BLOOD DIAMONDS

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BLOOD DIAMONDS
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• Diamonds symbolize
• wealth, love, and grace
• around the world
• In several African nations they have been a means
  to
• power
• a reason to terrorize millions of innocent
  civilians, and may have even helped finance some
  of the world's most brutal terrorists

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The History
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• In 1991
• a few hundred men crossed the Liberian border
• and
• attacked towns in eastern and southern Sierra
  Leone

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• Once the war began
• money became scarce
• and
• people took things into their own hands
• by
• searching for other means of finding money to
  fund the war
• Africa is known for there diamonds, it is the
  most valued item

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The War
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• Liberia is the main area of conflict
• key meeting place for
• rebels, terrorists and other criminal groups
• to exchange blood diamonds for weapons
• Criminals are able to trade these diamonds with
  ease and are
• rarely caught, they use the money to purchase
  illegal weapons

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• Thousands of Sierra Leoneans have been killed and
  mutilated
• mainly because there was
• no large scale, international intervention in the
  early stages of the war

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• The ongoing Blood Diamonds
• War has yet to cease

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The Government
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• The Kimberley Process is an international
  government initiative to stop criminals who
  profit from the illicit trade in rough diamonds
• A diamond certification evaluation sheet must be
  completed, that displays the diamonds origin
• Otherwise the shipment of that diamond must be
  confiscated

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• The major difficulty is deciphering between a
  genuine diamond and a conflict diamond
• Once any diamond is sent off and polished,
  discovering its origin is impossible!
• Blood diamonds still contribute to 30 of global
  trade

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The Victims
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• Guiltless children are turned into soldiers and
  forced to mine for small bits of carbon that have
  no intrinsic value in themselves, and no value
  whatsoever to the average Sierra Leonean
• 50,000 have been killed
• Half the population displaced
• More than two-thirds of its already severely
  limited infrastructure destroyed
• 130,000 people have been killed
• Tens of thousands raped, abused, and mutilated
• Children make around twenty cents a day
• Global diamond trade makes around 80 billion a
  year

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Something MUST be done!