In the early 90’s a civil war was started in Africa over poverty, the living conditions were horrible, people living without shelter, food, or running water. The government fought with rebels over resourceful land around the country. Young kids know taller then the guns they were carrying were recruited beyond their will and forced fight or die. Diamonds fueled the war; they were traded for guns and drugs. Millions of people had been maimed, raped, killed, or displaced. One of the most popular areas that held this resource was Kono, the diamond region of Sierra Leone. The fight was very prominent in a little town called Koidu, for control of the area’s mines. The term blood diamond comes from the millions who have died and suffered by the hands of controlling powers, now days they have adjusted the name to conflict diamonds essentially making it a safe term that know one can get jammed up using. Most of the people who work these mines never get to see the diamond as a finished product. The working wage now is about one to two dollars a day, earning a bonus when the diamonds are found but during the war they were enslaved and forced to work. During the civil war women were kidnapped and raped continuously, girls as young as 10, after the war they received counseling and job training to assist them reintegrated into society. Both rebels and government forces amputated civilians as a means of terrorizing the population. The Africans that didn’t convert to one side were seen as spies and killed. In the United States our soldiers train for years before getting deployed into battle, the youth being recruited in Africa were taught how to use an AK 47 in the span of a week and sent into war. One of the tactics used was drugs like cocaine also what Africans called “brown brown” (cocaine and gun powder mixed) to suppress their feelings and keep them wired for weeks on in. In the early 1970’s one company exploited the land of Sierra Leone and monopolized it. With a limit to capacity, not a lot of people were employed; clearly it was just about the money. Even though a 70 percent tax was paid to the Sierra Leone government, millions were still being profited. By 2006 there was still only one industrial diamond mind in Sierra Leone called Kiodu Holdings, which is a commercial organization that employs up to 450 citizens. During this time 10 percent of the profits went back into the community and 5 percent of royalties went to the government. Being that the world diamond industries had to account for these blood diamonds, the nations came together to create what is known as the Kimberley Process, which is suppose to control the diamond trade in a legitimate legal fashion. But knowing that even after the civil war was declared over in April of 2001 people are still fighting and being killed over these diamonds, the diamonds are also being smuggled to neighboring countries. The inequality is enormous within the globalization of this trade. They wont even let African hands physically touch the diamonds they are working to find, these small kids get the poorest of conditions while executives sit back and reap all the benefits. Using slave labor to retrieve the resource, smuggle it out to other countries to be cut and cleaned who are using child slave labor as well, and then selling it to companies making it a billion dollar industry. Before the war was over young soldiers were sent to a city called Freetown (freedom town) to be rehabilitated. They called this place freedom town because it is were slaves were bought and sold then shipped off to other countries, when they were freed they would bring them back to this town and release them, deemed the name freedom town. This is one of the worst parts of the poor country (kroobay). The diamond trade still brings destruction and suffering to this community of people and will continue to happen as long as there is a market for diamonds.
www.history.com/content/blooddiamonds
