What are blood diamonds?
Blood diamonds get their name from the fact that their proceeds are used to purchase new weapons in African countries where civil war is raging. Sierra Leone , the Democratic Republic of Congo , Zimbabwe and Angola are particularly affected by this problem. There, the rebel forces and the corrupt heads of government are waging war over the diamond deposits.
Examples of rebel troops who are trying to seize control of the diamonds by all means are the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) in Sierra Leone and UNITA in Angola. It is not uncommon for these armed companies to train child soldiers who murder on their behalf. It is poor sections of the population, often children, who have to mine the blood diamonds under harsh conditions.
They often fall victim to violent conflicts between rebels and government forces.
This situation has existed in Africa for decades.
The danger of dealing with blood diamonds is that they are resold from the crisis areas to other African states where there is no civil war, and only then enter the international trade. For example, it is noticeable that Lebanon exports many more diamonds than there are deposits in the country. These are probably blood diamonds from the conflict zones. The same applies to Uganda and Rwanda.
A rejection of blood diamonds: the Kimberley Process
When the problem of blood diamonds came to public attention towards the end of the 1990s, initial attempts were made to combat this trade and ban conflict diamonds from the market. Initial steps were taken in 2000; a meeting was held in Kimberley, South Africa, to seek solutions to the difficulties in combating conflict diamonds. In July of that year, the World Diamond Congress was held in Antwerp, where it was agreed not to admit sellers who could not provide precise information about the provenance of their diamonds and who were suspected of being blood diamonds.
In 2003, the Kimberley Process was launched, introducing the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) , a method for tracing the origin of diamonds. Today, in addition to the European Union, 48 other countries are members of the Kimberley Process, bringing the total to 75 countries.
The rules and regulations introduced by the Kimberley Process to combat blood diamonds are very strict in order to be able to be absolutely sure about the origin of the diamonds.
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