The Diamond Miners - Child Soldiers

      

                                        This photo is of young child soldiers in Africa.

          The most shocking thing I discovered upon researching the diamond industry was the use of child soldiers in the numerous civil wars that diamonds funded.

          Children were taken from their families, brainwashed, and turned into killing machines. They were taught to abuse, rape, or kill anyone one who got in the way of their leader's wishes.

         Numerous rapes, tortures, murders, and amputations were committed by the Small Boys Unit of the RUF in Sierra Leone.

         Girls and boys were taken at young ages and taught how to use AK-47s,  sub machine guns, and pistols. The children were taught to cut out a person’s liver and eat it, how to cut a man’s hand off to show dominance, to rub hot peppers in the eyes of a victim. In the article that I am using as the source for this blog, journalist John Sweeney speaks to three nine-year-old child soldiers, who describe to him how they have seen other children cut open a pregnant woman’s belly and burn it with machetes to see the gender of the baby.

Conflict Diamonds In Angola

I have focused a great portion of my blog on blood diamonds of Sierra Leone. However, I must discuss other countries that have been devastated by the diamond industry.

          Angola (The Republic of Angola) is a a country located in South-Central Africa, and is one of the least developed countries in the world. 70% of the population lives in extreme poverty.  A civil war erupted in Angola from 1974 to 2001. Between 1992-1998, UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) sold diamonds to the value of $3.72 billion to fund their war against their government.

The Reality of Diamonds

"Nothing says 'I love you' like a superfiicial and overvalued rock clawed from the guts of the earth by African slave labour."

De Beers - Diamond Monopoly

          De Beers is a family of companies that dominate all aspects of the diamond industry. Mining of De Beers’ diamonds take place in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Canada.
          De Beers is well known for its monopolistic practices throughout the 20^th century, using its dominant position to manipulate the international diamond market. De beers convinced independent producers to join its single channel monopoly, flooded the market with diamonds similar to those produced by companies who refused to join the cartel,  and purchased and stock piled diamonds from other manufacturers in order to control prices through supply.

LEGAL ISSUES – From 2001 onwards lawsuits were filed against De Beers in US and international court rooms. The lawsuits claimed that De Beers unlawfully monopolizes the diamond industry so that they can fix prices and keep them high. De Beers never admitted to violating the law, but did agree to a settlement of $295 million due to many other civil suits against them. They agreed that people who had bought their diamonds after a certain date could be compensated.

In 1999, due to the creation of the Kimberly Process, De Beers decided to stop all outside buying of diamonds to guarantee that De Beers could be called a conflict-free company.

De Beers claims that 100% of its diamonds are now conflict free and are purchased within compliance of law.

What Is Being Done? - The Kimberly Process

          The Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (Kimberly Process or KP) is the international initiative to track the origin of rough diamonds and to prevent the trade in diamonds that fund war and conflict. The KP was launched in 2003, and requires that governments confirm that the shipment of rough diamonds are conflict free.
          As of 2010 there are 75 governments participating in the KP, and these countries must only trade rough diamonds amongst each other.  Participating countries must enact domestic legislation to implement the scheme.
          The Kimberly Process has helped improve the diamond trade is some countries worse hit by conflict diamond production. However, they have yet to improve the industry in places like Venezuela and Cote d’Ivoire. Despite the KP, diamonds are still funding and fuelling violence and conflict in these countries.
        The Kimberly Process began in 1998 when Global Witness launched a campaign to expose the roll of diamonds in funding conflict. The major diamond trading and producing countries felt pressure from this and other NGOs, and met in Kimberly, South Africa to discuss how to tackle this problem. This meeting was the start of a three year negotiation which resulted in the creation of this international diamond certification scheme. The KP was endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly, and the United Nations Security council.

Conclusion of the Civil War in Sierra Leone

Within the first year of the war, the RUF had already taken over a substantial amount of Sierra Leone’s territory. The RUF’s main goal was to overthrow the Momoh regime (Joseph Saidu Momoh was the President of Sierra Leone from November, 1985 to April 29, 1992), and to end economic exploitation. They planned to do this by disrupting the activities that funded the government, to undermine the military of Sierra Leone, and to gain international sympathy.

          The Sierra Leone Army (SLA) was brutal and violent in their attempt to separate the civilians from the RUF rebels. They would often take civilians away from their homes if they suspected them to be RUF, and robbed and abused them.  They came to the conclusion that it would be easier to simply team up with the RUF to gain power and money. This caused much of the population to have extremely low morale, and to join the rebel forces. This gained the SLA the nickname of “sobels” soldiers by day, rebels by night.
 
         Within a year, the Momoh regime was overthrown. In March of 1993, with help from ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group) troops, the SLA recaptured two districts in Sierra Leone, and pushed the RUF to the Sierra Leone – Liberia border. In 1995, Executive Outcomes (EO) was paid to force the RUF deep into Liberia. They were successful, and the RUF admitted defeat and signed the Abidjan Peace Accord, in Abidjin, C’ote d’Ivoire on November 30 1996. The war officially ended on January 18 2001, when the newly elected President announced it was so. Around 50 000 people were killed, and over half the population was displaced.

The Diamond Industry in Popular Culture

"We work in the diamond rivers from sunrise to sunset under the watchful eyes of soldiers everyday we fear for our lives. Some of us were enslaved by rebels, and forced to kill our own familes for diamonds. We are the children of the blood diamonds"
"Diamonds of Sierra Leone" is an academy award winning song by rapper Kanye West. The video focuses on the struggles of children in Sierra Leone in the Diamond trade. It also expolores how ignorant we can be to the process which diamonds go through to get to our country.

The second video I have posted is the trailer for the 2006 film "Blood Diamond", starring Leonardo Dicaprio.  The film is set during the Sierra Leone civil war in 1996-1999, and gives us a fairly accurate portrayal of life in the diamond mines and the abuse of its workers, and the brainwashing of the soldiers and children by the RUF.