The Diamond And Conflict Diamond

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and the recent 2006 film Blood Diamond both depict how it was living in Sierra Leone, Africa during the Civil War in the ‘90’s. While A Long Way Gone focuses on child soldiers and what they had to live and go through for many years, Blood Diamond focuses mainly on how the country is torn apart by the struggle between government soldiers and rebel forces. The film portrays many of the atrocities of that war, including the rebels' amputation of people's hands to stop them from voting in upcoming elections. Both the movie and the book try to tackle major issues by asking the questions: how

A brief historical account of Sierra Leone may provide only a glimmer as to why the Sierra

¹A cilvic war of corruption have turned apart the relationships of Sierra Leone and the trust among its people, its travesty esstitally have destroy once peaceful community. Prior to the cilvic war, the people of Sierra Leoner have shared an intimate relationship with each other, they were a tight communities, until the war took away their lives, forcefully turning the family against each other.

Other areas of Africa such as, Sierra Leone, have been involved in human rights violations since 1991 when the civil war erupted. According to Human Rights Watch, over 50,000 people have been killed to date, with over one million people having been displaced (afrol.com). This also stems from rebel groups such as RUF, Revoluntionary United Front, stating that the various governments are dishonest and do not manage the diamond and minerals in the country like they should.

The nation has experienced economic collapse and the government reaches rock bottom (www.economist.com). Due to this, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) adjudicate to take matters into their own hands. RUF gains control over most of the territory leaving destruction and terror in their wake. As mentioned above, the economic collapse is a factor to the start of the domestic warfare. However, there are many other roots to the conflict. Sierra Leone is known for being rich diamonds. Nevertheless, the people of Sierra Leone do not benefit from the treasure. In fact, the government has benefitted from the profit and shared the gains with business crème de la crème that is close to them (www.sierraleonecivilwar.com). For this reason, the state of economics declined thus causing low pay rate of teachers and downfall

Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, stated in a conference, “I was one of those children forced into fighting at the age of 13, in my country Sierra Leone, a war that claimed the lives of my mother, father and two brothers. I know too well the emotional, psychological and physical burden that comes with being exposed to violence as a child or at any age for that matter,” (Brainy Quotes). He grew up during the civil war in 1991, when the Revolutionary United Front (R.U.F.) attempted to overthrow the government. The R.U.F. took control of eastern and southern Sierra Leone territories that were rich in diamonds. In order to purchase weapons and ammunitions, the R.U.F. would enslave villages and use the citizens

The Sierra Leone Civil War began in 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) began an uprising against the Sierra Leone government, citing long-term corruption and crimes as their major reason for overthrowing the government. There was also conflicting in neighboring Liberia that started in 1989 and is thought to have triggering turmoil in Sierra Leone as it stretched over its borders. Much of the fighting caused by the RUF was funded and perpetuated by the prosperous diamond mines, later to be called Blood Diamonds because of the destruction they caused, located in the southeastern part of the country. By 1999, the United Nations sent a mission to Sierra Leone to end the “Blood Diamonds” conflict by disarming soldiers and building

The De Beers Group of Companies established itself in the diamond industry in the late 1800’s and it was only a matter of time until De Beers owned virtually every diamond mine in South Africa. Diamond distributors joined up with De Beers because of similar interests: they wanted to create a scarcity of diamonds, so that high prices would follow. Eventually, De Beers would establish exclusive contracts with suppliers and buyers, making it impossible to deal with diamonds outside of De Beers. For the remainder of the 20th century, the business model was the same: A subsidiary of De Beers would buy the diamonds and De Beers would determine the amount of diamonds they wanted to sell, and at what prices. In turn, De Beers funneled all of the

Sierra Leone’s modern history is one that is full of issues which were prevalent throughout the latter part of the 20th century. This small country has struggled to maintain a proper footing. Unfortunately, it took multiple coups and a violent civil war for Sierra Leone to reach a somewhat stable state socially. These issues may be largely due to the country’s strange origins. This essay will be discussing some of the events that lead up to the brutal civil war and the war itself.

Sierra Leone, a country that lies on the west coast of Africa, faced a gruesome war that occurred from 1991 to 2002. The civil war generated consequences that the people of Sierra Leone and its economy are paying for. Sierra Leone’s economic development and progress after the post-civil war became an interest to me because Sierra Leone is where my family originated from. I personally can relate to the war and the consequences it brought upon my family because I was born outside of Sierra Leone during the time of the civil war. The civil war that transpired resulted in the displacement and relocation of my family. As a result, we were relocated to the United States in 2001. Because of my personal interest in the Sierra Leone conflict, I would like to investigate the aftermath of the war on the economy and the people.

(United Nations 1). Early in 1992, the R.U.F seized Kono, the diamond mining capital of Sierra Leone, because of the amount of profit in the diamond mining industry in Africa, and initiated a diamond conflict between some diamond mining nations in Africa, thus starting (Gerund) the “War over Conflict Diamonds”. In an attempt to put (Infinitive) a halt to this uprising, the National Provisional Ruling Council (N.P.R.C) waged war with the R.U.F., creating “Operation Genesis” to force out the R.U.F. (Brown 1). However, this did not succeed, causing an attack by the R.U.F. on Sierra Leoneans. To intimidate voters and keep control on the diamond mines, the R.U.F “chopped off the hands and feet of adults, teens, and infants.” (Brown 1). Despite this vicious onslaught, the R.U.F. was still allowed to participate (Infinitive) in the elections. (Brown 1). This remains the biggest reason that we must put an end to these rebel groups and the pain they cause to African families.

In early 1991 Sierra Leone had an outbreak of civil war was economically and politically on the edge of collapsing due to the twenty four years of exploitation and misrule under Siaka Stevens and Joseph Saidu Momoh who was his chosen successor, and had left the country heavily dependent on foreign aid and loans. The state was divided between the client of the All People’s Party regime, a growing number of a bitter political and business rivals, mismanagement and corruption.

African tribal war over nothing is more common than war over diamonds. Diamonds are a commodity. African nations benefit much from the diamond industry. It is true that "blood diamonds" did originate from Africa, but ever since the Kimberly Process was implemented blood diamonds from Africa have significantly decreased.

De Beers advertising and pricing DeBeers is considered one of the most powerful mining in the world and not because of their top quality products but because monopolistic values. The DeBeers corporation has been called ‘The most unethical corporation in the world’ by the St Antoninus Institute because of all the unethical issues that have been linked to DeBeers. DeBeers defies all standards of business standards conduct on a grand scale, in particular to the pricing of their diamonds and use of their advertising media. Diamonds were a very rare commodity and therefore were a very expensive commodity but with the discovery of diamonds in other Southern African countries such as Botswana, it threatened to lower the price of diamonds and thus

3. Description of the IMF Project to Help Africa Crack Down on Illicit Diamond Trade