Cari Hachmann

Diamonds: A Bloody History Unearthed

For many decades, polished diamonds have decorated the ears, necks, and hands of its adorners.  Symbolizing love, beauty, and eternity, diamonds have been worn by the wealthy and given to one’s significant other to bind a lifelong marriage or perfect an everlasting romance.  Today, a face of the diamond, previously veiled by its establishers, reflects a new meaning in the eyes of its consumers.  The untainted, flawless image of the diamond reveals an unsettling stain as its hostile, blood-soaked past can no longer be covered.

The diamond of one woman’s engagement ring may be traced back to the many hands of its sellers, including those of the multinational diamond industry, who determinedly purchase the precious gemstones from their original place of extraction: the countries of Africa, many of which are controlled by corrupt governments and murderous rebel groups who will do anything to siphon off the highly profitable diamond trade.  Without fear of shedding blood, the violent African rebel groups force innocent men, women, and children, at gunpoint, to dig muddy riverbeds in search for the most valuable diamonds. The rebels do not hesitate to chop the limbs off and slaughter those unwilling or unfit to dig; for them, the power gained from selling diamonds is more important than the innocent lives of their people. Thus the term blood diamond or conflict diamond arrived.  Later the “United Nations (UN) would define conflict diamonds as ‘…diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council’” (De Beers Group).  Blood diamonds, or diamonds extracted from areas of conflict, continue to enter the world market as the diamond industry proceeds to purchase diamonds originating in areas controlled by rebel militias.

Africa is abundant in natural resources, including diamonds, oil, gas, timber, etc., so one would think its countries would profit from these valuable exports.  Unfortunately, the people of Africa continue to live in the world’s lowest poverty levels.  Millions of dollars are profited from the extraction of these resources, but with the continuous malpractice of the multinational industries and corruption in government, the money is never seen by those who need it most. The thousands of people doomed to be refugees in their own homelands, with as many as half suffering as amputee victims, and those still driven by the false hope of making a quick profit off selling a diamond should be enough proof that the diamond industry has brought more harm than good to the nations of Africa.  No longer can the horrible atrocities resulting from the extraction of a mineral resource in Africa be ignored.  With that, more people should be aware of terrible situations these people must endure, as well as the history behind the diamond trade, why it is still an issue today, and what can be done to help.  Therefore the purpose of my paper is to inform those unacknowledged of the blood diamond trade. First, I will discuss the meaning of diamonds in two dissimilar societies.  Then I will unearth the history of the blood diamond trade in Africa as I examine the involvement of diamond industries, specifically De Beers, from the beginning of the diamond trade to present day.  In addition, I will show how diamonds are the instigator to conflicts in Africa and how the costly stones have burdened the people of Africa with violence and poverty.  Next, I will explain why illegally-traded blood diamonds continue to enter the world market today despite the Kimberly Process and the diamond industries’ attempts to stop it.  Lastly, I will emphasize that diamonds, with the help of uncorrupt diamond trading, do not have to serve Africa as a curse, but instead, an economic benefit.

“A Diamond is Forever,” says the De Beers Company, who controls 60% of the world’s trade in rough diamonds.  Polished diamonds are highly valued commodities sold in high income and hard currency countries such as the United States, Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan (Orogun 6).  One is probably familiar with the use of diamonds in these societies, most commonly; diamonds are “a girl’s best friend”, used to decorate one’s hands, neck and ears with and given to one’s significant other to prove one’s love.  Aside from women, the lure of diamonds can be explained by the immense profit made by its sellers.  In a 2002 National Geographic article titled “Diamonds: The Real Story,” journalist Andrew Cockburn states that, “120 million carats of rough diamonds are extracted globally from the Earth every year… weighing just 24 tons, a single truckload…will be sold by the producers for about seven billion dollars…by the time the diamonds reach customers…the truckload is worth 50 billion dollars” (Cockburn 3). As diamonds pass through the hands of miners, at “the pipeline” in South Africa for example, to the dealers, to polishing factories, to jewelers, to the necks and fingers of customers, large profits are being made by each seller, with the largest being the multinational diamond companies (2).  The obvious, massive profit gives all the more reason for the diamond industry, including De Beers, to do anything in its power to maintain a strong grip on the diamond network.

