By: Katie Carter
“Diamonds are the most portable form of wealth in the world” This is a quote from the book Blood Diamonds; Tracing the Deadly Path of the World’s Most Precious Stones by Greg Campbell.
“Diamonds are the most portable form of wealth in the world” This is a quote from the book Blood Diamonds; Tracing the Deadly Path of the World’s Most Precious Stones by Greg Campbell.
Diamonds are a huge part of our society. One might even go so far as to say our culture. They are the utmost symbol of love and eternity. Nearly everyone who is married or has a significant other has a diamond to show for it. That is just how our society works. What a lot of people don’t know about their diamond is the fact that a large portion of them got to where they are at the merciless hand of others. Innocent people were mutilated and murdered so that we people of well fortune, could wear a shiny rock on our finger.
After viewing Blood Diamond, I was very interested in the process that diamonds went though from the time they are mined to the time they are bought as a symbol of love. I decided to research these precious stones and find out the various ways that these stones make it to the market.
The first way that diamonds make it to the market that I would like to discuss is the legal way. The origin of diamonds is supposed to be kept track of. According to the Kimberly Process they are supposed to be tagged and all information of their origin is to be written down. They are taken from a mine where workers are getting wages for their efforts and are then taken to a local diamond buyer. Here the buyer gives a fair price and accepts the diamond as well as its tags. This buyer would then take the diamonds to a company such as the DeBeers Company and sell them to the big diamond market buyers who would cut and polish them and put a price on their heads. Jewelers from around the world would buy their diamonds from sources such as these. A small percentage of diamonds from Sierra Leone actually go through this process.
Smuggling is the next way of transportation for diamonds. This is the most common form of receiving diamonds. This was portrayed well in the movie because that is what Archer the main character does for a living. He smuggles diamonds into Liberia where they can then be exported as non conflict diamonds. As depicted in the scene with the goats. According to my research, Liberia has a mining capacity of 125,000 carats. But in the span of 4 years they exported 6 million carats. This is because of the smuggling into Liberia.
The final process of diamonds that I would like to talk about is how the government and rebel groups played into the smuggling of diamonds. The RUF has taken control of many diamond mines and uses the diamonds from those mines to purchase weapons and to fuel the decade long war. They sell these diamonds to weapons dealers or barter them off with other terrorist or rebel groups who then resell them into the mainstream market.
This is how diamonds from this part of the world make it into the jewelry stores that we all know and love.
This project really opened my eyes. I wanted to learn all there was to know about blood diamonds. After researching this topic online, I wanted to dig deeper. So I delved into the printed resources of the Merill-Cazier Library. I found two really great books that I would like to share excerpts from.
Blood Diamonds by: Greg Campbell
“……. Neither on paper nor in person does Sierra Leone look like a country that produces some of the most beautiful and Valuable diamonds sold by the $6 billion per year international diamond industry, a luxury market that sells 80 percent of its products to American consumers. Actually to refer to Sierra Leone as a “country” at all is only a matter of geographical convenience. In fact, it is a vacuum of violence, poverty, warlords, and misery, a tiny corner of West Africa where the wheels have fallen completely off and left no one in charge except whoever happens to be the best armed at the moment. The country comes in dead last on the United Nations Human Development Index and life expectancies are among the lowest in the world: Men born in Sierra Leone can expect to live an average age of 43, women to age 48. The infant mortality rate is one of the worst in Africa, with 146 deaths per 1,000 live births………… The only thing that seems to have remained constant where everything else has fallen apart is diamond production. In fact the sale of diamonds to customers around the world is what has kept the war churning.”
“……..African wars- thanks to a vacuum of media coverage that almost completely ignores sub-Saharan countries except in times of natural or man- made disasters seem remote and incomprehensible to most consumers in developed nations. The vast majority of television programming from Africa seen around the world is composed of wildlife shows. In these panoramic and celebratory films actual Africans are largely absent.”
“……… It is an often- repeated truth that enough diamonds can be carried on a person’s naked body to ensure a lifetime of riches, so stealing and smuggling millions of dollars worth from the battlefield to the marketplace is an easy and practically unstoppable practice.”
