There will be no new uprising by the people of Liberia. How many of the tens of thousands of people Taylor thinks will get into the street are enjoying the good life he’s enjoying in Calabar, Nigeria? Let the butcher go to trial. Let Paul go to Freetown and preach to those kids, men and women whose arms were cut off.

Amen!

(j/k)

1 Reason: It is one of the MAJOR resons for the ongoing war in the DRC, and there are some dire consequences

Other reasons: marketing

market control

Department of justice

what if you could make a diamond for under 100 dollars that cant be told from one that debeers would sell for 10 grand?

I remember telling a Thai acquaintance that I boycott diamonds, and she looked at me incredulously and said, “What? But you’re Indian!” I’m still not sure what she meant.

Peter: As for Polar Bear diamonds, hmm.. I don’t know. De Beers recently opened a business arm in Canada because of the new diamond discoveries in the Northwest Territories. They plan to open two new mines in 2008 and produce $1 billion in Canadian diamonds by 2018. Could they be running the Polar Bear diamonds you speak of? Even if these aren’t DeBeers, Canadian extraction companies don’t exactly have the best reputation either.

Anyway, I don’t think there is such a thing as a “conflict-free” diamond, just like most “fair trade” certified products aren’t really fair trade in every sense of the term. In March 2004 Global Witness reported that the U.S. retail diamond industry and the World Diamond Council are failing in their efforts to self-enforce the certificate system, track diamonds and insure that they are conflict-free. I’m guessing it’s kind of like police oversight; it means nothing, if not being counterproductive. DeBeers has such a stranglehold on every aspect of the industry that unless you’re buying a diamond from a pawn shop or another unofficial retailer, it’s likely that you’re buying a DeBeers diamond.