The Problem with Conflict Diamonds

Competition for desirous goods can wreck havoc on a developing society. Numerous African nations have suffered due to their abundances of diamonds especially since Western colonization. The West’s desire for these priceless gems has created chaos among African governments, rebel groups, and Western jewelers. Today, those diamonds that have been unjustly mined and sold to fund violent conflicts have been marked as “conflict diamonds.” These conflict diamonds have funded civil wars, killed millions of people, and left regions completely impoverished.

 For the past few decades, human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and social responsible companies such as Brilliant Earth have worked relentlessly to educated people on the issue of conflict diamonds. These organizations have influenced a wide variety of people and businesses from Tiffany and Co. to Hollywood that produced the film “Blood Diamond.” This film, which was released in 2006, accurately portrays the violent struggle between multiple actors that fight to gain control over diamond mining in Sierra Leone.

The film focused on a fictional story between a miner and a South African smuggler. According to the film, conflict diamonds make up 15% of the international diamond market. This percentage may not seem like a big amount, but for a multi-billion dollar industry that means millions of dollars worth of profits are made from conflict diamonds. These profits help fund rebel groups so that they can fight violent and bloody civil wars. The movie, as well as facts alone, makes it clear that the issue of conflict diamonds is one that is quite difficult to solve. It is practically impossible to stop the mining and selling of these conflict diamonds because of the vast amount of actors involved. The primary actors involved are the African governments, rebel groups, involuntary miners, Western governments, smugglers, and major corporations. All these actors have different desires and compliance is nearly impossible.

However, since the end of multiple African civil wars such as the one in Sierra Leone, governments and jewelers have been trying to work on a solution. One of the most widespread solutions has been the enactment of the Kimberley Process. According to Amnesty International, “the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) imposes requirements on participants to certify that shipments of rough diamonds are conflict-free.” However, the Kimberley Process imposes limitations that are too detailed. It’s definition of what constitutes as a conflict diamond is so limited, that conflict diamonds still move freely within the diamond market. According to Brilliant Earth, “due to the severe limitations of the Kimberley Process, diamonds tainted by human rights abuse are widely sold and certified as conflict free.”

This process has failed to solve the deeper issue of widespread human rights violations. The process may deal with the violent conflict of civil war but it does not ultimately deal with general human rights violations. The process “ignores human rights abuses, worker exploitation, and environmental degradation” (Brilliant Earth). The process ignores these issues because of its severe limitations and the fact that, “it does not require diamonds to be traced to their mine of origin, allowing smuggled diamonds to obtain conflict free certification and enter world markets” (Brilliant Earth).

Today, the Kimberley Process concludes that practically 99% of the world’s diamonds are conflict free (Allen). However, this is a hugely undermining statement, especially since the Kimberley Process does not take into account the way governments treat their people in regards to diamond mining. According to the Human Rights Activist Rafael Marques, the Kimberley process has given “legitimacy to corrupt governments that abuse their own people” (Allen). Popular jewelers also disagree with the success of the Kimberley Process. According to a trade group that represents Tiffany & Co. and Zales, the Kimberley Process should “either figure out a way to incorporate human-rights monitoring into its oversight of member countries or invite an outside organization to do it for them” (Allen). An oversight committee would be a great way to monitor the diamond industry, especially since the majority of the actors in the diamond industry cannot be fully trusted.

Conflict diamonds are still hugely popular in Africa, especially in countries such as: Angola, Zaire, and the Democratic Republic the Congo. In these particular nations, peasant diggers have been enlisted to mine these diamond regions since Western colonization and occupation. Since then, these regions still produce diamonds that fund conflicts, unjust governments, and civil wars. There is also a huge issue of smuggling and corruption, for example “over $2 billion in diamonds have been stolen by political allies of Zimbabwe’s president since 2008” (Brilliant Earth). This corruption as well as the fact that a large of amount of mined diamonds go unregister contributes to a large loss of tax revenue for these governments. This loss of tax revenue hinders development that could better political and economic systems.

Conflict diamonds are an issue of scarcity and abundance simultaneously. These diamonds are abundant in these regions, however technology has yet to make it efficient and safe to mine these regions. These diamonds are also scarce — they are scarce because they are not commonly found in the rest of the world outside these developing regions. This scarcity has led to diamonds being extremely desirous to Westerners.

Americans and Europeans use diamonds as status symbols, usually completely unaware of where they really came from. There is a huge disconnect between all the actors involved in diamond mining.  These actors are completely incompliant and even struggle to know what they themselves want. In a scene from the film “Blood Diamond,” Leonardo DiCaprio who plays a smuggler explains the different roles of actors involved in diamond mining. He states that governments want to stay in power long enough to gain wealth so that they can move faraway into exile, that rebel groups fight for power that they are not sure they even want, and that Peace Corps quickly realize they can not do anything to help. This realization is obviously pessimistic, but eerily true.

Those on the international stage have tried to find a solution especially with the enactment of the Kimberley Process. However, the limitations of the process have done very little to solve the root of this issue. This issue is rooted the relationship between the haves and the have-nots. It seems that no matter who is in charge, there is a disparity between authority and civilians. The issue of conflict diamonds is more related to the difficulties between international and local institutions than to scarcity and abundance. Until these developing regions create a strong political and economical infrastructure so that common people can gain from diamond mining, little will change and governments will still be corrupt and uncompromising.

Sources:

Film - “Blood Diamond”

http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/business-and-human-rights/oil-gas-and-mining-industries/conflict-diamonds

http://www.brilliantearth.com/conflict-diamond-facts/
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704198004575311282588959188