Are You Wearing Death? A Research Proposal For The Abolishment

The controversial artist Kanye West has always attempted to make known what he thinks, no matter if he has to be disrespectful or graphic in his illustrations of said topic. So it wasn't a real surprise when he chose to focus his energy into reveling to the American public horrors happening that had a direct connection with the beloved diamond stone. West's 2005 music video “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” shows the corrupted underground diamond trade in the African country, Sierra Leone. From this groundbreaking video, West showed the devastated lives those who worked on the mining rivers live. However upon further investigation into the issue of diamond workers in Sierra Leone there emerged the true source of the situation, a violent

Have they ever posed the question; where is all of this coming from? It begins in the Republic of Congo, where the mineral coltan is quarried. Coltan, used commonly in smart phones and computers, is in high demand, demand so high, it can lead to the death of hundreds of citizens that are being forced to mine it. As the CBC news article “Coltan; A New Blood Mineral” apprises its reader, numerous more community’s lives will be permanently altered by the mining of coltan. “Potential mines are also being explored in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greenland, Mozambique, the United States, Finland, Afghanistan, Venezuela and Colombia.” (CBC) it is claimed. This can only mean countless more residents may be forced out of their homes, or to work in atrocious, inhumane conditions mining for the North American obsession. Though Sylvie, from Blue Gold, is a fictional character, the conflicts that she faces on an unvarying basis are a reality for innumerable African people at any given moment. However, with the nickname ‘blood mineral’, it is insinuated that coltan is the culprit, though this is not the case. As Sylvie bluntly puts it, “‘Coltan is just a rock. [...] It’s the fighters who hurt people” (Stewart 163), something the people in the Congo may forget. It is the simple truth that coltan mining is inevitable. The

When one is on the other side of the earth, there is only so much information that a person could obtain. This was a great enough reason for the author, Greg Campbell, of "Blood Diamonds" to expose what all eyes are not seeing and what many are blind to in this world. Campbell went out to research the tracks and origins of a very valuable stone known as the diamond. In doing so, he urges to research the origins and life of this precious rock. He goes about researching just exactly how the life of the diamond begins in the jungles of Sierra Leone and ends up in the London on its market. This is what could be said to be the ultimate reason for this book "Blood Diamond”. Evidently, Campbell wanted to expose or let it be known how African

This essay will have info based off the story the article Blood Diamonds written by Greg Campbell. I will be giving a brief summary of

Blood diamond are “diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council”. Blood Diamond is a story about the precious gem acquired through blood and sufferings of common people. How much blood is spilt for each pieces of this luxury, how many tears dried into the very ground it is gathered from. Except from the people that are involved in the whole process of stealing or smuggling a nation’s natural wealth. Sierra Leone, where the storyline takes place, gets nothing. Its people are suffering through extreme poverty, hunger, illiteracy and diseases. Adding insult to injury, there is a fast emerging brutal terrorist group called RUF, destroying the system, collapsing government, killing innocents and taking children as soldiers. Making sure the country never progress and prosper or never grow the backbone to stand on its feet ever to use the valuable diamonds it holds on the ground. For example, when the illegal and unethical blood diamond trade was brought to light, it was ignored by the most potentially influential global players because of economic interest. What resulted was that the situation snowballed over the duration that it has occurred over and when the issue finally came to a head

The film marker is trying to raise awareness of the illicit conflict diamond trade and reinforcing the Kimberley process1 and showing how it will stem the flow of conflict diamonds. This is successful mainly due to the public outburst after the movie. The great impact of the movie has caused diamond

I was quite turned off from Group B’s argument on these bases and their thematic approach which suggested that gold, a material good, was more precious and valuable than actual people and their sacred cultural practices. While I understand that this case study is comprised of fictitious issues based in a made up country, the knowledge of the human rights issues fixed around blood diamonds I acquired from our pre-class reading and quiz helped me to take a real world stance on people verses government in the case of natural resources. Prior to the Jacqueline Soloway reading and our class discussion, I was only vaguely aware of the political and economic conversations surrounding the mining of war diamonds. For quite some time I had known that a surplus of diamonds were harvested from the overworked hands of children and impoverished peoples, unfortunately I had no exposure to multiple government’s complacent or supportive roles in having people to mine for diamonds in unsafe, war torn territories. In my daily life I advocate for fair trade, therefore I would never knowingly perpetuate the atrocities of blood diamond mining by purchasing products that result from such human rights violations; because of this I practically knew my decision before I entered the lecture hall and either group presented. I did, however, want to hear both groups out in class and make the decision I felt

Blood Diamond or Conflict Diamond another term used to describe the illegal trade of diamond in Africa. The Blood Diamond is been used to finance conflicts, wars and humans rights violations.

