Conflict Diamonds Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Conflict Diamonds - Essay Example Though the wars in Angola and Sierra Leone are now over and fighting in the DRC has decreased, the problem of conflict diamonds hasn't gone away as yet. Diamonds mined in certain rebel-held areas in a West African country in the midst of a volatile conflict, Cote D'Ivoire, are reaching the international diamond market. Conflict diamonds are also being smuggled into neighboring countries and exported as part of the legitimate diamond trade from Liberia. A major milestone occurred in 2003, a government-run initiative was introduced to stem the flow of conflict diamonds known as the Kimberley process. The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) imposes requirements on participants to certify and ensure that shipments and selling of rough diamonds are conflict-free. The Amnesty International USA announced its support of the film production of Blood Diamond. Set against the backdrop of the chaos and civil war that enveloped 1990s Sierra Leone. It tells the story of two African men w hose fates become involved in a quest to recover a rare pink diamond that can transform their lives entirely.  The film’s curriculum guide help us survey diamond retailers despite its pledge to support the Kimberley Process and the clean Diamond Trade Act. The Diamond Industry has failed to implement the necessary policies for self-regulation. In particular, the retail sector fails to provide sufficient assurance to consumers that the diamonds they sell are conflict-free. That is why help is needed to find out how policies are being communicated at the shop level and what actions are being taken to ensure that policies are more than just rhetoric and no action. At the same time, a strong message will be sent to local jewelers that their role in diamond fueled conflict must end (Levy, 2003). Literature review Conflict diamonds, are sold to fund hostile warfare; this process mainly exists in central and western Africa. The issue of conflict diamonds first gained global exposu re in the late 1990s throughout Sierra Leone’s civil war. This brutal nine year battle was due to the desire of insurgents to control the local diamond mines as a means of wealth to help fund the war, amongst other reasons. Since then, the issue of conflict diamonds has been globally recognized and several measures have been taken to ensure the ethically sound sourcing of diamonds, boycotting the countries that sell conflict diamonds and adhering to the standards of the Kimberley Process and the Patriot Act. The Kimberley Process is an initiative that was launched in conjunction with the United Nations and the global gemstone industry to ensure the market is free of conflict diamonds. The process aims to do this by enforcing all gemstone traders and suppliers to follow a single legitimate procedure that focuses on the ethical and environmentally sound sourcing of diamonds. Since its inception in 2002 the amount of conflict diamonds in the gemstone industry has decreased drama tically from 15% to less than 1% and now today, 99.8% of the world’s diamond distributors adhere to the Kimberley process. The Patriot Act is an American law that was passed in response to the September eleventh (9/11) terrorist attacks and grants US officials more power to monitor communications and trade between countries. The prevention of laundering of money and high value gems is among the Act’s objectives. According to (Le Billon, 2006), There was a waged insurrection that