use their heavy machinery, and diamonds had to be sold through the company (Joseph 197*0* There were demands in the 1970's for more contract mining sites, for the A.D.M.S. to be allowed on part of the lease in Gbense and Nimikoro chiefdoms and for the mining of company tailings

(Unity 2.6*71*) (Freetown Daily Mail 22.1.69*)• Illicit miners demonstrated with placards and marches in Yengema and Koidu during 197**-* but generally failed to win any concessions.

In the early period of illicit digging and the A.D.M.S., the diamond dealers, especially the Lebanese, had supplied the diggers with equipment, goods and food on credit. They had

often gone out to the diggings to buy diamonds on the spot, then smuggling them to Monrovia, or later selling them to DICOR. At first the Lebanese were ruled out of diamond dealing licences, then subject to loss of the licence for any suspected irregul-

13

arity. But as the price of a diamond buying licence rose after

13* Lebanese traders based themselves in small towns on the edge of Kono before I960 to intercept illicit stones, in Segbwema, Mano Junction and Masingbi, at first taking out licences in I960 in these places.

I960, the Lebanese were allowed to take out licences with dim­ inished harrassment. After I960 many Lebanese and African dia­ mond buyers moved to Koidu and Kenema where they became office based, waiting for customers to bring diamonds to them. Diamond dealers by this time usually sold directly to DICOR, as smugg­ ling was no longer as profitable. The Koidu and Kenema concen­ tration of dealers increased competition and ensured fairer prices for the diggers. Many young men came straight out from the Lebanon, sometimes after finishing school, to go into a dealing business, and were able to get rich overnight from one big diamond sale. Smuggling fluctuated according to DICOR's action in raising or lowering prices and the Government's action in raising or lowering export duty. By the late 1960's DICOR had realised the necessity of being content with a low profit margin. After the deposits along the Sewa had been virtually worked out in 1969* there was a movement both of diggers and dealers to Kono. By 1972 there were 79 diamond dealers in Kono of whom 25 were African and 5**- Lebanese. Only in 1969 had there been a greater number, 8^ dealers of whom *f5 were African and 39 Lebanese. In I960 Kono had 50 dealers, *f9 of them African and 1 Lebanese.

Apart from diamond dealing the general merchandise trade was also very profitable in Kono (Van der Laan 1975)* Non- Kono had to obtain residential permits to live in Kono, and on

the granting or withdrawing of these depended the dealers' and traders* livelihood. Thus they were usually willing to bribe to maintain them and lived in permanent fear of expulsion. Occasionally non-Sierra Leoneans, especially Gambians, were

expelled from Kono (Unity 8.6.71., Daily Mail l6.iu69), but the Lebanese were usually in greater danger, even though most of them were not dealing in diamonds. In 1971 there were 175 Leb­ anese adult men in Kono, 150 of them in Koidu. In 1969 2*f families were driven out of Kono (Daily Mail 29*5.69*)* in 1970

187

85

As part of their trading techniques both diggers and deal­ ers, especially the Lebanese, made themselves very conspicuous in their spending and lifestyles. During 1969/70 central Kono was calculated to have the highest number of Mercedes Benz cars per 100 people of any place in the world (N.D.M.C. 15.1.76.). Gambling, night club entertainments and drinking were also very conspicuous in Koidu during 1969 (Daily Telegraph Magazine 21.3.69.).

Apart from the Lebanese many African foreign diggers were also expelled during the stranger drives of 1969 and 1971* In

1969

8

1969

3,000 in 1970 (Daily Mail 17.2.70.) and 600 in 1971 (Unity 7*7.71.) as well as an expulsion of 200 women in 1970 (Daily Mail 26.2.70.)• Smaller stranger drives took place more frequently.

The Koidu diamond market depended more than ever on illicit diamond mining. Gravel was dug up on the lease and even loaded into taxis to be transported to licensed sites for peaceful wash­ ing and sorting. Arrangement masters, usually dealers in Koidu, became more important during the late 1960's and 1970's in spon-

soring and supplying large organised illicit operations (Rosen 197**-)• In the Woyie stream in the centre of Koidu, up to $,000 I.D.M.'s had been counted at one time* By 1969 the S*L.S*T*

security force was only 900 strong* The number of illicit miners arrested in 1968 in July and December alone was 2,556, but there was only one magistrate in Kono and all cases were dealt with as fully as possible in longhand (S.L.S.T. 1969). Roads were dug up by illicit miners, streams were dammed, causing flooding, while some house owners in Koidu had even gone so far as to knock down their houses, and to sell off minute plots of land to diamond miners.

