{"id":561,"date":"2004-07-10T15:41:42","date_gmt":"2004-07-10T19:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=561"},"modified":"2004-07-10T15:41:42","modified_gmt":"2004-07-10T19:41:42","slug":"breaking-the-diamond-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=561","title":{"rendered":"Breaking the diamond connection"},"content":{"rendered":"

The report A Rough Trade<\/i><\/a> was published by Global Witness in 1998 and examined the role diamond companies and governments played in the previous 10-years of conflict in Angola. UNITA, identified in the report as ?the Maoist but anti-Marxist<\/a>? rebels, and according to this Global Policy Forum report in 2002 are a ?group long backed by South Africa (during the apartheid era) and by the conservatives in the U.S. Congress<\/a>,? have remained active in large part through the illegal trading of diamonds.<\/p>\n

Page 3 of A Rough Trade<\/i> quotes the BBC News, Online Network 4th November 1998<\/i>, criticising the MPLA for using oil revenues to fund its defence against UNITA instead of spending it on badly needed reconstruction. If only Angola had been left in peace by UNITA and its foreign conspirators perhaps the BBC wouldn?t have had occasion to get on its creaky high horse and complain. The MPLA dropped ?Marxism-Leninism in favour of social democracy<\/a>? in 1991, and despite ?92 Presidential and parliamentary polls which were ?certified by UN monitors as generally free and fair<\/a>?, remained a target of U.S. imperialism as it has been since Angola gained its independence from the colonial slave master Portugal in 1975. 500,000 lives and counting have been lost since then, thousands more maimed by landmines, and if Angola?s plentifull diamond mines and oil reserves weren?t the sole motivation behind this protracted insanity certainly diamond sales have kept the war in business.<\/p>\n

In March 2004 Global Witness published Broken Vows<\/b> Exposing the “Loupe” Holes in the Diamond Industry’s Efforts to Prevent the Trade in Conflict Diamonds<\/i><\/a>:<\/p>\n

In January 2003, the diamond industry agreed to implement a system of self-regulation as part of the Kimberley Process, to prevent conflict diamonds from entering the legitimate diamond trade and to give consumers assurances that diamonds are conflict free. All sectors of the diamond industry made three promises:<\/p>\n

p To implement a code of conduct to prevent buying or selling conflict diamonds<\/p>\n

p To implement a system of warranties requiring that all invoices for the sale of diamonds and jewellery containing diamonds must contain a written guarantee that diamonds are conflict free<\/p>\n

p To inform company employees about the industry?s policies and government regulations to combat the trade in conflict diamonds<\/p>\n

The system of self-regulation was agreed to as a result of an NGO campaign launched by Global Witness in 1998 to eliminate the trade in conflict diamonds and the international publicity surrounding it. The diamond industry, through its representative bodies, has repeatedly stated its commitment to combating the trade in conflict diamonds and supporting the Kimberley Process. Yet, to date the diamond industry has not systematically monitored and assessed how self-regulation is working in practice throughout all sectors of the industry. Five years after the conflict diamond issue came to the forefront, a large proportion of the industry is still not taking the issue seriously and has instead focused its attention on a public relations campaign to try and make the issue go away. Some in the trade have demonstrated leadership on this issue and have made important contributions to creating and strengthening the Kimberley Process. However, they are in the minority.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Only 5 of the 30 companies surveyed by Global Witness responded to their written request for information about their conflict diamond policy and only one of those 5, Tiffany & Co.<\/a>, outlined its policies to back up its warranty and ?described how it has strengthened its sourcing procedures and control over its supply chain to prevent dealing in conflict diamonds<\/a>.?<\/p>\n

The survey also found a low level of awareness among company employees about their companies? policies on conflict diamonds. In only 4 stores out of the 33 stores visited were salespeople well-informed about their company?s policy and the system of warranties. This shows that companies have failed to implement a basic requirement of the self-regulation?to inform company employees about trade resolutions to combat the trade in conflict diamonds. If companies are failing to comply with this basic measure then what does this mean for other key actions the industry is supposed to be taking to implement the self-regulation?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Blood From Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror<\/i><\/a> by Douglas Farah, according to this review<\/a>, examines why terror groups are still able to fund their operations despite George’s vow to “choke off the flow of terrorist money” with measures like the Patriot Act.<\/p>\n

