Sierra Leone: The diamond that saved a thousand lives

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1:13Nine years ago, 2017, in a small, remote and extremely poor West African community, I've joined a crowd of local villagers who've just broken out in song. There's unbridled joy

1:42Why are they so happy? The villagers have just learnt that in a nearby open-caste pit five of their kinsmen have just unearthed one of the biggest diamonds ever found in West Africa one of the biggest ever found in the world. It's over 700 carats. It's the size of a large egg. Youth leader Daniel Thibau tells me the pit's owner, a pastor, is promising to spend some of the proceeds on the community. He made a lot of promise for this village to construct the road, building hospital, sending lights to this village. We have all these problems to give an assistance. There are a lot. Welcome to the documentary on the BBC World Service.

2:26In this edition of Assignment, I've returned to Sierra Leone after nine years to hear the intriguing story of what happened to this so-called peace diamond, to the money it raised, what it changed for the people of this village, Coyardu, and for some, what it didn't change.

2:46So let me describe this place. Around me there are lush green forests, palm trees, some mango trees. There are just mud houses with corrugated iron roofs, one or two room dwellings, chickens clucking on the ground around me. The main subsistence here is agriculture. That and the occasional digging for diamonds. Everyone knows someone who digs here in Conno. Sierra Leone's diamond district. Open pits, men stripped to the waist, toiling in the intense heat of the day. Whenever we come, we take the soil and throw it. It is the gravel. There we find the diamond. It's kind of like a bright blue, gray soil that you're crushing in your fingers now.

3:42And inside, you have the stones. I'm fingering it. Yeah, sometimes the diamond lies in it. The guys in front of me are digging gravel from a bank of sand I'm standing on now, and the two others are standing with sibs knee-deep in water, sifting just to see if anything, any precious diamond, might be in this batch. So unfortunately there is no diamond here. How much money do you make normally doing this work? For me? Well, I have not made a lot of money yet. Sometimes, for the whole of the year, you can't get anything. For the whole of the year, you can't get anything. It is not a sport. Why do you keep going if it's so difficult?

4:32Because it is a gift of God. All the time we're dreaming, really. We still have that hope. Diamond has done more harm than good to the people of Connolly Street. The reflection has been never seen in the life of the people. That's the voice of Emmanuel Momo. He is the central character of our story today. In his 53 years, he's seen firsthand the tough journey that this region has taken. decades of poverty and a brutal civil war in the 1990s that was partly fought over the control of the diamond trade. One of the objectives of the rebels was to capture Kono. Everybody wanted to go there and get diamond.

5:19I can remember when the war started in 1991, Khoi Dutan was attacked and they were able to kill many of our colleagues. You saw people around you being killed?

5:59back. Did you lose members of your family? Yes, I lose my elder brother. I lose him. Yeah. After the war, Emmanuel Momo returned to the district. Though lacking a formal education, his work in church led him to be ordained as a pastor or lay preacher. And he was also entrepreneurial. In 2017, he had a business buying and selling peanuts. Plus, he had another plan. I was using the proceed from there for us to do mining. So I have to find five workers. My uncle was one of them. He was the foreman, right? Yes, he's the foreman of the mining. He was the one that came to me in the morning, 7 or 8 March.

6:47It was cracking a joke. He told me that in case you find a diamond, what would you give to me? I said, uncle, you have to stop this joke. You're joking. I even promised him that I would give you, if that happens, I would give you this, I would give you that. And they said, now I will show you something that will surprise you. He showed me a colour-ish stone. What kind of colour? Like yellowish, as a little brown also. The stone had actually been discovered in the pit by a 15-year-old boy. His name was Comba John Bull. When we met this year, Kamba approached me with a ready smile, an easy manner.

7:31Life wasn't always quite this easy, though. He uses a mix of English and his native Krio language.

7:43So I was really suffering. I lost my mother in 2013 due to the Ebola outbreak. She died of Ebola? Yeah, she died of Ebola. and at that time I was really suffering. I didn't finish school. Since that time I've been hustling in the village, processing palm canal, etc. So age 11 you dropped out of school. Can you remember the day you found it? Describe the day. March, in the afternoon, around 2 o 'clock Sunday. Never find the diamond. There was a lot of joy at that time. I feel happy.

8:25We were digging, digging deep, and clearing the debris at the same time. At some point, I noticed this gem in the water, and I carefully looked at it, and I suspected it was a diamond. Because of the color, they advised us to maintain sealed lips. I bet when you saw that diamond, you thought, I'm rich, this is going to change my life. Is that what you were thinking? Yes, the time we get a diamond, because it may not be the expensive money. Yes, so when we found it, we were very happy. We thought this could bring about some change in our lives. Our first thought was to get a motorbike. That was our first idea that came to mind.