“……..When a diamond is actually discovered, there’s hardly the celebration one might expect. Instead, one of the washers simply stops all motion, peering intently into his sieve, brushing rocks out of the way. He then plucks a tiny stone from the center of the mesh and gives a low whistle to the foreman, who ambles over to assess the discovery. There in his palm rests the source of all the country’s unrest, a puny diamond barely a quarter carat in weight, standing out from his brown hand like an improbably large grain of salt……On its own the little rock that was discovered as I crouched by the mine’s edge is too small to make a very impressive engagement ring, but it might end up as part of a $1,000 necklace or bracelet. Our guide guessed that if the quality was decent, the miner might get $5 for it from one of the diamond merchants in Kenema. The digger who found it gets another bucket filled with gravel to wash.”
The Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World of Diamonds, Deceit, and Desire by: Tom Zoellner
“……..The cargo of African wars made up as much as 14 percent of the world’s entire diamond trade. There was no way to sort the bloody stones from the clean ones, and the diamond industry had no interest in separating the two. Once they were shipped to Antwerp or London, they were dumped into bulk sales pouches like wheat seeds poured anonymously into the bins of a Kansas grain elevator.”
“The united States is the end of the road for about half of the world’s production of diamonds. Of that about 19 percent of the total value is devoted to engagement rings. The act of buying diamonds to seal a marriage proposal is a $4.5 billion business in the united states……….Engagement rings are the inner stitching of the diamond empire, a leading product category and one that constantly replenishes the mythology of love the stone needs for its survival.”
October 18, 2002
Diamond Smuggling Continues from Liberia
In May 2002, the United National Security Council renewed diamonds and arms embargoes against Liberia in response to what it said was President Charles Taylor's ongoing diamond - and gun-running. A new U.N. panel report says the diamond embargo, coupled with progress in the Sierra Leone peace process, caused the disappearance of Liberian-labeled stones from the market, reports the Associated Press. But "Liberian rough diamonds continue to be smuggled to neighboring countries" though the civil war there has contributed to a decline in quality and quantity, says the report. Liberia mines relatively few diamonds when compared with other mining nations.
The panel cited "persistent" reports that hundreds of Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front rebels formed the core of some offensive units fighting for the Liberian government. A key former RUF member, Ibrahim Balde, told the panel "the hardcore elements of the RUF, mostly Sierra Leoneans, had been integrated in the Anti-Terrorist Unit in Liberia." Balde and another informed source in Monrovia estimate RUF strength in Liberia at between 1,250 and 1,500 men.
The northern-based rebel movement, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy has been fighting to oust Taylor, a former warlord who won presidential elections in 1997 – seven years after he launched a civil war that devastated the West African nation.
The U.N. Security Council approved the original arms and diamonds embargo on Liberia and a travel ban on senior Liberian officials in May 2001 after determining Taylor's government had given military and financial support allowing rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone to wage their decade-long war against the government there. U.N. panel members say they believe the travel ban continues to be violated and they have received reports of people on the list sighted in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
http://www.professionaljeweler.com/archives/news/2002/101802story.html
The Heart of The Matter:
Sierra Leone, Diamonds & Human Security
By Ian Smillie, Lansana Gberie and Ralph Hazleton
Partnership Africa Canada, January 2000
Partnership Africa Canada, 323 Chapel Street, 3rd Floor, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 7Z2, Canada.
Tel: (613) 2376768. Fax: (613)2376530. E-mail: pac@web.net
Introduction
This study is about how diamonds - small pieces of carbon with no great intrinsic value - have been the cause of widespread death, destruction and misery for almost a decade in the small West African country of Sierra Leone. ...
In the 1960s and 1970s, a weak post-independence democracy was subverted by despotism and state-sponsored corruption. Economic decline and military rule followed. The rebellion that began in 1991 was characterized by banditry and horrific brutality, wreaked primarily on civilians. Between 1991 and 1999, the war claimed over 75,000 lives, caused half a million Sierra Leoneans to become refugees, and displaced half of the country's 4.5 million people. ...