Not only does this issue involve the politics of the diamond trade and the involvement of outside parties, but it is also a devastatingly serious human rights violation to the civilians of Angola. “There is an average of 52 land mine incidents per month and approximately 1 out of every 356 Angolans is an amputee as a result of these bloody conquests”[4]. It was determined in a United Nations Security Council meeting that “there are clear and major weaknesses in systems for controlling diamond trading, which no single country can address effectively because of the many alternative routes available to illicit diamond traders”[5]. Therefore, in order to combat the civil fighting between UNITA and the MPLA, we must educate ourselves about UNITA’s diamond trade, prohibit the sale of blood diamonds, and achieve a commitment from diamond dealers that their diamonds originate from conflict-free mines.

The Sierra blood diamonds were rather known as the war diamonds because they were mined in a war zone to help finance invading armies and warlord activity. War diamonds have bad consequences for trying to trade them in certain areas because of where they come from. Ivory Coast had started a http://www.ijmonitor.org/2015/09/american-arrested-for-enslavement-and-pillage-of-sierra-leone-blood-diamonds/diamond mining company in the 1990s and they got overthrew in 1999 starting a civil war. The country became a place for exporting diamonds from Liberia and Sierra Leone. Even though the UN Security Council banned all diamonds to be shipped to and from the Ivory Coast, diamond trade still exists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_diamond

People say diamonds are a girl’s best friend. A friend that makes you happy and proud to have- but can you really trust them? What if you little “friend” on your dainty little finger not only cost a ridiculous amount of money but also cost the lives of innocent people? That would really make you reconsider buying a diamond and make you reconsider whom you trust. See, you really have to be careful where your sparkly, little gem comes from. Do you have any idea what it took just to make it to North America? Well, chances are 1000’s of children were killed or captured, people were torn away from their families and over 2.2 billion dollars were used just to smuggle those diamonds into developed countries.

The process of producing the diamonds so they could be sold on the market involved many steps which were illustrated in the movie, Blood Diamond. Smugglers like Archer would supply the RUF with guns. The guns would be used by the RUF to intimidate the people of Sierra Leone into working as laborers for them; we see this with Solomon and his son. These men would be forced to dig in the water mines for hours a day searching for diamonds of all sizes. Then the diamonds are mixed with other diamonds all around the world, mixing the illegal ones with the legal ones; this was explained in the movie by Archer to Maggie. When the diamonds are mixed in with the others, no one can determine for certainty where each originated from. The export of the diamonds relies on how well Sierra Leone’s resources are to produce it and its resources are the laborers mining for the diamonds. More diamonds are exported out of the country when there are more laborers mining for them. It is then distributed to nations where they are made into necklaces and bracelets, and no questions are asked.

Wexler goes on to even say that blood diamonds are an African resource curse due to this (1717). The diamonds are the source of conflict while Falls and Rapaport show that companies and consumerism is the stimulant to the ongoing conflicts. Rapaport pleads to the audience to put an end to the consumerism because “every time we buy or sell a blood diamond, we are sending a message of encouragement to the perpetrators of these inhumane crimes” (4). Though authors such as Rapaport tell us about the rape and murder occurring and Mullins and Rothe tell us about the acts of genocide occurring, there has been no cases of public outcry in other countries and this is because of large retail companies as Falls conveys. The large retail companies advertise these diamonds as precious, rare and clean gems, but throughout Falls’ article this is disproven, yet these companies’ sly advertisement schemes keep them far away from any connection to blood

One pattern of the global diamond trade is the organisational structure, consisting of locational, economic and political patterns.

The process of producing the diamonds so they could be sold on the market involved many steps which were illustrated in the movie, Blood Diamond. Smugglers like Archer would supply the RUF with guns. The guns would be used by the RUF to intimidate the people of Sierra Leone into working as laborers for them, we see this with Solomon and his son. These men would be forced to dig in the water mines for hours a day searching for diamonds of all sizes. Then the diamonds are mixed with other diamonds all around the world, mixing the illegal ones with the legal ones; this was explained in the movie by Archer to Maggie. When the diamonds are mixed in with the others, no one can determine for certainty where each originated from. It is then distributed to nations where they are made into necklaces and bracelets, and no questions are asked.