9:12A motorbike. That's a small ambition for a man who has a multi-million dollar stone in his hand. An official dealer had confirmed the value of the gem. The pastor then faced a decision. Should he declare his find to the government or should he follow a well-trodden path and smuggle it abroad, thereby avoiding the payment of duties? The dealer recommended smuggling. The dealer was not in favour of that belief that we have to take this thing to the government. government never give them the confidence that government it is only government that have the better offer when it comes into the pricing of diamond so everybody have the perception that if you find your diamond you have no alternative but to take it to international dealers do you think the government does have a better offer than the local dealers well i'm sure if you have all your documents that allows you to mine there's a laid down procedure i'm sure but a lot of people are not licensed and not registered including myself including myself i was not with a current license so he prefer for me to sell the diamond to them In fact, his father called me from Belgium at that particular fateful night, and his father told me that they can take me to Belgium the following day.

10:46But I said I would like the paramount chief to involve into this process. So you decided to be honest and involve the paramount chief, which meant involving the government, right? Yeah. We spent the whole night on that discussion. But I think what we did was the right decision we took. Pastor Momo did formally declare the diamond discovery, and he was determined that this unexpected windfall would prove a blessing, not just for him and his diggers, but for the community as a whole. I told the government that where we found this diamond, there's no good school, no facility for education, no good road.

11:29so the government told me that they are going to step in to build school, give a good water, make the road, and do other valuable responsibility to the people of Koyado. They promised all of those things? Yes, they did. The school, the clinic, water, and a road. Yes. There's a reason God gave these diamonds to the poorest people in the world and made the richest people want them. This is making the world a better place. At an auction in New York in December 2017, the diamond attracted global publicity and the support of this man, Martin Rappaport. The chairman of the Rappaport Diamond Group, he's a dealer, a philanthropist, and a campaigner for greater transparency and accountability within the diamond industry.

12:19This just isn't like any other diamond. This is a diamond that is going to benefit tens of thousands of people who are at the extreme level of poverty. So this diamond's very special because of the impact it's going to have. You're listening to Assignment from the BBC World Service.

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14:14I'm Ed Butler and today I'm telling the story of Sierra Leone's Peace Diamond. How it was found? What happened to the profits? The diamond eventually sold for six and a half million dollars at auction. The deal was this. More than half of that money would go to the government. The rest would be shared between the diggers and a community development fund. At least a million dollars would be specifically earmarked for the village itself. So what became of that promised redevelopment? My journey to find out began with a bumpy road trip up the hill to Koyadu village itself. We're sitting in the back of the car now.

14:55We're travelling to Koyadu along an extraordinarily bumpy road, which doesn't seem to have changed much in the last eight years since I got here. And the sound next to me you can hear is a chicken, because I'm travelling with a chicken, and a lady who's going to visit her son in the hospital. What was your name, madam? My name's Janet. Jeanette, nice to meet you. Does the chicken have a name?

15:21So who's the chicken for? My son. You're giving your chicken to your son? Yes. Who's sick in hospital? Yes. OK. What's Koyadu like? Has Koyadu changed since they found the peace diamond? He brings a lot of changes now, village. A lot of changes? Yes, a lot.

15:47Your children went to the school?

15:53So it's a much happier place? Happy town? Well, maybe not so happy for the soon-to-be-eaten chicken.

16:09Well, as well as the road, some things haven't changed much since 2017. The villages of Koryadu are, it seems, still singing.

16:28To me, there has been tremendous change since we've come here because before this time, there was no school here. I came, I started with 16 kids, and now we have got 227. So that's a very good change that has occurred in the village. Abubakar Amara greets us and leads us to the 200-student primary school that he now runs here. We want to make the future bright for the people, especially the kids that are going to school now. With education, they can change this community.

17:08With multiple classrooms and solar power, it does feel like a world away from what I saw last time I was here.

17:19A shiny zinc roof on the new maternity clinic also speaks of progress. Can I come in? At the clinic, the village midwife, Judith Sia-Lamin, introduces me to Koriadu's most recent arrival, a newborn infant. Mr. Mann, you have a visitor. From London, England, you have a visitor. So this is a little baby boy. He looks very wise. Very handsome. Then who's the mother? Congratulations. What's your name, mother? Nasubao. Nasubao. This is your first baby? Yes. How long was the labour? Fifteen hours. Fifteen hours. She endured. She endured. She endured. It was tough. She's still laughing about it. Very tough.

