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Thomas Hancock
Ms. Gardner
English 2
4 April 2014
Diamonds are Forever: But are they as Pure as they are Thought to Be?
In 2012, billion of dollars worth of diamonds were sold around the world. They are
bought as examples of social class, elite status, and hard work, but nobody stops to consider
what troubled past the diamonds may have. Diamonds in contemporary society are symbolized
as being the shining examples of purity, beauty and love. This is why they are often used on
wedding rings. Not all diamonds are as pure as they look, however, some are tainted with the
blood and suffering of the oppressed. Such stones are known as conflict or blood diamonds,
and are illegally mined by beleaguered miners with the purpose of funding terrorist or
insurgency operations in third world countries. The mining of these diamonds funds the killing of
thousands of innocent people, and in order to mine these diamonds, people are enslaved by the
insurgents and made to work non-stop in inhumane conditions, where brutality and cruelty reign
supreme. In order to keep their valuable customers, the diamond industry has collaborated with
countries around the world to institute the Kimberly Process, a law that requires that diamonds
imported into participating countries must be certified as being blood free, and that if illegal
diamonds are discovered, that they be seized. This process, however, has a very limited range
of effects. The Kimberly Process does nothing to help the thousands of people slaving to mine
the conflict diamonds, and can be easily sidestepped by any determined criminal. Therefore, it
is clear that more radical measures ought to be emplaced to make the sale of conflict more
challenging for insurgents and terrorists. Specifically, the United Nations should institute a ban
on the export of diamonds from countries with civil wars because the diamonds are used to fuel
the conflicts, the diamonds are mined through the inhumane treatment of the oppressed, and
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because the Kimberly Process is an ineffective barrier against the import of conflict diamonds
around the world.
Not all people agree. Nicole Itano, a writer for the Christian Science Monitor, argues that
most of the African wars fueled by diamonds are over or drawing to an end(Itano). To those
opposed to more radical measures against blood diamonds, this means that the sale of conflict
diamonds is being slowed by the Kimberly Process, which proves the processs worth and
effectiveness. Furthermore, there is doubt amongst writers such as Petina Gappah, a writer for
The Guardian, as to whether or not the issue of conflict diamonds needs to be investigated .
Take the country of Zimbabwe as an example. According to Gappah, It is simply wrong to that
Zimbabwes [a major source of the worlds conflict diamonds] diamonds come within the
Kimberly definition of conflict diamonds(Gappah). According to this view, the very existence of
conflict diamonds in some countries is questionable, so therefore more drastic actions do not
need to be taken against the export of conflict diamonds. Essentially, supporters of the Kimberly
Process state that the diamond industrys safeguards against conflict diamonds are sufficient to
ensure that their diamonds are blood free. There argument is based on a small amount of truth,
but not enough truth to overturn the need for a ban. Admittedly, the Kimberly Process has had
some success in ending wars and preventing the import of conflict diamonds, but the problem
needs to be attacked at its roots by banning the export of diamonds from warring countries
because their mining involves severe abuses of human rights.
While the supporters of the Kimberly Process are right in that the safeguards put in place
by the diamond industry have had some success, these sanctions are not completely effective
at eliminating the civil wars in countries where the diamonds are mined. For instance, the
means through which insurgent operations acquire the mines are violent and cruel. According to
Tom Zoellner, a writer for the Washington Post, this sequence of events can best be seen in the
country of Zimbabwe, where soldiers of the countrys oppressive government massacred at
least 200 independent miners, then set up shop with conscripted laborers, including
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children(Zoellner). People must stop and consider that if the means of acquiring the diamond
mines is violent and dangerous in of itself, then the conflicts the diamonds fuel must be much
worse. And they are. Tosin Sulaiman, a writer for the KRT News Service, states in his article
'Blood' Diamond Trade Curbed in U.S. by New Certification System, that anti-government
groups in Sierra Leone, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have used mined
stones to pay for conflicts that killed 3.7 million people(Sulaiman). Based on these statistics, it
can be proved that conflict diamonds mined in warring countries are used to fund the killing and
oppression of millions of people. When people see information such as this, they must ask
themselves why are they not taking more action against such movements to prevent the
suffering of millions of people when the diamonds are being used for such foul purposes.
Conflict diamonds are not just terrible because of the conflicts that they help fund.
Alongside the threat that mining conflict diamonds presents to normal people, the threat is
worse for the miners who are forced into working harsh and inhumane conditions, and whose
human rights are severely abused. Sam Gregory, a writer for In These Times, says that Miners
were beaten and sometimes killed(Gregory). Furthermore Celean Jacobson, a writer for Desert
News, states that Zimbabwe's armed forces have taken over diamond fields in the east and
killed more than 200 people, forcing children to search for the gems and beating villagers who
get in the way(Jacobson). Clearly, this flagrant violation of human rights is not being stopped by
current measures, so more drastic methods of preventing the export of blood diamonds must
be implemented.
The most important facet of this issue is that the current measure against the import of
blood diamonds is not sufficient to stop it. A ban on export of diamonds from warring countries
must be instituted because the current barrier, the Kimberly Process, is ineffective in stopping
the flow of blood diamonds. David Blair, in an article for the Daily Telegraph, said that the
country of Zimbabwe exported 353 million pounds worth of diamonds, yet only the location of
twenty-six million pounds of that amount is known. The rest most likely went to funding of illegal
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and anti-government operations. Another weakness of the Kimberly Process, according to
Zoellner, is that it does not have a true definition of conflict , meaning that it has ignored multiple
outbreaks of violence and looting in African diamond fields because there was no war in the
official sense of the word. This inadequacy shows that there are loopholes in the Kimberly
Process that are being exploited to ship conflict diamonds all over the world. Most notably, the
diamonds are moved across the border and then given a false ID for the country of origin. As a
result, a ban must be instituted and enforced so that these loopholes cannot be exploited, and
so that the diamonds do not leave the country.
Because conflict diamonds fund wars that kill millions of people, are the product of pain
and suffering, and are not sufficiently stopped by current safeguards, a ban must be instituted
by the United Nations. Diamonds in our culture are believed to be the ultimate symbol of love,
purity, and beauty. A ban on the export of blood diamonds would ensure that the diamond on a
brides wedding ring would not be tainted by the blood of innocents. In the mines, children have
limbs removed if they take diamonds to pay for food for their families, in order to stop these
atrocities, the export of these diamonds must be banned, to protect the lives of millions of
innocent people.










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Works Cited
Blair, David. "Britain Lets Mugabe Sell Diamonds to Europe." Daily Telegraph. 19 Sep. 2013: 18. SIRS
Issues Researcher. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.

Gappah, Petina. "Some Say Zimbabwe's Diamonds Are Drenched in Blood: They Are Wrong." The Guardian
(London, England). 20 Jul. 2010: 25. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.
Gregory, Sam. "Blood Stains Zimbabwe Diamonds." In These Times. Oct. 2010: 36. SIRS Issues
Itano, Nicole. "Diamond Trade Cleans Up." Christian Science Monitor. 16 Jul. 2004: n.p. SIRS Issues
Researcher. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.

Jacobson, Celean. "Abuse in Zimbabwe Diamond Fields?." Deseret News. 27 Jun. 2009: A. 4. SIRS Issues
Researcher. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.
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Sulaiman, Tosin. "'Blood' Diamond Trade Curbed in U.S. by New Certification System." KRT News Service.
08 May. 2003: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.

Zoellner, Tom. "5 Myths About Diamonds." Washington Post. 04 Jul. 2010: B.3. SIRS Issues Researcher.
Web. 17 Apr. 2014.