The point of the war may not actually have been to win it, but to engage in profitable crime under the cover of warfare. ... Over the years, the informal diamond mining sector, long dominated by what might be called "disorganized crime", became increasingly influenced by organized crime and by the transcontinental smuggling not just of diamonds, but of guns and drugs, and by vast sums of money in search of a laundry. Violence became central to the advancement of those with vested interests. ...
The Diamond Industry and De Beers
... Until the 1980s, De Beers was directly involved in Sierra Leone, had concessions to mine diamonds offshore, and maintained an office in Freetown. Since then, however, the relationship has been indirect. De Beers maintains a diamond trading company in Liberia and a buying office in Conakry, Guinea. Both countries produce very few diamonds themselves, and Liberia is widely understood to be a "transit" country for smuggled diamonds. ... Through its companies and buying offices in West Africa, however, and 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.
Belgium and the Diamond High Council
Antwerp is the world centre for rough diamonds. ... The formal trading of diamonds in Belgium is structured around the Hoge Raad voor Diamant (HRD) - the Diamond High Council ... officially acknowledged as the voice of the entire Belgian diamond industry. ...
A factor which eases large-scale diamond smuggling and inhibits the tracking of diamond movements is the manner in which the HRD documents diamond purchases. The HRD records the origin of a diamond as the country from which the diamond was last exported. Therefore diamonds produced in Sierra Leone, say, may be officially imported and registered as originating in Liberia, Guinea, Israel or the UK ...
The Sierra Leone Diamonds
The first Sierra Leonean diamond was found in 1930, and significant production commenced in 1935. Sierra Leonean production is characterized by a high proportion of top-quality gem diamonds. ...
Siaka Stevens became Prime Minister seven years after independence in 1968. A populist, he quickly turned diamonds and the presence of SLST into a political issue, tacitly encouraging illicit mining, and becoming involved himself in criminal or near-criminal activities. In 1971, Stevens created the National Diamond Mining Company (NDMC) which effectively nationalized SLST. All important decisions were now made by the prime minister and his right hand man, a Lebanese businessman named Jamil Mohammed. From a high of over two million carats in 1970, legitimate diamond exports dropped to 595,000 carats in 1980 and then to only 48,000 in 1988. ...
From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, aspects of Lebanon's civil war were played out in miniature in Sierra Leone. Various Lebanese militia sought financial assistance from their compatriots in Sierra Leone, and the country's diamonds became an important informal tax base for one faction or the other. ... Following a failed (and probably phoney) 1987 coup attempt in Sierra Leone, Jamil went into exile, opening the way for a number of Israeli "investors" with close connections to Russian and American crime families, and with ties to the Antwerp diamond trade.
The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel war began in 1991 and soon after, Momoh was replaced by a military government - the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC). Despite the change in government, however, RUF attacks continued. From the outset of the war, Liberia acted as banker, trainer and mentor to the RUF ...
By the end of the 1990s, Liberia had become a major centre for massive diamond-related criminal activity ... In return for weapons, it provided the RUF with an outlet for diamonds, and has done the same for other diamond producing countries, fueling war and providing a safe haven for organized crime of all sorts.
The "Juniors" and Private Security Firms
President Momoh's search for new investors in the early 1990s was carried forward by the NPRC military government. With De Beers out of the picture, and with the disappointing and short-lived Israeli experience behind it, the government now began to receive overtures from small mining firms, known in the business as "juniors". Three of these juniors became heavily involved in Sierra Leone during the 1990s ... All three companies [Rex Diamond, AmCan Minerals, and DiamondWorks] trade on Canadian stock exchanges, no doubt because of Canada's reputation as a source of easy venture capital for small mining and exploration companies. ...
The juniors arrived in Sierra Leone after the formal instruments of the state - notably law, order, probity and justice - had all but disappeared. ... Lawlessness, however, was not new. The government of Sierra Leone had - from the 1950s - given up pretending that it could police the diamond areas. From the days of the SLST Diamond Protection Force, it had encouraged and even required foreign investors to make their own security arrangements. ...