While diamonds are luxury items for many, their meaning is poles apart from that of the nations of Africa, especially Sierra Leone and Angola.  As National Geographic Media claims in a film on the costly legacy of diamonds in Africa, diamonds are an “indication of violence and death.”  It all started after the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union ended in the 1960s.  The postcolonial African countries of Angola, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Liberia were presented with many new challenges including “cross-border armed conflicts” and civil wars instigated by “ethnicity, regionalism, religious differences, and the struggle for domination of vital economic resources” including diamonds, oil, gas, gold, and timber (Orogun 1).  Renegade militias, unyielding warlords, and rebel groups created hostilities and conflicts in struggles to control regions rich in mineral resources, so they could benefit from the financial profit.  Thus, these groups depended on the illegal sale of diamonds to purchase military weapons to remain in control.  These increasingly hostile conflicts led to regional insecurity and political instability and corruption throughout the following years in South Africa (Orogun 1).  Rebel forces including the UNITA or National Union for the Total Independence of Angola and RUF or Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone maintained vicious control off the wealth of diamonds.

The National Geographic film continues to say, “For many years, the rebel groups have seized countless diamond mines in Africa, and forced local inhabitants at gun point to labor them, desperately searching for the most money-earning diamonds” (National Geographic  Media).  During Sierra Leone’s lengthy, savage civil war, Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, was held by brutal rebel forces called the RUF.  The RUF rebels used diamonds to “finance their rebellion” against a corrupt government (National Geographic Media).  RUF rebels, along with opposing armies, began recruiting children and young men to carry out their atrocities, many of whom had lost entire families to the rebels’ own murderous rampages.  The rebel groups unconventionally killed thousands of innocent civilians who they thought were sympathizers of the government, just as the armies fighting against the rebel groups killed those sympathizing with the rebel groups.

In 1993, former boy soldier of Sierra Leone’s civil war and author of Along Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah, was twelve. He was recruited by an army fighting against rebel groups after his family had been slaughtered and his village destroyed.  In an interview with NPR in February 2007, Beah talks about his traumatizing journey of losing his family, being forced into an army who brainwashed him with drugs and propaganda to kill “rebel” civilians, leading to the loss of his own humanity, and finally the difficulty of returning to reality through rehabilitation.  Later, Beah was adopted into the U.S., educated, and is currently a member of the human rights watch, and has spoken before the U.N. about child soldiers.  It is impossible to sum up the devastating responses of his experience without writing the entire dialogue of the interview.  During the last part of the interview he concludes with reasons why he speaks about his life changing experience:

…I want to put a human face to this. At the time, I felt it was ok (to kill innocent people), that this was something to belong to (the army), that being at the military base you sought safety of the group.  But now that I am away from it and can reflect on it, I realize that whether the child voluntarily enters a military group, whether they are oppressed into it, whether the children pushed them into it, that it is bad, you are not physiologically mature to make that decision for yourself and its physiologically harmful afterwards, physically for some people as well, and that there is absolutely nothing romantic about warfare.  It only brings suffering, suffering, and continuous suffering whether you are the perpetrator or the victim. (Gross, NPR Interview)

The suffering of the innocent civilians does not stop at the mass murders and amputations of entire villages, or the use of “nothing to lose” children in corrupt armies.  In order for the rebels to maintain control and retrieve the valuable stones from the diamond fields, they forced thousands of innocent civilians, through threat of death and amputation, to dig for them.  Hands, feet, and legs of victims unwilling to dig for diamonds were chopped off without a second thought by rebel militia groups.  Today, the survivors involved in these horrible atrocities continue to suffer with the lack of funding and care by their government.

