Diamonds follow-up

To be more clear — this semester I’ll be focusing on the local impacts of mining, specifically of gemstone mining.

For more information on what the UN is doing about conflict diamonds:

http://www.un.org/peace/africa/Diamond.html

Diamonds are forever

“Give her what she really wants.”  “Women of the world, raise your right hand.”  “For your past, present, and future.”  There are few commercials that tug at the heartstrings as well as diamond ads.  Diamonds symbolize your love, they symbolize independence, they symbolize your worth.  But what the sentimental black and white jewelry ads regret to mention is the bloody history of the diamond industry.

Often called blood diamonds or conflict diamonds, 15% of the diamonds sold in the 1990s came from conflict zones, mined from riverbeds controlled by rebels in Africa. When the rebels, like those of the RUF in Sierra Leone, sold their diamonds, the profits helped fund bloody civil wars and attacks on civilians.  In the 90s, rebels from Sierra Leone financed their war with diamonds traded with arms traffickers for weapons while diamond companies revelled in the high selling prices brought through civil war.  While the UN did bar Sierra Leone from diamond trafficking, it still has yet to enforce any restrictions against neighboring Liberia, making it easy for smugglers to cross the border and pass off the diamonds as clean.

If the suffering incurred by the diamond trade in Africa doesn’t quite hit home, then the tie of blood diamonds to terrorism will.  As early as 1998, Al Quaeda began buying diamonds from the RUF in Sierra Leone.  By 2001, Al Quaeda had laundered millions by selling off untraceable conflict diamonds.  By buying diamonds, Americans were directly financing terrorism.

Numerous attempts since 9/11 to end the trade of conflict diamonds were fruitless.  Finally, despite the Bush administration’s reluctance to regulate business, the Kimberly Process was passed, stating that all diamonds should be accompanied by a non-forgable paper trail ensuring their conflict-free origins.  However, the nature of diamonds makes them easy to smuggle and pass off as legitimate.

It is estimated that today only about 1% of the diamonds sold are conflict diamonds.  This may owe more to the fact that the civil war in Sierra Leone has ended than to the increased regulation of the diamond trade.  Only when peace and security are found in places where diamonds are mined can there be hope of ending the diamond’s bloody path.  Or perhaps, once the Western world stops placing so much worth on a rock, once we stop quantifying love with karats, we will stem the flow of blood diamonds.

Evaluate this post:

http://skylight.wsu.edu/s/834189e3-c8ef-4f43-b20d-335a25c3371e.srv