Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones by Campbell Greg

Author:Campbell, Greg [Campbell, Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Politics, War, Crime
ISBN: 9780465029921
Amazon: B007KLYUZS
Goodreads: 18869133
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2002-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

ONE OF THE BEST WAYS to end the trade in conflict diamonds is to end conflict where diamonds are found. If you have no war, you have no problem. Even though smuggling will likely never stop completely, it’s easier to live with the possibility that your diamond paid a common thief rather than an uncommon band of savage murderers. If there ever seemed a time in the past ten years when peace may have a lasting chance in Sierra Leone, it was the latter half of 2001, even though every previous peace attempt had been a dramatic and bloody disaster.

From the perspective of Margaret Novick i, the civilian spokesperson for the UN mission, things couldn’t be going better, despite the fact that in the summer of 2001 the RUF still mined and sold diamonds uncontested in areas where the UN had only a marginal presence. A disarmament deal signed in Freetown by UNAMSIL, RUF, and the government in May 2001 was no different than any of the dozens of peace prospects that had failed miserably in the past few years, but you’d never know it talking to UNAMSIL representatives, who rarely acknowledged the hurdles yet to be overcome. The RUF was to morph into a political party and all of its soldiers and those of the Kamajors were to have laid down their arms by November 30, 2001. Although some 37,000 fighters—out of an estimated 50,000 combatants—had in fact turned in weapons to UNAMSIL by then, the most important RUF posts in Kono and Kailahun had yet to begin the process of demobilizing.1 Although the RUF was still firmly in charge of the diamond areas and continuing to mine and sell gems across the border in Liberia, RUF leaders continued to promise compliance with the agreement.

“They agreed at the highest levels,” Novicki had assured me. Novicki is a large American woman with a fondness for billowy African dresses and Marlboro Lights. “The commanders are playing a very big role in terms of sensitizing the soldiers on the ground about what the disarmament means. The only real problems we face now are logistical problems with having the facilities on the ground to receive a large number of combatants.”

Well, that didn’t seem to be the only problem, which I discovered traveling to Makeni with the WFP that day. Our overland trip had begun in Freetown and included a stop along the way at a disarmament camp in Port Loko, about 50 miles from the capital. Strategically, the village is in a treasured location at the end of Port Loko Creek, a freshwater tributary that feeds into the Sierra Leone River and leads directly to Freetown, providing perfect access for seaborne government assaults and the movement of heavy equipment to an interior staging area. It’s also a key source of bauxite, with an estimated 46 million tons of reserve waiting to be mined. But the government has rarely been able to control the area and the RUF fought bitterly for Port Loko all

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