tion. Nothing is in concrete here. Actually, the bill, according to my opinion, has too many waivers in it. I think there are too many outs in it. I would make it much tighter than what it is if I thought we could pass it. This is a piece of legislation that has waivers for the President and the Secretary of Treasury and they have waivers to be able to overlook the certification problem if, in fact, the technology is not there.

As far as the WTO, none of us here, especially me-I am not an expert relative to the WTO, how this affects it. I have to leave that up to the trade experts, yourself and people on this committee, others. But failure to act on this and failure to act and to implement the Antwerp agreement will be, I think, disastrous for the diamond industry. I really believe that because there will be a consumer boycott, in my opinion, if we do not act on this.

So this bill has a lot of waivers. It has too many as far as I am concerned, but I am willing to go along with it to get something in the record to start to stop the flow of some of these conflict diamonds.

Mr. LEVIN. Let us work on it. We are going to have a vote, I think, fairly soon, and then the marriage penalty, and we probably could not resolve these issues today, but I think your testimony makes it clear we have to confront them and as quickly and as ef fectively as we can.

Mr. Payne?

Mr. PAYNE. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Let me just reiterate what we have all said. They are the countries of South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, that depend on this industry that are doing the right thing. They are very, very concerned. As I indicated, I went to Botswana and the overriding discussion with the president was the fact that if there is a boycott on diamonds, already he is hit with an AIDS pandemic and trying to put resources in that, but he said if there is a boycott on diamonds, they are really right back down to where they were 40 years ago.

So we are not opposed to diamonds. They claim they are a girl's best friend. I do not bother with them. But the fact is that we have got to separate them. We saw what happened in the furs. We do not want that to happen. We owe it to the African countries that have this resource to be able to have a clean commodity.

And secondly, it is the most controlled industry in the world. Diamond prices are controlled, as you know, because the number of diamonds that are allowed to come out on the market is controlled by just one or two or three organizations. That is why the price of diamonds never varies. It is not like OPEC. They do not go up and down. They stay the same. They determine how many they are going to put out, and if they are not selling, they simply do not put any more out. They just store them for decades until the time comes that they will buy them.

So I believe that there is such an internal control that there can be something, and if we push this, then we see the industry tends to step forward and come up. They know best what can be done. I think this would be a catalyst to having them do the right thing. Mr. LEVIN. Thank you. Well said. Thank you very much.

Mr. RAMSTAD. [presiding]—I believe I am next. I have been handed the gavel and I believe I am next in the line of questioning. I

want to make a couple of comments and then ask one question before yielding to my friend from Louisiana.

First of all, I want to state for the record my deep respect for all four of you. No members of Congress have done more to further the cause of human rights than the four of you sitting at this witness table today and I applaud you for that.

The horrific acts of brutality that are occurring in Sierra Leone and other parts of Africa are unspeakable crimes against humanity, obviously against innocent people who happen to be in the wrong places at the wrong time and something that concerns or should concern not only every member of Congress but every citizen of this country and of the world.

I was also, secondly, encouraged by the summary statement of Chairman Crane when he said conflict diamonds are not forever. I also share the concerns raised by the ranking member, my good friend Mr. Levin, and Chairman Crane as to the-which is the same concern of the administration-how we are to enforce this proposal.

Let me just ask any of the members of the panel for my edification. I think there is an education job that needs to be done here. With respect to rough diamonds, Tony, you mentioned that there are means to identify and certify. Are there geological markers that differentiate diamonds mined in different parts of the world as far as rough diamonds are concerned? I really am ignorant as to whether there are geological markers or how exactly are they to be identified and certified.

Mr. HALL. You should look at the Antwerp agreement where there would be a global certification, that once the diamonds came from a country and the government that we recognize that is legitimate, it is something that they will declare for their country. These would be sealed. I am not sure how they would seal it. They would seal it in an envelope or some kind of container where it could not be broken and it would be registered. These would be legitimate diamonds. As they find their way to either Antwerp or Israel, et cetera, then they would be cut up and the certificate would follow it.

Once you cut and polish a diamond, there is no way you can tell where it came from. Some diamond dealers can tell you on the rough diamonds pretty much the area that these diamonds might have come from, but you cannot depend on that, not at all.