In a September 2006 audio clip from NPR, Ofeiba Quist-Archon, a journalist and broadcaster from Ghana, narrates “Amputees: A Stark Legacy of Sierra Leone’s War”.  Quist-Archon broadcasts amputee victims struggling to re-build their lives after the end of the Sierra Leone civil war, many of which will never be the same.  Maxwell Forner, one of the 1,500 to 16,000 amputees in Sierra Leone, wept as he recorded his ordeal of having his leg shot off and his hands chopped off by a rebel, and left for dead for refusing to give up his own daughter.  Amputees, Forner included, call themselves “the forgotten victims,” those whose dreams have been crushed by their disabilities, discriminated against by employers, and forced to survive by begging on street corners.  The NPR audio includes human rights activist Emanuel Safabdulai who protests, “the Sierra Leone government has failed to fully deliver on the promises of free education, medical care, and transportation on public buses…not enough is being done to help these people”(Quist-Archon, NPR).

As stated earlier, once the rebels retrieved the diamonds, they were illegally sold to foreign buyers, including De Beers.  The money was then used by the RUF to buy more weapons, keeping the violent rebels in constant control of the people.  After the smuggled diamonds were in the hands of the diamond industry, the original identity of the diamond would be lost as the rough stones were “cut and polished” and sold to consumers not acknowledging that their diamond may have been paid for in blood (National Geographic Media).

In Sierra Leone, diamonds are the instigator to the conflict that has subverted the country for the last few decades.   In a 93 page report titled “The Heart of the Matter,” conducted by the Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), a coalition of Canadian and African organizations that work in partnership to promote sustainable human development policies that benefit African and Canadian societies, three authors break down the events of Sierra Leone, diamonds and human scrutiny.  The report indicates the high level of atrocity that the diamond industry has imprinted on the people of Sierra Leone, “Seventy five thousand people-most of them civilians-have lost their lives.  Rebel butchery has left thousands of women, men, and children without hands and feet, disfigured physically and psychologically for the rest of their life” (PAC 9).  “The Heart of the Matter” states that the issue is important because the economic fuel for this massive human tragedy is “almost exclusively derived from diamonds, small bits of carbon that have no intrinsic value in themselves, and no value whatsoever to the average Sierra Leonean beyond their attraction to outsiders”(9). It is inhumane that throughout the conflict and into present day, the innocent civilians of Sierra Leone and other conflict-ridden areas were being forced to live in “terror, murder, dismemberment, and poverty,” when they should have been the ones profiting from the diamonds mined in their own country in the first place (10).

Although the ten year civil war in Sierra Leone and the twenty seven year conflict in Angola ended in 2002, the victims tortured and mutilated by the rebel groups in the war are struggling to survive in atrocious conditions of collapsing governments and severely poor refugee camps.  Half of Sierra Leone’s population, millions of people, were displaced and forced into refugee at the end of the war.  With existing corruption in government, no money is invested in schools, hospitals, and government services, thus the people are unable to help themselves without appropriate funding.  Normal commerce ceases to exist as mineral resources were misused in financing the war (10).

In addition, diamond smuggling is still a problem, and officials, including the diamond industries, struggle to “keep illegal stones from entering the global market” (National Geographic Media).  In attempts to fight against blood diamonds, Sierra Leone’s government diamond office strives to filter out illegal diamonds.  Every gem that they receive from the legally operated mines is supposed to be legal.  The man running this office, Lawrence Meyers, sifts through thousands of diamonds every week, rarely finding a diamond of impacting worth.  One legal rough diamond he found was the size of a golf ball and worth about a million dollars unpolished.  Meyers says that after it’s sold to buyers in Belgium, cut and polished, it will be sold for about five million dollars.  Unfortunately, the government of Sierra Leone will only earn $30,000 dollars in export taxes.  Despite local efforts to fight against the smuggling of blood diamonds in the world market, diamond traders continue to illegally sell diamonds to buyers.

In the 1990s, at the peak of Sierra Leone and neighboring nation’s civil wars, world powers could no longer ignore the brutal, resource-related conflicts in war-torn areas of Africa.  Blood or conflict diamonds were finally brought to the attention of people motivated to help, including:  United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), NGOs such as Global Witness, Amnesty International and Partnership Africa Canada, as well as international humanitarian agencies such as the Red Cross and Medicinsans Frontieres, and most importantly, the diamond industry (Orogun 3).  The recognition of the need for a system to stop the infiltration of conflict diamonds into the world market would hopefully result in demolishing funding for violent rebel forces.

