The indifference of Romanians authorities pushes the natural diamonds polishing into world underground circuit
Picture 1 | Picture 2For most people, natural diamonds mean just precious stones and nothing more. Luxury, glittery, a special present.Not many people know the hidden world behind producing these stones. A secret world ran by strict internal rules. A billions dollars business per year worldwide, which grew spectacular during the last century. Diamonds started blood conflicts on the extraction areas especially in a few African countries. Blood diamonds, as they were called, sustains and sustained armed-conflicts meant to keep low production prices. Military fractions involved in the conflict control the diamonds deposits chartered for armament supplying. Organized crime groups earn huge profits due to this truck. Various reactions of the international communities, as the embargo on weapons import or diamonds export proved to be useless. Recently it was signed an international agreement which will allow monitoring the diamonds routes worldwide. It is about Kimberley Agreement, countersigned so far by 58 states and implemented starting with 1st of January 2003. This treaty established clear procedures for monitoring the diamonds, starting with the extraction country to the point of polishing and selling. For a country that didn’t signed the agreement it is illegal to import or export natural uncut diamonds from a country member of the agreement. WITHOUT AGREEMENT. Romania didn’t countersign the Kimberley Agreement even for the time being. Romanian officials declared that our country has no connection with the natural diamonds so signing the contract has no importance for them. Despite all these, Romania is for over 10 years in the natural diamonds circuit, and this position seems to consolidate. Here were open more factories for polishing natural diamonds, and the precious stones enter Romania just to be refined. Just a small part reach to be sold on the Romanian market. The rest is returned to the origin country or are sent to the big commercial centers as Anvers or Tel Aviv.MOVING TO ROMANIA. Even if the deadline for signing the agreement was established on 1st of January 2003, the Romanian officials didn’t rush to sign it. There were a few more time limits and among them the last one was final. At the end of April, the representatives of the signatory countries meet in South Africa to define the monitoring scheme of diamonds routes. Romania didn’t attend this meeting. Meanwhile, the Romanian factories for polishing natural diamonds had worked at full capacity. We have to mention in this context that for the last 2 years, the traditional polishing diamond centers from Anvers and Tel Aviv started to become emptier, in part because of the expensive labor power and terrorist attacks and turned into huge desolate halls. The diamonds experts noticed that, in the last two years, the polishing diamonds centers from Anvers and Tel Aviv are disappearing slowly, but they don’t realize where they have been moved.CHEAP MANUFACTURE. The answer is coming from Uri Schwartz, the president of “Diamonds Polishers Association from Israel”, who declared at the beginning of the year to “Haaretz” newspaper:” It is much cheaper to transfer the whole manufacture in countries such as Russia, China, India, Ukraine and Romania.” Our investigations reveal that the South-East Europe countries became indeed polishing diamonds centers. Romania, Ukraine and Slovakia are only a few of them. And, strangely, especially countries as Romania and Slovakia are not members of the only treaty that is able to regulate the illegal diamonds trade. (Stefan Candea, stefancandea@crji.org, Sorin Ozon)No comment!The Kimberley Agreement assumes some special regulations in every signatory country, starting with customs service and police, which take moths to be put into practice. We realized in the last months that police, prosecutors, customs or even the functionaries of the Foreign Affaires Minister didn’t know to many details of the Kimberley Agreement. Nothing about changing something. When it comes to take some declarations about the subject, the Romanian officials declined their competence in favor of some colleagues, superiors or some other ministers responsibility. The problem seems to be so delicate that even the commercial attaché of Israel Embassy avoided making an official statement.The Polishers wish to sign the Kimberley AgreementMoshe Sinai is one of the main owners of polishing factories in Romania and has worked since he was 14 years old in this field: “ I was the third polisher who came here. During the last 40 years I prepared thousands of workers in this activity. The process comes into effect even from 1st of January, but Israel State gave us an extra two weeks period, with South Africa permission, to solve our problem.”Florin Stamatescu is another owner in this industry. They use natural diamonds for manufacturing diamonds tools. His company, IPG, brought diamonds directly from Congo or Belgium. Here is what he said in April: “ We brought diamonds in January. We are in a delicate position because starting with February it became illegal to import diamonds in Romania.” Stamatescu declared within a recently conversation that the Romanian officials are the only ones to blame for this situation: “ For the moment we have to make a huge file for each operation, but we had to vociferate for this. And Romania still didn’t sign the Agreement.”Romania is not interested in signing the international agreementIn an interview over the phone the South African Abbey Chikane, the president of Kimberley Process, said: ”Romania is not member of the Kimberley Agreement. We had solicited that officially, and we were told that Romania is not interested in signing this agreement because it is working only with industrial diamonds. That means that for the time being it is illegal for the polishers from Romania to import or export natural raw diamonds for later polish, to or from a participating country to the Kimberley Agreement”. In free translation, the natural raw diamonds coming from Israel or Belgium enter illegal in our country.

