“Illicit Diamonds, Conflict and Terrorism: The Role of U.S. Agencies in Fighting the Conflict Diamond Trade.”

The United States has joined with other countries in negotiating through “the Kimberley Process” an agreement to attempt to ban the source of income from illicit diamonds that are fueling horrendous conflicts in Sierra Leone, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and may also be an important source of funding for the Al-Qaeda terrorist network. Now that other sources of funding have been frozen, income from illicit diamonds is likely to become more attractive to terrorists.  How such a system would work and how it would be implemented and enforced by the U.S. and other countries has been the subject of debate and also of study by the General Accounting Office.  The hearing would highlight the problem, as well as hear testimony from the GAO, the federal agencies involved in negotiating, setting up, and enforcing the system for the United States.