One result, backed by the U.S. government and 70 other diamond exporting and importing countries, was the Kimberly Process of Diamond Certification Scheme.  This design was intended to “curb infusion of new blood diamonds from African conflict areas into the world market” (6).  The process would ensure that “rough diamonds are sealed in a tamper-resistant container and have a forgery-resistant, conflict free certificate with a unique serial number each time they cross an international border”(De Beers Group).  Its purpose was to guarantee that rough diamonds could be tracked from their primary source of origin, making it harder for rebel militias to sell blood diamonds to the world market.  However, human rights groups have criticized the process with the reason that there is no way to truly monitor the origin of a diamond.

In recent years, the leading diamond industry, De Beers, has been looked upon with suspicion by the media, U.S. government, and human rights activists because of its involvement in the trafficking of rough diamonds from South Africa during the time rebel units controlled diamond mines.  De Beers has developed and owned countless mineral industries of South Africa since 1888.  It is known that during the civil wars in Sierra Leone and Angola, De Beers spent millions to buy and stockpile diamonds coming from these conflicted areas, profiting immensely (Dowden 2). Today, De Beers contains fifteen mines across Africa, with new mines being built in Canada.  However, the worldwide industry, driven by the Kimberly Process and staffed by the Central Selling Organization (CSO) declares that “no diamonds from rebel held zones will contaminate sales” (Orogun 9).  Early tensions rose when De Beers changed its marketing strategy soon after the civil wars ended in Sierra Leone and Angola.  Their new motto would emphasize “supplier of choice”, considered by many as a blatant cover up of passed purchases of blood diamonds (10). De Beers industry, rightfully shameful of their “bloody origins” have made attempts to “reform and become clean” (Dowden 2).

Nevertheless, an article written in March 2007 by Sarah Rich, from WorldChanging, expresses diamond industries’ concerns with the new movie Blood Diamond, a Warner Bros Oscar nominee exploiting the atrocities in Sierra Leone’s diamond trade and the involvement of international diamond traders. Diamond companies like De Beers grew worrisome that Blood Diamond might upset their Christmas and Valentine’s Day sales, so in response, they produced forceful counter-campaigns long before Hollywood released the controversial film.  The article continues to say that De Beers asked Blood Diamond’s filmmakers to “add a disclaimer stating that the events in the film are fictional and in the past and that, thanks to the Kimberly Process, conflict diamonds end up on market only vary rarely”(Rich 1).  With Amnesty International and Global Witness, two promoters of human rights activism, standing by their side, Blood Diamond filmmakers refused to add the disclaimer or change the way diamond conflicts are portrayed in the movie.  Sure enough, months before the film premiered, the diamond industry “created a multimillion dollar campaign to ‘educate consumers’ about the Kimberly Process.”  Suspicions mounted as many observers viewed the diamond industries drastic and expensive counter-campaigns.   

As there is most often always a loop hole to any system, the smuggling of illegal diamonds still exists.  Since there is currently no war in Angola or Sierra Leone, the diamonds found are not technically blood diamonds and can be traded internationally. The scene in Sierra Leone shown by the National Geographic Media’s camera is a sad one.  The narrator says, “The untamed jungle shelters a rich and fertile land, but there is almost no sign of agriculture.  Farmers abandoned these fields long ago, many to dig for diamonds.” The view from the helicopter shows barren patches of muddy dug up swallows in the terrain where men dig all day, everyday, 365 days a year, to get to the diamond-rich gravel twenty feet below the earth’s surface.  Government Mining Officer, Hassan Banguri says, “Searching for diamonds is part of their life…they dream diamonds, they eat diamonds, they think wherever you go, they talk about diamonds.”  Large or small, these diamonds feed the same pipeline that once trafficked blood diamonds.  There are almost a million miners in Sierra Leone, and only a thousand have licenses (National Geographic Media).

