Blood Diamonds

Blood Diamonds

What defines slavery? Is it the rich using other people to help around the house or farm? Is it the use of another individual at your own expense? What I think it may be is the use of another human being for the gain or advantage of another person. In the case of blood diamonds, people are used to dig for diamonds and are treated worse than slaves. They get do not get food, water, nor breaks. They are only used to dig for diamonds at the expense of the people who ripped them from their homes and forced them to be diamond diggers or the penalty is death. Even today, after all the repercussions that are handed out, the diamond market in South Africa is still against the people who are the backbone to the operations.

Conflict Diamonds or Blood Diamonds are diamonds that originate from areas controlled by refugees or military operations that uses people as slaves or very under-paid people used to dig for the diamonds in what are known as “hot zones”. These people work all day and night they dig through water and dirt looking for diamonds. The diamonds are then cleaned and sold to people around the world. Conflict free diamonds are diamonds that are not used to profit wars and are mined under the correct circumstances. Only certified diamonds can be traced back to the area of mining to the consumer. These types of diamonds are called conflict free diamonds. Conflict Diamonds are still being sold internationally as certified diamonds. There is only one way to clearly tell if a diamond is either a Conflict Diamond or a Conflict free diamond. All the diamond has to have is a very strong �Certificate of Origin’. The diamonds are used for the funding of either anti-military or military units both with the idea to take out each other. Usually these are used for civil war funding. The countries and groups involved in these atrocious actions are Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote D’lvoire, The Democratic Republic of Conga, and The Republic of Conga. “Diamonds are forever, but lives are not.” (Amato)

Conflict Diamonds are being bought because they are a cheap alternative to Certified Diamonds. The people and companies that were and are buying these diamonds are certain companies that want to get ahead in the diamond industry. Also the owners of these companies only want to make more money, with no regards to who they hurt in the process. They are being brought from people who work for these military or anti-military groups. The people who drive these men, women and children are cold and heartless. They will beat, spit on, whip, or kill people if they do not work correctly. The sales of these diamonds are funding these groups in many ways. The most controversial funding goes to the purchases of guns, ammunition, and buying more people for the army or even other armies. The sales of these smuggled diamonds and our envy and over reaction to what they mean in our everyday life has helped this disgusting industry into making one hundred twenty five million dollars a year. This helps the enraging civil wars to continue.

There are many things currently being done at this moment. The Security Council has already taken many steps forward to prevent the sales of these diamonds. It is illegal to buy diamonds from the countries of Sierra Leone and Angola. The first major step to putting this to an end came in 1998. This was the year that the United Nations put a ban on buying diamonds from Angola. This was the first document to specify and use the exact word diamond in it. This reduced the amount of conflict diamonds being sold dramatically from 20% in 1998 to 3.06% in 1999 and once again down to less then 1% in 2004. The second step came on July 5, 2000. The Untied Nations put a ban on the direct or indirect import of Conflict Diamonds from Sierra Leone that was not through the Sierra Leone government that did not have a Certificate of Origin. The first United Nations discussion took place shortly after. On August 31 and July 1 of the year 2000, Chairmen of the Security Council Committee held discussions on the subject of Conflict Diamonds. In attendance were the