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Do you know where your diamonds come from?
A review of Blood Diamond, with Oscar nominees
Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou

By Tom Austin

In the late 1990s, the diamond industry had a problem that was beginning to spin out of control. A small portion of the diamonds sold at jewelry stores were funding a particularly violent civil war in the diamond-rich but impoverished West African nation of Sierra Leone. Researchers at humanitarian groups and journalists were discovering that diamonds smuggled out of the country were finding their way to the big diamond cutting centers such as London and from there to wholesalers and local jewelers. At point of sale there was no way to tell for sure if an engagement ring was contributing to the conflict.

Early in the war, the rebel group known as the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) captured the diamond producing areas, which in Sierra Leone are close to the surface, such as in river channels. The sale of the diamonds bought weapons, vehicles, and supplies which prolonged the war. The RUF added to their numbers by kidnapping children, drugging them and teaching them to kill and maim, including the chopping off of limbs.

It took more 17,000 United Nations peacekeeping troops, the largest contingent in the world, as well as British troops, to bring the 10-year civil war to an end in Sierra Leone in 2001. The violence left 50,000 dead, tens of thousands wounded, and half the country traumatized, including the boy soldiers who would need to learn to be boys again. And similarly for their female captives who suffered horrible abuse. As the war wound down and the publicity got worse, the diamond industry began to clean up its act with a certification method, known as the "Kimberly Process."

Five years later Hollywood has captured a slice of this sad story in the movie Blood Diamond. The movie stars a mature looking Leonardo DiCaprio as Danny Archer, an ex-mercenary from Zimbabwe. Amid the chaos of war, Archer sees opportunities to smuggle diamonds out of Sierra Leone. Apprehended by troops at the border, with diamonds hid among a herd of goats, Archer finds himself in a Freetown jail in the company of captured RUF.

There he catches wind that Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), a humble fisherman from the Mende tribe in Sierra Leone, has found a rare pink diamond about the size of a child's fist. What Vandy really wants to do is to find his son, captured as a child soldier, and reunite with his other missing family members. Solomon has a slim chance of getting the diamond out of the country and staying alive without Archer's help, while Archer needs Solomon to recover and share the riches of the hidden diamond.

Djimon Hounsou plays a fisherman caught in the diamond conflict in Sierra Leone.

There's also an understated love story between Archer and photojournalist Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), who meet in a seaside bar but whose agendas and world views clash. Bowen seeks to uncover the truth behind conflict diamonds, exposing the complicity of diamond industry, and views Archer as her inside track. Her idealism about reforming Africa clashes with his life experience, which was formed by witnessing the murder of his Rhodesian farmer parents as a boy. The journalist and the two Africans eventually work together on a dangerous trek through rebel territory to recover the valuable pink diamond and to find Solomon's son.

The pace quickens in the upcountry trek and makes for a gripping story, particularly between the DiCaprio character and the Mende fisherman as their characters and aspirations merge with the threat of death along every jungle path. DiCaprio's taut performance has earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor.

Though most of the movie wasn't filmed in Sierra Leone, its depiction of events is accurate. I visited the country twice after the war on church-sponsored rebuilding trips and have followed events in the country closely. The movie depicts the situation well and matches up with the post-war destruction I witnessed and stories I heard from those who still had scars, bullet holes, and missing relatives.

The towns of Bo and Kenema, which I visited en route to the former rebel territory, remain bustling diamond trading centers, largely operated by Lebanese traders. The Lebanese connection in diamond trading, by the way, wasn't explored in the movie, a notable omission about the reality in a country. I was surprised to see the Lebanese so active in Sierra Leone—from restaurants to stores to all kinds of business ventures.

As for the journalistic angle in the movie, I found the story line about conflict diamonds a pale version of the reporting that actually took place. In fact, there was some remarkable investigative reporting after 9-11 that didn't get the attention it deserved.

In a series of articles Doug Farrah, from the Washington Post , convincingly linked the diamond trade in Sierra Leone to Hezbollah and Al Qaeda money laundering activities. Further, the articles brought to light that Charles Taylor, then Liberian president, as getting a major piece of the action. Taylor currently awaits his trial at the Hague.

In what I thought would have caused more concern in the U.S., Farrah discovered that the RUF-controlled diamond areas in Sierra Leone increased production prior to the terrorists attacks of 9-11, purportedly as Bin Laden anticipated having his assets frozen and converted cash to the more portable diamonds. Farrah's articles leave the impression that Sierra Leone diamonds now carefully hidden could be sold to pay for future terrorist attacks in Europe or the U.S. If it had explored this angle, Blood Diamond could have been both a good movie and a more important one as well.

Illicit rough diamonds have not just been a problem for Sierra Leone but have been used by rebels to fund conflicts in Angola, Liberia, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo. The DeBeers diamond cartel claims that the Kimberly Process has cleaned up the trade, bringing the percent of conflict diamonds down from 4 percent to less than 1 percent of the diamond market.

But since the diamond industry was involved in selling the illegal diamonds throughout most of the 1990s, where's the accountability after a war than claimed 50,000 lives and left many maimed? Sierra Leone still produces some of the world's best diamonds and has other mineral assets but the country remains one of the poorest in the world. Recently, the BBC News reported that an estimated 40 percent of the Sierra Leone population was left traumatized but the country has just one trained psychiatrist. Perhaps the diamond industry could do more to help Sierra Leone recover.

Movies like Blood Diamond raise awareness. At best, they cause us to ask more questions about our purchases. Edward Zwick, Blood Diamond producer, said in an interview, "It seems that almost every time a valuable natural resource is discovered in the world--whether it be diamonds, rubber, gold, oil, whatever--often what results is a tragedy for the country in which they are found. Making matters worse, the resulting riches from these resources rarely benefit the people of the country from which they come."

One Sierra Leone friend plainly told me once that diamonds had been a curse on his country. It's unlikely that diamonds will be a blessing to Sierra Leone any time soon.

The author can be reached at tfaustin@gmail.com

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