Secretive diamond traders in the industry continue to avoid detection by using many different trade networks and partners near African countries to illegally sell diamonds.  One report in 1999 said, “Only 85,000 carats were legally exported, according to Sierra Leone’s government, but the Antwerp Authorities recorded imports of 770,000 carats.  The PAC report described the Belgium diamond industry as irresponsible as seriously under-regulated.  Diamonds, in the hands of a black market economy created by existing criminal activities, are able to avoid detection. The costly rough stones are small and easy to conceal, and once polished, it is nearly impossible to verify the country it was dug up from (Orogun 8).

Although De Beers claims that 100% of its diamonds are conflict free, there is still 1% of the world’s diamonds entering the trade as conflict diamonds (De Beers Group).  In years of observation of the diamond industry and trade, experts believe that the diamond industries are still purchasing illegal diamonds smuggled out of Sierra Leone and other conflicted areas. As reported in the “Heart of the Matter”, De Beers has been directly involved in Sierra Leone up until the 1980s, as the company contained diamond mines offshore and an office in Freetown.  However, the report continues to say that, since then, the De Beers affiliation has been indirect, maintaining a diamond trading company in Liberia and a buying office in Conakry, Guinea.  Neither countries produce many diamonds and “Liberia is widely understood as a ‘transit’ country for smuggled diamonds” in which “Liberian” diamonds originated from Sierra Leone (PAC 29).  As De Beers claims that it does not purchase Sierra Leonean diamonds, The Heart of the Matter Report says, “Through its companies in West Africa…in its attempts to mop up supplies everywhere in the world, it is virtually inconceivable that the company is not- in one way or another- purchasing diamonds that have been smuggled out of Sierra Leone” (PAC 26).   The Heart of the Matter report concludes that “De Beers is part of the problem,” and continues to say that:

In its efforts to control as much of the international diamond market as possible, it (De Beers) is no doubt purchasing diamonds from a wide variety of dubious sources…If De Beers were to take a greater interest in countries like Sierra Leone, and if it were to stop purchasing large amounts of diamonds from countries with a negligible production base, much could be done to end the current high levels of theft and smuggling. (PAC 83)

Therefore, diamond industries need to demonstrate urgent and more thorough oversight on exactly where the diamond comes from.  Not only diamond industries, but the governments of African countries, Sierra Leone included, need to stand tall against corruption in the illegal trade of diamonds.  Diamonds need not to be a negative resource, but instead be an economic benefit to the country in which they are mined from.  In a recent article titled “Natural resources- curse or blessing(?)” New Economy’s Vanessa Herringshaw claims “although African countries that are heavily dependent on natural resources are at risk of conflict, corruption of government, and state failure, this is not inevitable”(Herringshaw1).  Instead of acting as a curse to the lives of people, furthering them into the lowest levels of poverty, diamonds could improve the quality of life as a blessing.  As corruption in government is improved, illegal diamond smuggling is halted, and proper management of the natural resources (diamonds) are inhibited, the lives of the people can improve.   

One must live by a high degree of ignorance if they can not see the harmful and everlasting impacts the diamond industry has caused on the nations Africa.   From the child war victims, to the thousands of amputees and refugees, to those still physiologically attached to the false hope of digging for diamonds, the people of Africa need attention and help. Americans live in a country where freedom is granted at birth and worries of a genocide or civil war never enter ones mind.  I am lucky to say that in my country, I have been given the opportunity to live in peace, in which sometimes, like many, I take for granted.  I am angry and saddened that the innocent people of Africa, a lesser developed country, have been taken advantage of by the diamond industry in order to make a profit off a useless product.  “The Heart of the Matter” states it well, “the issue is important because the economic fuel for this massive human tragedy is almost exclusively derived from diamonds, small bits of carbon that have no intrinsic value in themselves, and no value whatsoever to the average Sierra Leonean beyond their attraction to outsiders”(10). With the help of a corrupt government, continuous diamond laundering, and the diamond industries untruthful ways, African nations are doomed to suffer in their poverty-stricken, war-torn homelands.  I believe that more people should be aware of the terrible situations these people must endure, for the sake that they will do what they can to help, or at the least, savor their freedom. 

