Let Your Voice Be Heard
| Anti-Diamond Petition |
"The time has come to stop supporting tribal warfare, genocide, and acts of terror. The time has come to end the manipulation and brainwashing that the corrupt De Beers company has enacted these last eighty years. The time has come to stop buying diamonds. Completely. No diamond rings. No diamond earrings. No diamond necklaces or bracelets or watches. When we wanted to stop elephants from being poached, the world had to stop buying ivory. If we want to end the wholesale slaughter and exploitation of Africans, we must stop buying diamonds. And, we must do it now." |
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translation "What price for these diamonds?"
Sierra Leone Amputee
Young Amputee Mother
Sierra Leone girl mutilated by Revolutionary United Front rebels
Photo of a Sierra Leonean woman amputee and her children
Workmen shoveling in the yellow dirt of a diamond minePhoto Sources:
Bryant regrets Sierra Leone war
Medical Relief
Sexual violence, an 'invisible war crime'
Holiday Anti-buying Guide
Development Crossing
Mines - Troubles in Angola
Amnesty Magazine Blood Diamonds
"Diamonds are forever" it is often said. But lives are not. We must spare people the ordeal of war, mutilations and death for the sake of conflict diamonds." -- Martin Chungong Ayafor, Chairman of the Sierra Leone Panel of Experts In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, approximately 1,000 people die every day as a result of an eight-year conflict that is fueled, in part, by diamond smuggling and related weapons trafficking. More than 60 percent of the diamonds on the global market are purchased in the United States Rough diamond caches have often been used by rebel forces to finance arms purchases and other illegal activities. Neighbouring and other countries can be used as trading and transit grounds for illicit diamonds. Once diamonds are brought to market, their origin is difficult to trace and once polished, they can no longer be identified. Blood diamonds, often called conflict diamonds, are mined in war torn African countries by rebels to fund their conflict. The rebels grossly abuse human rights, often murdering and enslaving the local populations to mine the diamonds. the underground trade of illicit diamonds is booming. Conflict diamonds are valued "between 4 percent and 15 percent of the world total" and generate annual trade revenues of $7.5 billion. Some diamonds have helped fund devastating civil wars in Africa, destroying the lives of millions. Conflict diamonds are those sold in order to fund armed conflict and civil war. Profits from the trade in conflict diamonds, worth billions of dollars, were used by warlords and rebels to buy arms during the devastating wars in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sierra Leone. Wars that have cost an estimated 3.7 million lives. Last year alone, Americans spent over 12 billion dollars in diamonds for every special occasion. .How many diamonds of those 12 billion dollars was are actually legal diamonds that have not been smuggled across the borders of Sierra Leone to Liberia and then resold to billion dollar corporations? Do you think diamonds would be as precious to North American consumers if we actually told the truth behind their dazzling story? I wonder what the sale of diamonds would be and how these people would react to discover they were wearing a true symbol of death, the death of childhood, the death of families, the death of culture, and the eternal cycle of poverty. New details are emerging of links between al-Qaeda and the illicit trade in so-called "blood diamonds" bought from rebel groups in Africa. A child soldier in Sierra Leone Campaigners say diamond sales in Africa have funded civil war The vast sums of money and weapons exchanged in return for the gems have helped fuel some of the bloodiest civil wars in Africa. At the time of the 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, al-Qaeda allegedly transferred cash into high-value commodities, including diamonds. Several members of al-Qaeda's inner circle bought gems in Liberia and from Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels in Sierra Leone, according to research first published by the Washington Post The move into diamonds came as al-Qaeda's assets were frozen. But implementation of the reform programme, which includes registration of independent miners and dealers and a requirement that all uncut gems exported from the country be certified, has failed to halt UNITA's use of diamonds to finance the war. Last year the Angolan government estimated that the rebels still earned between $90 mn and $125 mn from the stones, known as "conflict diamonds." ... Overall, between $350 mn and $420 mn worth of Angolan diamonds were smuggled into neighbouring countries in 2000. That figure represents about half of Angola's yearly output and 5 per cent of annual rough diamond sales worldwide |