Blood Diamonds

Words: 1467
Pages: 6

Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend? Whenever there have been times of tragedy, there has also been someone trying to make profit off of it. The most common example of this in today’s reality is when global corporations engage themselves with third world countries with unsolvable issues. They take advantage of a crooked authoritarian government and dull consumers and in return make profit off of it. The citizens of these countries are largely ignored and have most of their inalienable rights stripped away from them. In most cases, the United Nations is willing to recognize these travesties, but not enough is done to stop them from continuing. One such example is Angola, where the trade of blood diamonds has ravaged the country for decades. Although the authoritarian government of Angola is largely to blame, it will be impossible to end the volatile process of blood diamond mining …show more content…
The document was supposed to lead to total reform that would put an end to diamond fueled conflict all across Africa. Sadly the document has only created a voluntary and self-policing system that allows for major oversights. Ian Smillie, one of the major creators of the original document, recently abandoned the project, himself stating that “The Kimberley Process has been confronted by many challenges in the past five years, and it has failed to deal quickly or effectively with most of them” (Earth). The problem with having this failing document in place is that it lessens the pressure to reform and solve the issue of blood diamonds. Currently it is simply acting as a “voluntary system of warranties that is more of a PR exercise than a credible system” (“Conflict Diamond Factsheet”). Until the day the Kimberley Process is properly refined, the responsibility of preventing the sales of blood diamonds falls to the