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Winners and Losers In the end it is the big Diamondcompanies such as DeBeers thatgain the most from diamond trade.Despite the all the accusationsabout the company knowingly

buying diamonds from conflictzones, at the end of the day theyare the people that rake in the cashfrom the sale of these diamonds.DeBeers claims to own 40 -50% of the worlds diamond and recordsalmost $7 billion in annual reve-nue. The fact remains that innocentlives have been lost due to conflictfunded by diamonds. Even thoughthe war in Sierra Leone has ended,the 200,000 people that were killedwill remain as a reminder of theharsh reality that is blood dia-monds. The thousands of childrenthat were given guns and forced toharm other people because of these

blood diamonds should serve toremind people to think twice be-fore you buy that ice.

Diamonds are one of the mostvaluable resources in the world.The Global diamond chain, re-sponsible for bringing diamondsfrom the extraction site to jewelrystores around world, is a megamoney industry. Because of theincredibly high value of dia-monds, often there have beenindividuals or groups that willexploit the chain as a mean of spreading violence.

Sierra Leone, a country torn by a brutal 11 year civil war, is one of the countries that has suffered as aresult of (the blood diamond cri-sis). In order to fund the conflictagainst the government, the Revo-lutionary United Front (RUF) sold

Blood: The new price of diamonds?

20th Tuesday March 2012Volume 85

Global Eye

What are blood diamonds?

Also known as conflict diamonds,lood diamonds refers to gems that

mined in conflict zones to finance the

war efforts of rebel or insurgentroups against legitimate governmentorces. This has especially been aroblem in Africa, the continent thatxtracts more than 66% of the worlds

iamonds.

Above: A Man pans for Diamonds inierra Leone

Above: A child solider being trained to hold and load a gun

properly.

Diamonds funding conflict and bloodshed?

By Shrivats 11E

Kimberley Process: Is it working? The Kimberley Process certification scheme was set upto prevent the trade of diamonds that fund violence andconflict. The scheme was launched in January 2003 andhas been endorsed by the United Nations General As-sembly and Security Council. After a long discussion

between several NGOs including Global Witness,which lasted almost 3 years The process helps to certifythe sources of rough diamonds in conflict -free zones.Over 75 nations are a part of this system including Libe-ria, who became a part of the scheme after PresidentEllen J. Sirleaf moved to legitimize their diamond min-ing industry in 2007. The process requires diamondshipments to be accompanied by a Kimberley processcertificate that has been validated by the Government.The process in theory ensures that conflict diamonds donot enter the market for consumers to purchase. Howev-er its effectiveness in practice has been put into doubtafter Global Witness decided to no longer be a part of the process in December last year stating that the system

does not prevent blood diamonds from reaching jewelrystores and into the hands of consumers. The Ivory Coastand Venezuela have also pulled out for same reason.

blood diamonds to purchase weaponsand ammunition. To make up for thestretched numbers, the rebel forces

resorted to raiding villages and ab-ducting people to work as diamondminers. Over 10,000 children wereforced into becoming soldiers andwere then brainwashed into believingin the cause of RUF and fighting thegovernment. It is believed that thediamonds were smuggled into neigh-

boring countries such as Liberiawhere diamond mining was legal anddiamonds can be sold abroad. Inter-estingly, former Liberian president

Charles Taylor was put on trial by theInternational Criminal Court in 2006for allegedly exchanging diamondsfor weapons with RUF forces.

Blood Diamondslinked with Terrorism The mining and exploitation of

blood diamonds in Sierra Leone andLiberia has also been linked withactions of terrorist groups. During1998 about the time when the Amer-ican Embassy bombings in Kenyaand Tanzania killed 223 people,terrorist group al -Qaeda allegedly

purchased diamonds from Liberiaand RUF. Information gathered fromthe trials of suspects strongly sug-gest that al -Qaeda shelled out largesums of cash in exchange for dia-monds in order to prevent anyonefrom being able to track their pur-chases of weapons and ammunitionused to carry out their terrorist oper-ations around the globe. AlthoughLiberian president Charles Taylor denied all links with al -Qaeda, in2001 the United Nations placedsanctions on the exporting of dia-monds from Liberia; a ban that hassince been removed in 2007.