By: Greg Campbell
This detailing the story of a diamond smuggler mercenary and that of a man who had lost his family to rebels who kidnapped his son for work in a conflict diamond mine. Blood diamonds are not named for their color but rather the very real blood which is shed in order to mine them and more sinister, the arms for civil war for which they are used to pay for. If you wear a conflict or blood diamond on your hand, then you really do have blood on your hands! Campbell neatly ties in the tale of how conflict diamonds end up on the ring fingers of Western brides while their use has funded a war which has ripped Sierra Leone apart for decades. He follows the trail as they are smuggled from West Africa to New York, London and Antwerp frequently with the cooperation of the legitimate diamond industry and into mainstream use.Campbell demonstrates how the operations work and the impact on the people it touches as well as the history of the practice which was institutionalized by De Beers in the 1880′s. Africa is over blessed with abundant human and natural resources but these resources have turned out to be a curse on the continent. The war in Sierra Leone summarises how natural resources could be a curse on a continent or a nation. First discovered in 1930, the diamonds of Sierra Leone have turned out to be the source of the worst war, cruelty and brutality in African history as well as a good example of how a natural resources could erupt the wickedness of man’s heart and his inhumanity to his fellow men. The Sierra Leonean diamond funded the most notorious, brutal, animalistic and cynical rebel groups ever to have been known in the history of mankind and warfare.Diamonds that come from conflict areas like those from Sierra Leone aptly called ‘blood diamonds’ accounts for about five per cent of global output. This may not sound as a huge amount but bearing in mind that even this small quantity has resulted in an estimated 3.7 million deaths and displaced more than 6 million Africans, it becomes worrisome.Greg Campbell’s book set in Sierra Leone is an in-depth study of the history of diamond mining and the part it plays in fuelling civil wars in Africa especially in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo and in particular the one that ravaged Sierra Leone for over a decade. In telling the story Campbell traced the ugly and bloody part played by the militia and rebel groups in Sierra Leone especially its carnage and campaign of terror against their own people. This book was just very interesting and really told the story. It makes me wonder on what diamonds are blood diamonds and the families going through this all for a diamond which in reality is just a stone.