There is a distinction to be made, however, between the need to hire a private security firm in order to police a mining operation, and the provision of troops and weapons in support of a faction in a civil war. Some would argue that regardless of Executive Outcome's own purpose, its involvement in Sierra Leone was in a good cause. EO successfully protected a democratically elected government against a brutal and illegitimate rebel force. And EO was certainly cheered in the streets of Freetown for its efforts. Some would also argue that the provision of weapons to the democratically elected government of Tejan Kabbah - a UN arms embargo notwithstanding - made sense and was in support of a good cause.
The problem is not the individual episodes, but the bigger picture which they help to form - of a world in which beleaguered and legitimate governments find little formal international protection against internal predators, and are forced into Faustian bargains in order to survive. ...
RECOMMENDATIONS
... taken together, the recommendations have major policy implications not only for governments and international organizations, but for civil society organizations in Sierra Leone and abroad, for private sector firms and for individual consumers. In addition to national and international dimensions, there are important regional dimensions to the diamond trade and the conflict in Sierra Leone. ...
The general thrust of the recommendations aims at improved human and economic security, a sustainable peace, and at changing the economics of the diamond trade. If smuggling can be made more difficult, and if legal mining, investing and trading can be made more attractive, the potential for change can be turned into reality.
1 Framework for the Recommendations
1.1 A Permanent Independent International Diamond Standards Commission should be created under United Nations auspices in order to establish and monitor codes of conduct on governmental and corporate responsibility in the global diamond industry. ...
1.2 In addition to the diamond-specific recommendations in this report, the development of sustainable peace in Sierra Leone will require major investment by the government of Sierra Leone and by donors in long-term basic human development and the creation of democratic institutions. ...
2 Recommendations for Action in Sierra Leone
2.1 Establishment of the rule of law and human security throughout the country is of primary and urgent importance for a return to peace, and for appropriate exploitation of the country's mineral resources. In the short- and medium-term, donor agencies, friendly governments, the UN Peacekeeping Force and ECOMOG must facilitate the disarmament and demobilization of extra-governmental forces. Force must be used in a timely fashion to halt a resurgence of conflict.
2.2 Special long-term UN security forces must be deployed in all major diamond areas.
2.3 Attention should also be given by the UN Peacekeeping force to blocking or destabilizing major smuggling routes from Sierra Leone into neighbouring countries.
2.4 Donors should actively support current British government efforts to rebuild Sierra Leone's army and police force. ...
2.5 The Government of Sierra Leone must ensure full transparency, high standards and rigorous probity in the implementation of its diamond purchasing, valuation and oversight activities. Corruption and conflicts of interest must be dealt with quickly and decisively. There is an important role to be played in this effort by Sierra Leonean civil society. ...
2.6 Systems must be developed in Sierra Leone for the payment of fair prices to legitimate small miners. ...
2.7 Effective and honest monitoring and inspection systems must be established throughout the mining and trading system. External assistance should be sought in developing these. ,,,
2.8 In creating incentives for foreign investment in larger-scale mining operations, the Government of Sierra Leone should raise its standards for investors, insisting on a minimum per annum exploration budget and/or minimum levels of market capitalization and/or assets. ...
2.9 While it is reasonable to expect mining firms to provide security within their immediate areas of operation, under no circumstances should they be provided with concessions in return for larger security or military operations, or in return for the supply of weapons.
3 De Beers
De Beers is part of the problem. In its efforts to control as much of the international diamond market as possible, it is no doubt purchasing diamonds from a wide variety of dubious sources, either wittingly or unwittingly. The breadth of its control, however, is also its major strength, and is part of the solution to the problem. 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.
3.1 As a matter or urgency, more rigorous oversight on the issue of origin must be instituted by the CSO.
3.2 Strong efforts should be made by the Government of Sierra Leone, international bodies such as the United Nations and the World Bank, and concerned governments, to persuade De Beers to return to Sierra Leone. At a minimum, De Beers should be persuaded to open a purchasing office in Freetown and should be given every incentive to do so.
3.3 Strong efforts should be made by the same international community to persuade De Beers to halt the purchase of all diamonds originating in Liberia and Ivory Coast until clear international guidelines have been developed for proving that any diamonds sold in these countries are genuinely of local origin. ...
