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Blood Diamond

In: Film and Music

Submitted By cialvino
Words 436
Pages 2
May 4, 2010
How do conflict diamonds fuel the conflict in regions they come from?
From my impression of the films Blood Diamond and Lord of War, the illegal act of trading arms for diamonds seems like business as usual. It’s not until you look at, where the diamonds come from, how they are mined and who controls/owns the gems, that you begin to understand why these precious stones are called “Blood Diamonds”. Most diamonds on the market come from expensive mining operations run by large corporations, who drill into large bodies of volcanic rock containing diamond deposits, known as kimberlites. Sources like these are not easily accessible to anyone and in the case of Africa, “conflict diamonds come primarily from places where rivers have washed over kimberlites and spread their wealth down river in thick deposits of mud and gravel”. (stemming the flow) In west Africa, there are many well known regions which contain some of the world’s largest diamond deposits.

INTRODUCTION
The link between diamonds and armed conflict in Sierra Leone is obvious, and has been exposed, investigated, and deplored by humanitarians, journalists, politicians, and diamond industry leaders. Less obvious are the complex, entrenched relationships between exploitative systems of financial intermediation and resource management, poverty, and the spectacular, mysterious wealth of the diamond trade. Diamonds have facilitated, not caused, and armed conflict. Pre-war economic and social injustice, which developed during the war into the illegal, and finally criminal, behavior common of the diamond traffic, must be addressed as a complex development problem. To ignore it is to perpetuate the conditions that gave rise to the war, and invite its resurgence.
2. SUMMARY
The Problem
In 1999, Sierra Leone's official diamond exports were slightly less than $1.5 million, compared to an

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