Also, as a consumer, it is one’s duty to make sure a diamond is conflict free before it is purchased.  When buying a diamond, one should demand proof from the retailer that they have a policy on conflict free diamonds.  By asking questions, one will force the retailer to produce guarantees that the diamonds they are selling are certified as conflict free. Thus the diamond industries will be pressured to comply with the Kimberly Process in order to uphold their profit.  A 2004 survey conducted by Amnesty international and Global Witness found that only 11% of retail stores in the United States had a policy regarding conflict diamonds (Rich 2).   If more people boycott retailers with no policies on conflict free diamonds or demand to see those who have them, a powerful message will be sent to the world.  The message will state that we do not support an industry or nation that helps fund terror groups.   On another note, I would like to see people take action for those who are unable to help themselves.  The university could form a committee, as they did for the situations in Darfur, to raise money for African communities harmed by the diamond trade.  Through a program called Diamonds for Africa Fund, students and others could bring in old diamonds that may be dusting in the bottoms of jewelry boxes to donate.  A percentage of the value of the diamonds would be donated to help those in need.  As stated before, if more people become aware of the problems associated with conflict diamonds, there will be more motivation to help stop the illicit trade of blood diamonds. 

Works Cited

Blood Diamond. Dir. Edward Zwick. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly, and Kagiso Kuypers. Warner Bros Pictures, 2006. 

Blood Diamonds: Leave Costly Legacy in Africa. Perf. Lawrence Meyers, Various interviewees. National Geographic Media: 30 Nov. 2006.

Cockburn, Andrew. “Diamonds: The Real Story.” National Geographic Magazine. March 2002: 1-9. 23 27 March 2007 http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2003/03/01/html/ft_20020301.1.fulltext.html

“Conflict Diamonds and De Beers.” De Beers Group, 2007. Kimberley, South Africa. 9 March 2007. http://www.debeersgroup.com/debeersweb/Investing+in+the+Future/Ethics/Conflict+Diamonds+and+De+Beers.htm 

Diamonds for Africa. Frayer, Corey, Rupert Isaacson, Beth Gerstein, and Eric Grossberg. International Humanities Center. 20 March 27, 2007. http://www.diamondsforafricafund.org/

Dowden, Richard. “Blood, Bullets, and Ice.” New Statesman. 136.4827 (2007): 18-18. Academic Search Premier. 20 March 2007. http://mantis.csuchico.edu:3092

Gberie, Lansana, Ralph Hazleton, and Ian Smillie.  “The Heart of the Matter: Sierra Leone, Diamonds, and Human Scrutiny (Complete Report).” Partnership Africa Canada. January 2000: 93 pgs. 26 February 2007. www.pacweb.org/e/pdf/heart%20of%20the%20matter.doc

Gross, Terry. Interview. Ishmael Beah: 'Memoirs of a Boy Soldier'.  Fresh Air from WHYY. NPR. Washington, D.C. 21 Feb. 2007

Herringshaw, Vanessa. “Natural Resources- Curse or Blessing.” New Economy. 11.3 (2004): 174-177. Academic Search Premier. 20 March 2007. http://mantis.csuchico.edu:3092

Orogun, Paul. ““Blood Diamonds” and Africa’s Armed Conflicts in the Post Cold War Era.” World Affairs 166.3 (2004): 151-161. Academic Search Premier. 21 February 2007. http://search.ebscohost.com

Quist-Arcton, Ofeiba. “Amputees a Stark Legacy of Sierra Leone’s War”. Day to Day. NPR. 6 Sept. 2006. 24 February 2007.  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4513318

Rich, Sarah. “PR Wars Over Diamond Wars.” WorldChanging. 11 Oct. 2006. 20 March 2007. http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/005038.html

Youngblood-Coleman, Denise, editor. Country Review: Sierra Leone. 2007. Houston, Texas: CountryWatch Publications, 2003. 12 March 2007. http://www.countrywatch.com/cw_country.aspx?vcountry=153

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