West African trade is highly ethnicised to ensure commercial success in the face of adverse
environmental conditions and lack of basic institutions. The maintenance of trust and the enforcement
of contracts are, as elsewhere, key elements in the pursuit of sustainable enterprise. Building on core
literature that examines both the use of ethnicity in trade and the nature of African clandestine trade,
the thesis addresses the ways in which social groups construct solutions to problems that arise in high-risk
settings. The work focuses on the Sierra Leone diamond industry and is organised in chapters that
describe the major market players and their tactical approaches. There is particular emphasis on how
these systems have changed over time, identifying the gambits used to extract diamonds.
Beginning with the introduction of the 1956 Alluvial Diamond Mining Scheme, the thesis traces the
emergence of Lebanese Shi'ite and Maronite competition in the Sierra Leone diamond trade, and
extends through the period following the 1991 Revolutionary United Front incursion. In the face of
political turmoil and virtual State collapse, industrial participants have been obliged to formulate
flexible, locally-specific strategies to ensure commercial success. As diamonds have become scarcer and
more dangerous to find, the sectarian Shi'ites have shown greater effectiveness in weathering adversity
than their rivals.
The thesis then examines the strategies of local-born players in the trade. As Kono, the principal
diamond field, has become overworked, the market axis has recently shifted to the more southerly,
Mende controlled, Tongo and Zimmi regions. Competition in these areas between a coalition of
northern-based soldiery and youth, and the Mende-aligned kamajoisia militia, has been the cause of
protracted conflict since mid-1997. Kamajoisia fighters, under social obligation to mine without the
prospect of immediate pay, have succeeded in maintaining production for elite groups when investment
capital has been non-existent. This militia domination has radically altered the industrial landscape.
Lebanese participation has become highly condensed while militaristic multi-nationals have failed to
expand to their expected potential.
Threats to the present status quo remain from those excluded from both society and from legitimate
access to resources. Reconstructed ideologies that address local grievances will continue to attract
support as regional imbalances of wealth and poverty increase with time. Politically powerful networks
of non-Mende elites will also seek to undermine diamond-related power in the south. Duplicitous in
affiliation and seeking their own portion of a global market they are likely to pursue disruption at all
levels, condemning Sierra Leone to a foreseeable future of sporadic violence