The External Image of RomaniaThe fact that Romania didn’t sign the Kimberley Agreement has a few immediate negative consequences. The whole polishing diamonds business is in danger, unless is closed, than to work illegal. Secondly, Romania creates a dangerous antecedent, which can transform the Kimberley Agreement into a useless treaty. The polishers who import raw stones in our country work to the illegality limit, on the base of some special agreements with the countries from where the diamonds are brought. Let’s take Israel as an example, the main country that sends stones to be polished in Romania. As this state is member of the Kimberley Agreement, and the Romania isn’t, is illegal for Israel to export and for Romania to import the diamonds. This is still happening after all. After the polishing of the diamonds these are not the topics of the Kimberley Agreement any longer. So they can travel legally anywhere in the world. This means that the initial purpose of the agreement is avoided through such countries as Romania, the stones that are coming in or out are not monitored by the treaty scheme. We don’t take into account that countries exporting diamonds from the conflict areas would prefer Romania, therefore by the extracting countries, which didn’t sign the contract. Again, after the polishing, the stones can enter without any problem in the legal circuit. That assumes creating a secondary market, a gray market of diamonds, which avoid legally the Kimberley Agreement. These negative effects will affect no doubt very serious the Romania external image.Not only the dirty business can escape undetected, but also the correct businesses have to suffer because of causes like incompetence and authorities lack of interest regarding this branch.Diamonds for weapons through Mutaliev channelIt has to be mentioned that the old connection diamonds – weapons didn’t avoid Romania. In some newspaper articles series were disclosed some connections of our countries with the international weapons traffic. The main character of this investigation is the well-known weapons trafficker Victor Bout. Than appeared for the first time his implication in the diamonds domain, through some personages who worked for them, Chechnyan brothers Mutaliev.The activity of these characters was tight connected with our country. Practically, Mutaliev brothers, weapons traffickers with businesses in Romania and Moldavia Republic, lost a plane in Angola in 1997.The airplane cargo AN 72 that was flying for Congo company Air Pelikan, but belonged to Renan company from Moldavia, it was forced by the Angolan hunting planes to land. The crew was arrested by the army. The plane had a few strange stopovers in South Africa, Ivory Coast (Abidjan) and Angola (Andula), than it has to return to Moldavia.The plane carried weapons in the area and left with five Libyan passengers and with an important diamonds transport, reason that conducted to its arrest, as the surviving eyewitnesses declared. In addition, the unofficial information indicates that the diamonds had to be transported in Romania.
Surprisingly, together with the newspapers investigating reporters from Slovakia, we discovered a polishing diamonds factory from Bratislava that has as a shareholder one of Mutaliev brothers. It is about K&M company, registered in Bratislava in February 2001.Incognito through the polishersThe polishing factories are in Bucharest, Afumati, Pitesti and Calarasi. The exact emplacements are known very little. We went to the main factories from or near Bucharest, after the time for signing the treaty had expired. We used the motif of a hiring in order to get into these factories. To all of them without exception we were interrogated with a lot of questions. After that we were been told that it is a constant need for people.The MCR Factory, from AfumatiFirst time we entered in the oldest diamonds factory in Romania – MCR from Afumati. The factory is inside an old CAP (Agriculture Production Cooperative). From outside you are not able to see anything, except a few desolated halls, surrounded by spine dumpling and video cameras. The entrance is made through a system of doors with interphones and video cameras surveilance. Inside it is a totally different aspect. Here there is a huge hall, extremely ventilated and enlighten that contains at least 100 polishing machines, situated orderly in lines. At each machine there is a polisher inclined over it.The average age seems to be very low, around 25 years. The next step is the discussion with an Adjunct of the General Directress who has an entire arsenal of inquisitive questions. She presents us also the hiring conditions and after that she said she will contact us for a final discussion with the directress. People who work here said that is an easy to obtain job but difficult to keep. “I’m working from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The salary is not much at the beginning but it is bigger in time depending on how much you polish.” Said to us one of the workwomen. “ I am working here for 7 years. They provide us the transportation, we are leaving around 6 o’clock in the morning. They are schooling us and are telling you to what operations are you good at. You are paid depending on how many stones you polish, and we all know only one or maximum two polish operations”. This is a polish technology protection measure and also an owner safety that the polishing workers will not leave to work by their own. From the workwomen we could find out that one of the hardest condition is for the new employers to remain at least for three year as a polisher other way they have to pay a few thousands dollars the equivalent of schooling.The BDC Factory from TitanWe are moving next to BDC company on Titan pathway. Here is lunch break and the workers have time to give us some advice: “This work is paid badly for our effort, but at least we have the Labor Card. They always look for people.” The hall from BDC is much less, but more agitated and less discipline.The Roy&Lyor Factory from VitanWe went also to Roy&Lyor factory from Vitan pathway, where we had the chance to talk with the proprietor. Here there are strictly access rules, and a grave guardian consider his mission very serious and write down on a notebook every person that goes in or out. Conditions are the same with the previous factory, but the polishers are more cheerful. It is salary day!
Note: As a newspaper reporter you have no access inside the polishing diamonds factories. The proprietors of this kind of businesses are extremely confidential and they have an instinctive fear for the press. Picture 1 | Picture 2 Thursday, June 12 2003 (Source: http://www.crji.org)