Global Policy Forum

By Jane Standley

Human rights campaigners are urging consumers not to buy diamonds from African countries where the gems have been funding wars. Called Fatal Transactions, the campaign aims to make gems from countries like Angola highly unattractive. The lobby group, Global Witness, which is spearheading the campaign, says it is not anti-diamond but anti-war. It says diamond revenue can bring great benefits to countries like Namibia and Botswana, where transparent mining operations have funded economic growth and stability.

Deliberately mixed

But instead, diamonds in Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia have paid for guns, grenades and landmines for rebel fighters.

There are sanctions against Angolan diamonds which come from areas controlled by the Unita rebels, but millions of dollars' worth of gems are exported every year, ending up on the diamond markets of London, Antwerp and Tel Aviv - confusingly and often deliberately mixed up with other stones. Some 500,000 people are estimated to have died in the last decade of fighting in Angola and two million have been forced from their homes.

It is this harsh reality which the campaign hopes to highlight - that the eternal symbol of love and beauty can have very ugly origins, in much the same way as the anti-fur lobby turned many people away from wearing animal skins.