18:19She's a tough woman. So how far is your town from here? One mile. So she came one mile on foot to give birth here. We are not rich people. We don't even have bikes on our own. So you just have to endure it. Some come as far as nine miles off. Yes, when they are in labour, they come. That's far. The maternity clinic feels like a real success story. midwife Judith describes how it used to be for expectant mothers before the clinic was built. In the past, women had died in labour during childbirth. Women were dying. They would die on the road. 60 of any 1 ,000 were dying during childbirth. 60 out of every 1 ,000 were dying?

19:09Yes, of every 1 ,000 childbirth. the mothers or the children. That's tough. Yes, very, very tough by then. Now it's much better. Not a single maternal death here since the clinic was built, she says, although emergency cases do still require an ambulance to the main town. But for all the progress, there's an inconvenient truth behind all this. The diamond money may have paid for much of the infrastructure, the buildings, the water wells, but not for their upkeep. Judith's salary and that of all the teachers, the necessary supplies, well, these are now being covered by an international charity set up to support the Peace Diamond Project.

19:52It does beg the question, did the government really deliver on its promises? We have the school. We have the hospital. They actually graded the road to the village. They did a little bit of everything. Yes, yes, there's something to write about. But not enough? Yes. They know that what they promise, they have never met the promise. Pastor Emmanuel Momo is bitter about what he sees as government failures. I told them that this is the first time an artisan and a miner found a diamond and he took that diamond to your office. I have done something remarkable. I would like you guys to come and join me so that we can celebrate.

20:42Nobody show up. Nobody cared. Nobody cares. I am not in their memory. Nobody ever realised that I've done something good for this nation. Despite repeated requests, the Minister of Mines declined to speak to us for this programme. Some, though, do defend the government's record. When you look at development, getting the money is maybe one third of the story. That's Martin Rappaport, philanthropist and campaigner, who since 2017 has more than anyone championed the Peace Diamond Village. He accepts that his foundation's money has been crucial to keeping it going, but he says it was still state money that got it started.

21:23So the idea was you're going to get a road, you're going to get a medical facility, you're going to get schools. And the government was 100 % respectful here because they still got the money to go to the village. The road isn't great, though, is it? You know, yeah, the road to the village is very difficult. Now they're going to have to make and figure out how to redo some things. But we were providing rice. And now the government is providing the food for the children, which is an amazing thing. So what happened is we hooked them into the development cycle and environment. Now we're identifying people.

21:57So what's happening is you're kind of moving the community up a level. and you got to understand how difficult that process is when you're dealing in a place like Koyar do when you're dealing with with absolutely starting from scratch tell me then what would you say the legacy of the piece diamond has been it's created a shift in thinking and it's showing that resources like diamonds can have a real impact on the local communities. You have to have patience to do development properly, and you have to let the people do their own development. But you know something? They're smart. They're very smart and they're survivors.

22:43The legacy of the Peace Diamond is, in fact, the people. Martin Rappaport. There is another story to be told here. It's the one about the men who actually unearthed the precious stone in the first place. For young diggers like Comba, for whom mere survival had been a daily struggle, the diamond's discovery was a life-changing moment.

23:10So after the sale of the diamond, each of us received$100 ,000 from Pasteur. All of us who were working in the pit received the same amount. And what was your plan? You're suddenly a rich man, right? In that moment, yeah, I was a rich man, sure. It must have felt exciting. Very happy. At that moment, at that time, I was happy. I'm married. You got married just after you found the diamond? Yes, sir. You were a popular man at that time. At that time, sure. In his late teens, Gomba may have had a wife, but he also had a bigger dream. Along with fellow diggers, he hoped to emigrate to Canada. Why Canada?

23:55Why did you want to go there? No, Canada, I'm from the one I'm the dream country. Canada has been my dream country all along. I've seen pictures, I've heard stories about Canada. I've been told that I would be able to succeed if I go there. To help them get the visas, they paid an agent, what seems like a huge sum,$15 ,000 each. they travel to nearby Ghana to submit their applications.

24:26So when we were in Ghana, indeed we were spending a lot of money on feeding, we were also going out to bars and enjoying ourselves, so we indeed spent a lot of money in Ghana. It was party, party, party for you, was it? No, no, not party. If now, now that blessing came away with no regret. Looking back, I think that I could have done better, much better. When we went to Ghana, we spent most of what we had. And we didn't think for a moment that we would have to return home. But it didn't turn out to be that way. The rejection letter was blunt. Canadian officials said that the men lacked qualifications and a sponsor to justify their application.