Conflict Diamonds

Do you know where your diamonds come from. The beauty of diamonds often disguise their sordid past.

A conflict diamond (also called a blood diamond) is a diamond mined in a war zone and sold, usually clandestinely, in order to finance an insurgent or invading army's war efforts.

The United Nations has decried the sale of conflict diamonds, arguing that their trade finances armies in fighting against legitimate governments and perpetrating human rights abuses, and prolongs devastating wars. It points to the UNITA rebels in Angola and to the Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone (who it states are financed by the government of Liberia, also through diamond sales) as purveyors of conflict diamonds.

The UN is attempting to implement certification procedures to decrease the number of illicit diamonds on the world market. The World Diamond Congress adopted at Antwerp on July 19, 2000, a resolution to strengthen the diamond industry's ability to block sales of conflict diamonds.

Countries such as Canada have used concerns about conflict diamonds to present domestically-produced diamonds as an ethical alternative which avoids the risk of unknowingly purchasing a blood diamond.

Other substances are sometimes sold the same way as conflict diamonds, such as coltan.

A large part of the plot of the 2002 James Bond movie "Die Another Day" revolved around the smuggling of conflict diamonds. For many people, this was their first mainstream exposure to the term and the concept.

External link

• UN on conflict diamonds

Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones Journalist Greg Campbell leads the reader down the international diamond trail of brutality, horror, and profit -- providing an on-the-ground and in-the-mines story of global consequence First discovered in 1930, the valuable gemstones found in the jungles of Sierra Leone have funded one of the most savage rebel campaigns in modern history. These conflict diamonds are smuggled and sold to legitimate diamond merchants in London, Antwerp and New York, often with the complicity of the international diamond industry. Eventually, these very same diamonds find their way into the rings and necklaces of brides and spouses the world over. Blood Diamonds is the gripping tale of how the diamond smuggling works, how the rebel war has effectively destroyed Sierra Leone and its people, and how the policies of the diamond industry -- institutionalized in the 1880s by the De Beers cartel -- have allowed it to happen. Award-winning journalist Greg Campbell traces the deadly trail of these diamonds, many of which are brought to the world market by fanatical enemies, includin

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