The News Review:
- The reality behind Africa’s ‘blood diamond’ trade -…
- Conflict Diamonds In the Spotlight
- allAfrica.com: New Hollywood film digs up international debate;…
The reality behind Africa’s ‘blood diamond’ trade -…
CNNMoney.com – Dec 11, 2006
Hollywood weighs inBut after 130 years of diamond mining in Africa, that ignorance is unraveling fast as the two worlds collide over the image of diamonds. The conflict, which has rocked the industry in recent years, may reach fever pitch this month with the release of the movie "Blood Diamond. " Set in wartime Sierra Leone during the late 1990s, the film depicts a South African diamond smuggler, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, trying to recover a rare pink stone from a local fisherman whom rebels have forced to dig in the diamond pits. The story line – a mixture of villainy and heroism – is classic Hollywood. But its roots are fact: In the 1990s rebels in Sierra Leone and Liberia financed their carnage from diamonds plucked out of the rivers and traded for arms. During a decade of war about 50,000 people were killed, and thousands had their hands hacked off by rebels. Months before it opened, the movie had garnered media attention, aided by a marketing blitz by Warner Bros…
" Set in wartime Sierra Leone during the late 1990s, the film depicts a South African diamond smuggler, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, trying to recover a rare pink stone from a local fisherman whom rebels have forced to dig in the diamond pits. The story line – a mixture of villainy and heroism – is classic Hollywood. But its roots are fact: In the 1990s rebels in Sierra Leone and Liberia financed their carnage from diamonds plucked out of the rivers and traded for arms. During a decade of war about 50,000 people were killed, and thousands had their hands hacked off by rebels. Months before it opened, the movie had garnered media attention, aided by a marketing blitz by Warner Bros.
Conflict Diamonds In the Spotlight
Washington Post – Dec 12, 2006
_______________________Arlington, Va. : Please explain the $15 – $5,000 transformation — is it really that cheap in Africa?Charmian Gooch: and worse! I’ve sat in diamond mines in Sierra Leone and Angola where the diamond sells for that – the problems are many and are mainly ones of education – the diamond miners simply don’t know how much they are worth – you have a middle layer of ‘supporters’ who financially support the diggers with equipment and food – at the end of the month they total how much money they have spent on them and see that that roughly equals what they think the diamonds are worth. and hence they are kept in their cycle of poverty…
Sierra Leone used to be a net exporter of foodstuffs until the diamond insanity raged. it can do that again.
allAfrica.com: New Hollywood film digs up international debate;…
AllAfrica.com – Dec 12, 2006
The event aspires to unite a community in its efforts to increase aid and awareness to Sierra Leone. "It speaks to Africare’s mission in general," comments Travis Adkins, Program Manager for East and West Anglophone Africa. "We help in Sierra Leone … but also there’s a way for us to give assistance here; Even if it’s something as small as lending our space in this case. It helps in terms of grass roots assistance, in terms of capacity building, in terms of people helping people. "That same helping hand first entered Sierra Leone in 1984 when Africare was requested by the Ministry of health to replicate a similar program they had developed in Gambia. Their goal, in partnership with UNICEF and the World Bank, was to improve management distribution of essential drugs to rural areas. Alan Alemian was a member of that team, and a key player in the emergency relief programs developed to aid refugees when civil war erupted in 1991…
"We help in Sierra Leone … but also there’s a way for us to give assistance here; Even if it’s something as small as lending our space in this case. It helps in terms of grass roots assistance, in terms of capacity building, in terms of people helping people. "That same helping hand first entered Sierra Leone in 1984 when Africare was requested by the Ministry of health to replicate a similar program they had developed in Gambia. Their goal, in partnership with UNICEF and the World Bank, was to improve management distribution of essential drugs to rural areas. Alan Alemian was a member of that team, and a key player in the emergency relief programs developed to aid refugees when civil war erupted in 1991. "We should be very, very proud of what we did in Sierra Leone," comments Alemian. "We saved lives and we kept people productive.