Mr. RAMSTAD. Is this a process

Mr. HALL. They can be marked by lasers. There are people that are working on it in Canada, as I understand from Mr. Payne's testimony, from my own testimony, that they are working on technology to market. That technology is probably not there yet. But even before you market, it can be done. If it could not be done, they would not have passed that resolution, that plan of action in Antwerp a few weeks ago.

Ms. MCKINNEY. If I could add to that, we had testimony, I believe it was in the Africa Subcommittee, and Donald, you can help me on that, on this issue. There was testimony from South Africa, Charmian Gooch, I believe is the woman, from Global Witness who spoke specifically to the issue of the geological indications of the origin of a diamond. That is why I want to make all of their reports

available to the committee, because it is my understanding that there are, indeed, ways with geological markings to determine whether or not a diamond is from South Africa or Namibia or Sierra Leone.

Mr. RAMSTAD. This agreement that you are describing, is this the same proposal to track the source of diamonds that the World Diamond Congress adopted? Is that the same proposal?

Mr. HALL. Yes.

Mr. RAMSTAD. That is the Antwerp agreement?

Mr. HALL. Yes.

Mr. RAMSTAD. Okay. Mr. Payne?

Mr. PAYNE. Also, about two years ago, on one of my trips to South Africa, I met with one DeBeers official, and although he indicated it was an informal meeting and discussion, he indicated that there are ways that they believe you can mark somehow the bulk of them. Like I said, there is new technology. They call it fingerprints. It is too technical for me, too. I am still on my AOL. But they claim they have really a lot of new possible developments.

My point is this, as I indicated. It is a most controlled business. They have ways of being able to know exactly the weight of diamonds. I went to a diamond facility run by the government of Botswana. You had diamonds all over a bench that was almost as long as this. They weigh them when they come in and they weigh them when they go out and bells simply ring because the weight remains the same. It is just amazing. So they have evidently done a lot with diamonds that we do not know about and I think that this is the challenge to them. If they want to preserve this controlled economy that they have and has been good to them, then I think that they will come forth.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Ramstad, very briefly, there is a book, following up with what Ms. McKinney said, called The Genesis of Diamonds by Alpheus Williams. In it, the book gives a detailed analysis of diamonds from the production of different mines in South Africa and demonstrates the level of detailed information that can be gathered on surface features. Also, as Mr. Hall said, there is a waiver in the bill that if it is not available, there is a waiver.

Mr. RAMSTAD. Speaking of bells ringing and going off, I want to get Mr. Jefferson's questions in so this panel can be excused before we go to vote.

The enforceability issue and then the WTO question that Mr. Levin raised, I think those are the two issues, and you have gone a long way certainly in explaining the enforceability aspect of this legislation.

Let me now yield to my friend from Louisiana, Mr. Jefferson, and then following Mr. Jefferson's line of questioning, we will dismiss this panel and recess to go vote.

Mr. JEFFERSON. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to ask my colleague, Don Payne, a question. All of us have seen the suffering that goes on because of these diamonds, which we call conflict or blood diamonds, whatever. The big issue is what to do about it. How can we really step in and provide an effective answer or an effective solution to it?

One of the concerns is how does it affect the countries that have the clean diamonds? How does it affect Botswana and South Africa

and so on? I want to know, in your talks with them on your recent visit, how do they feel about this legislation? Do they want us to go forward with this? Do they think it presents no risk for them or do they think it provides a remedy for their countries?

Mr. PAYNE. Yes, that is a very good question. One of the purposes for our visiting and having discussions with the leaders of the country was to find out how do you really feel about this. Festes Mogae, who was elected last year, as you know, Botswana, the most stable government, they have had because of diamonds about a billion dollars in surplus almost over a decade. They have had a surplus each year because of that and they have been very frugal in the manner in which the government has been spending money in a planned way. He is extremely concerned about the fact that people are saying diamonds are rebels' best friends. Now, if you use a general statement like that, that simply means that all diamonds tend to be bad diamonds. So they, of course, are not aware of exactly what can be done, but they really want to see their diamonds continue to move forward and that there be some distinguishing way that their diamonds can be segregated from those blood diamonds.