4 Belgium
The structure of the Belgian diamond industry ... looks irresponsible, secretive and seriously under-regulated. It has a demonstrated attraction for new forms of organized crime, and is complicit in fueling African wars. ...
4.1 The Government of Belgium must take full and direct responsibility for oversight of the Belgian diamond industry. This includes taking direct responsibility for customs, valuation and statistical procedures.
4.2 The conflict of interest posed by the government's current customs-related arrangements with the HRD should be terminated.
4.3 A high-level commission of enquiry should be instituted into the Belgian diamond industry as a whole, with particular reference to its lack of transparency and questionable paper work, and its possible infiltration by organized criminal elements. ...
4.4 The HRD and/or the Government of Belgium should immediately prohibit the processing of all diamonds that are said to be of Liberian and Ivory Coast origin.
4.5 As a matter or urgency, more rigorous oversight on the issue of origin must be instituted by the HRD and the Government of Belgium.
4.6 The Government of Belgium and the HRD should, as a matter of urgency, investigate the diamond "fingerprinting" technology being developed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. ...
5 Liberia and Ivory Coast
5.1 The United Nations Security Council should place a full embargo on the purchase of any diamonds originating in, or said to originate in Liberia until a full and objective international review can be carried out of the country's legitimate resource base, and until exports fall into line with that resource base.
5.2 The United Nations Security Council should place a full embargo on the purchase of any diamonds said to originate in Ivory Coast until a full review can be carried out of the country's legitimate resource base, and until exports fall into line with that resource base. Consideration should be given to imposing the same restrictions on Guinean diamonds.
6 Canada
As "home" to a high proportion of the world's junior mining companies, Canada has a particular responsibility to ensure good corporate citizenship abroad. ...
6.1 All Canadian securities commissions should initiate discussion among their members about issues relating to corporate conduct in war zones ...
6.2 The Royal Canadian Mounted Police should be encouraged and supported in its development of diamond "fingerprinting". Efforts should be made to develop systems for adopting the technology as a matter of course in diamond producing countries and in major trading centres around the world, including the CSO and Antwerp.
7 A Consumer Campaign
Like diamonds, the Atlantic slave trade essentially served non-African markets. And like the diamond trade, the impact of slavery was devastating for many West African countries: it spawned predatory bandit groups acting like the RUF, UNITA and the NPFL, and mercenary regimes based entirely on violence and slave raiding. ... The abolition of the slave trade was significantly influenced by a consumer campaign in Britain, aimed at the products of slave labour - mainly sugar from the Caribbean. The political and commercial damage to the slave trade of such campaigns was as much responsible for abolition as the humanitarian imperative.
... Diamonds have, in fact, been a curse, not a blessing. This does not have to be the case, but concerted action on all the recommendations above will be necessary just to start making a difference. The recommendations will not be easy to implement, nor will they be cost-free. The easiest thing for the major actors - De Beers, the HRD, the Governments of Belgium and Sierra Leone, the UN Security Council - will be to do as little as possible.
One way of drawing greater attention to the urgency of the matter and of gaining broader support for change, would be a consumer campaign. ...
An effective consumer campaign could [also] inflict damage on an industry which is important to developing economies and to poor people working in the diamond industries of other countries such as Namibia, South Africa, India and Botswana. Those considering the possibility of initiating or joining a campaign, therefore, would have to consider how many lives in countries like Sierra Leone, Angola and the Congo these jobs are worth. ...
Nelson Mandela has said the same thing: "We would be concerned that an international campaign... does not damage this vital industry. Rather than boycotts being instituted, it is preferable that through our own initiatives the industry takes a progressive stance on human rights issues."
The word "boycott" does not appear in this report. Certainly a boycott could damage the industry. But the idea of a campaign is different: it is about transparency, change and urgency. Where people's lives are concerned - as they are in Sierra Leone - time is of the essence. In the absence of clear and meaningful movement within the industry and among other international actors, the point of a campaign would be to help the industry "take responsibility for its actions" - not damaging it, but improving it.