The most highly organised operation was that of Katanga, where illicit miners, mostly non-Kono and especially non-Sierra Leoneans, established an 'independent1 administration based on the Tama Forest area of Nimiyema chiefdom and centring on the town of Massagbendu. It was financed by some Lebanese and poss­ ibly backed by politicians, having its own entry permits, taxes and chiefs. It existed for three years with over 1,000 subjects, eventually being attacked and destroyed by a full scale military operation (Minikin 1971)- After theminers had been dispersed a new Tama Forest section was created in Nimiyema chiefdom and . Massagbendu has continued to thrive as an Ii?D.M. settlement.

Crime and anarchy during the 1969/70 period reached a new peak. In 1969 diamond dealers were allowed to carry revolvers for their protection, and some did so quite openly (Van der Laan 1975)* 1971

18

an attack on security guards. Expatriate employees at N.D.M.C. were caught stealing diamonds (Nation 6.11*71., 14.10.71.). Massed battles took place between security police and I.D.M.'s

(Nation 6.10.71.), and between political factions, led by rich diamond dealers (Unity 18.6.70.). Shooting incidents escalated, involving car chases (Daily Mail 26.4.69.), trigger happy Leban­ ese (Unity 3*4.70.), armed robbery (Daily Mail 12.7.69., 26.2.70., Unity 11.4.70., Nation 5.10.71.), and even the case of a Lebanese robber using dynamite (15.11.70.). The largest diamond robbery involved an alleged Le 3 million of diamonds, snatched at Hast­ ings Airport, after which the flamboyant leader of the Koidu Lebanese, Henneh Shamel, was arrested, tried, found not guilty and deported, after a case which suggested involvement of govern­ ment members and S.L.S.T. (Daily Mail 14.11.69., 24.2.70.).

Murders in Kono were frequent, especially involving diamond

dealers and illicit miners (Daily Mail 28.6.69*, Nation 28.10.71.) as also were gunfights between security police and illicit diggers sometimes resulting in miners being drowned while escaping (Unity 8.5*70., 27.5*70.)• Cases of diggers being buried alive when illicit diamond pits collapsed, were common (Daily Mail 16.4.69*, Unity 9*4.70.). Smuggling scandals occasionally involved govern­ ment ministers and diplomats (Unity 20.6.70., 17*3*71*), while corruption among government officials in Kono involved permits' rackets (Unity 29*4*70.) and compensation swindles (Unity 2.2.71.)

Politically Kono was very influential during the I960's. The Kono Progressive Movement (K.P.M.) and its successor, the Sierra Leone Progressive Independence Movement (S.E.P.I.M.) cap­ italised both on the refusal of S.L.S.T. to grant African miners

87

areas to dig on the lease and on the lack of government invest­ ment in services and facilities in the area. DICOR and S.L.S.T. were also found to have supported the S.L.P.P. before the 1962 election, a factor which lost all three support in Kono (Cart­ wright 1970)* Albert Margai, Prime Minister of the S.L.P.P. government in the mid-1960's made deals with the Lebanese comm­ unity (Daily Mail 29*9«67-) in Koidu and attempted to bribe the secretary of the Democratic People's Congress (D.P.C., a succ­ essor to Mbriwa's K.P.M./S.L.P.I.M. which had collapsed earlier) to dissolve the party (We Yone *f.9*65«)» Such allegations weak­ ened the S.L.P.P. and strengthened the radical Kono parties.

The D.P.C. became increasingly associated with the All Peoples' Congress (A.P.C., a mass based party under S.P. Stevens by 1966, and strong in the north of Sierra ,Leone). The A.P.C. won the

1967

Areas of central Kono that developed rapidly after 1956 were along the river Sewa, and south of the Bafi in Nimiyema chiefdom. This area had been very remote before the new Kono road was built, eventually to link Koidu and Freetown, but pass­ ing through Jaiama Sewafe and Temne country. The new Kono road was found to have contributed to an increase in illicit mining. For this reason its construction had been opposed by S.L.S.T.

(Blair - Kono Road Project, 1975)* Improvements in communi­ cation throughout central Kono increased the spread of I.D.M. and of new settlements.

The 1969 diamond rush was influenced by the change in pol­ itical power, but may also have been prompted by the competitive desire of A.D.M.S. diggers to make the most of the diminishing diamond deposits. The trading and price structure by that per­ iod favoured the diggers. The wealthy urban mining areas also formed an attraction for rural-urban migratioh, so that many people moving to towns like Koidu and Kenema d$d not go there in order to mine diamonds.

By 1975 N.D.M.C. had a workforce of about 5*000 people and had begun to retrench, cutting back on its staff with early retirements, and not taking on new employees. The company is maintaining production around

700,000

school students, which spread throughout Sierra Leone in 1977• Attacks were made on the A.P.C. and on property, especially in the south. As the rioting lost its impetus, with the A.P.C. still firmly in control, a general election was called, return­ ing the A.P.C. unanimously, while supporters of the S.L.P.P. and those involved iii the riots were sought out. Many deaths occurred, possibly running into several hundreds.

The next chapter considers some of the changes that have taken place in the society, economy, politics and infrastructure in central Kono as a result of diamond mining.