Conflict Free Diamonds Versus Blood Diamonds - By: Andre Issey

It is not new that wars need to be financed in some way. But over the past ten to twenty years or so, many tribes and militias in the African continent have been using the natural resources of the country they are in to fund them and buy support, weapons and ammunition.
The most well known natural resource used is diamonds.

Diamonds are found in huge quantities in central and western Africa and have been used in conflicts like the civil war in Liberia and Sierra Leone to help fund the militias fighting. Other countries like Angola also used to sell diamonds in the nineties and earlier to fund militias.
Those conflict diamonds in opposition with conflict free diamonds are more commonly known as blood diamonds.
Public awareness was raised fairly quickly to try to stop those diamonds from being used by jewellers using those diamonds in bespoke jewellery or anything else and then bought by anyone in shops. Several movements are actually trying to or have already gained international status like the Kimberly process. They all have the same goal which is to promote conflict free diamonds and prevent anyone from buying blood diamonds. The Kimberley Process which is probably one of the best known organisms was established around 2003 by the United Nations. It is an international certification program but it is important to notice that the conflict free diamond council has never endorsed it as an effective certification program.

In order for jewellers and diamonds selling business to make sure people will still buy from them, conflicts free diamonds have been hugely promoted and they all have an interest in backing up demands to create a certificate that would guarantee that they use conflict free diamonds.

It is also important for anyone who wants to buy a piece of jewellery with a diamond to be aware of the situation and of the existence of blood diamonds. Not paying attention to that simply means that you may one day buy on of those diamonds without knowing it and you will end up indirectly funding terrorist’s acts and civil wars around the world.
Even though a lot of people and diamond related organisations have recently claimed that the issue of conflict diamonds has been solved but many organisms deny that. With around 60 billions US dollars of sales of diamond jewellery in 2005, many think that diamond trade bodies simply try to get people to forget all that.

About the Author

The author has been doing bespoke jewellery and conflict free diamonds for a very long time.

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Andre-Issey/54899

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