Diamonds are a multi-billion dollar business involving some of the
world’s largest mining companies, a million and a half
artisanal diggers, more than a million cutters and polishers and a
huge retail jewellery sector. But behind the sparkle of the diamond
lies a murkier story, in which rebel armies in Angola, Sierra Leone
and the Congo turned to diamonds to finance their wars. Completely
unregulated, so-called blood diamonds became the perfect tool for
money laundering, tax evasion, drug-running and
weapons-trafficking.
Diamonds brings together for the first time all aspects of the
diamond industry. In it, Ian Smillie, former UN Security Council
investigator and leading figure in the blood diamonds campaign,
offers a comprehensive analysis of the history and structure of
today’s diamond trade, the struggle for effective regulation
and the challenges ahead. There is, he argues, greater
diversification and competition than ever before, but thanks to the
success of the Kimberley Process, this coveted and prestigious gem
now represents a fragile but renewed opportunity for development in
some of the world’s poorest nations. This part of the diamond
story has rarely been told.
Tabella dei contenuti
Abbreviations page vi
Introduction 1
1 The Geology and History of Diamonds 6
2 Supply and Demand – The Business of Diamonds 16
3 Blood Diamonds 43
4 Activism 68
5 Regulation 88
6 Power and Politics 99
7 Development 142
8 Loose Ends 164
Notes 171
Selected readings 180
Index 184
Circa l’autore
Ian Smillie currently chairs the Board of the Diamond
Development Initiative, a non-governmental organization working to
improve the condition of Africa’s 1.5 million artisanal
diamond diggers. He has written extensively on the issue of
conflict diamonds and was directly involved in the negotiations
leading to the creation of the Kimberley Process Certification
Scheme.
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