So I could speak very specifically about President Mogae, who once again last week at the millennium, I had an opportunity to talk to him about this issue, extremely concerned, probably the number two issue in his country because the AIDS pandemic, he says, is number one. But this is something that he definitely wants to see something happen. He does not have the answer, but he knows that his diamonds are clean, are good, it is helping his country along. He wants his diamonds to be separated from those Sierra Leonean, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola diamonds.

Mr. JEFFERSON. Does he support the approach that the bill takes or supporters take or the U.N. takes or does he support the selfregulation that is going on with Antwerp?

Mr. PAYNE. He simply supports the concept in general. I am not sure that he has the details of the legislation, and Tony may know better than that, but we may ensure that those embassies do get copies of the legislation.

Mr. JEFFERSON. Mr. Hall?

Mr. HALL. Let me just say that this piece of legislation really protects legitimate diamonds, diamonds coming from Botswana, South Africa. As a matter of fact, that is pretty much what the Antwerp agreement is, that legitimate diamonds coming into the various diamond centers, they will be protected. What they are trying to stop is the conflict diamonds. ing

want to reiterate again, if we do not pass something and if the diamond dealers do not implement the plan they just agreed on a few weeks ago in Antwerp, there will be a consumer boycott and people will ask the question, where is that diamond from? Countries like Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, legitimate diamond dealers in our own country, will be affected. These are legitimate businesses. They will be affected in a very adverse way.

So I am saying that there are consumer groups, consumer boycott groups that are ready. We must pass something and we must implement that plan that they passed in Belgium or we will see a

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boycott, and we do not have to worry about whether this bill is technically correct or not because it is all over. I mean, it will be a disaster for the diamond business.

Mr. JEFFERSON. Frank, I want to ask you a question, if I could, about the U.N. resolution. What is happening with that? The U.N. passed it. What are they doing to enforce it, because your bill calls for the Congress to pass the bill to pick up the U.N. legislation, the U.N. sanctions and so on. What is happening under that provision? How is it working?

Mr. WOLF. I think unless the United States participates actively by passing something like Mr. Hall is talking about, for all practical purposes, it is just not going to work. Now, I have been supportive of the U.N. effort. I have been supportive of the U.N. effort with regard to the peacekeepers in Sierra Leone. Unfortunately, the Congress has not seen that. But the U.N. has been ineffective in even dealing with peace in Sierra Leone or getting arms cut off. So the resolution is interesting and it is helpful, but until the United States, which is 65 percent-two-thirds of every diamond sold in the world is sold right here in the United States-until we act, frankly, I think it will not be very, very effective.

Ms. MCKINNEY. Basically, the United Nations is studying, as is this administration, studying. But I would just like to add further to what my colleague Tony Hall has said, and that is that there are groups out there we have been working with them-who are ready to do a boycott, and a boycott, I believe, is the last thing that any of the legitimate, the leaders of the legitimate diamond industry and countries want.

Mr. JEFFERSON. And you believe that if we do not act this session on this bill, that this boycott will occur? That is what you are saying?

Ms. MCKINNEY. Absolutely. That is my opinion.

Mr. JEFFERSON. Does this bill, Tony, does it have a companion in the Senate? Is it moving somewhere over there? Does this bill have a companion in the Senate? Is it moving in the Senate?

Mr. HALL. Yes. I do not know if the bill has been introduced, but we do have a couple Senators very interested in it. Senator Gregg originally put together a much tougher piece of legislation that Frank and I favored, added it to the bill. That is when we had the debate on the floor with Mr. Crane, when he agreed to have the hearing. So this bill is not a perfect bill. To me, it has too many waivers. If I could, I would make it much stronger. But it will stop many conflict diamonds, not all, because this sets up a system for the first time.

I am very unhappy with our State Department, the way they have handled this. Before, under Mr. Morrison, they had some people that were very out front on it. But I think they are being very soft and kind of neutral on this. Mr. Holbrooke has been great. He has been wonderful. Everybody can be neutral, but if we do not do something and the Antwerp agreement is not carried out, there will be a boycott and I think all of us will be very disappointed. I am not sure I will not be part of it.

Ms. MCKINNEY. I know I will be a part of it, but I would like to also just recommend once again to the panel the book by Wayne Madsen, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993 to 1999.