In 1999, in the aftermath of the August 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the Clinton Administration froze $240 million belonging to al Qaeda and the Taliban in Western banks-most of it in the form of gold reserves on deposit with the U.S. Federal Reserve. Realizing their vulnerability, al Qaeda’s leaders subsequently moved tens of millions of dollars from banks into diamonds, gold, tanzanite, emeralds, and sapphires, commodities that are easy to transport, smuggle, and convert yet difficult to track. With diamonds and other commodities in hand, al Qaeda operatives turned towards home grown money merchants in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and Pakistan, relying on a network of sympathetic and enterprising network of gold merchants, gemstone buyers, and hawala-a traditional Arab and Asian trust-based system of moving funds through brokers-to convert commodities into cash and cash into commodities such as weapons, ammunition, satellite telephones, or gold. Observes Farah, “U.S. and European intelligence missed this shift completely.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gov’t officials in Sierra Leone last week acknowledged that the Kimberley Process has played some part in increasing the export of legal diamonds but Commissioner General of the National Revenue Authority, John Karimu, merits the dramatic rise in numbers to lowered tariffs. And according to intelligence reports it’s estimated that “smuggling still accounts for about 40 percent of diamonds leaving Sierra Leone – the certification process notwithstanding<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Disgruntled mine monitors are cited as a problem. They are poor, easily bribed, and accomodated by people like Charles Taylor whose Nigerian exile is now under review after two Nigerians filed a claim of being tortured by Sierra Leonean rebels. Perhaps Pat<\/a> Robertson<\/a> will ride<\/a> a lobbyist to his rescue.<\/p>\n

It’s unfortunate that Black Star Journal<\/a>‘s enthusiastic although guarded hope some good would come of George’s signing of the Clean Diamonds Act in 2003<\/a> couldn’t have been rewarded with better results.<\/p>\n

And I’m not convinced that more regulation, as Global Witness advocates, will produce much greater success.<\/p>\n

It seems to me we’d all benefit more from the debunking of the diamond mystique. According to Jacki Lyden and Michael Montgomery in PART I<\/a> of With This Ring<\/i> from American RadioWorks:<\/p>\n

To truly exploit the growing diamond empire, De Beers needed to stoke demand, especially in its biggest market, the U.S. In 1929, the Oppenheimer family, owners of the Anglo American Corporation, seized control of De Beers. It was a critical time. America was entering a depression, and diamond prices were sinking. De Beers’ new owners embraced the masters of myth, and hired the N.W. Ayer Advertising Agency to transform the public imagination about the diamond. To do that, the company hired psychologists to burrow into American buying habits. And it hired the most visionary artists in the world to help. At the office of N.W. Ayer in New York City, company archivist Howard Davis showed original art produced by Picasso, Salvador Dali and others for the De Beers account. <\/p>\n

“What the ads really did was concentrate on a combination of emotion and status,” said Davis. “Early on they told us it would be a good idea to make a statement about what a young man should do for his fianc?e in the way of a diamond ring. The idea that they were trying to get across was that if you loved her enough, you’re going to spend a months pay on it (the diamond ring)?I guess it worked quite well?”<\/p>\n

It did work quite well, but the best was yet to come. In 1947, a maiden lady copywriter at N.W. Ayer, Frances Gerety, created the most durable advertising slogan in history: A diamond is forever. According to Howard Davis, Gerety coined the line after her nightly prayers, when she was awakened by a flash of inspiration. Within three years of creating the ‘diamonds are forever’ slogan, an estimated 80 percent of wedding engagements in America were consecrated with diamond rings. Gerety herself never wed, but she had wed a concept to diamonds. <\/p>\n

“The true genius of De Beers,” said Matthew Hart, “lies in having created a connection, and sustaining in the popular imagination a connection between something that has no value at all. You can’t eat it, you can’t drive it home, you can’t make clothes out of it, you can’t build houses out of it, and creating a connection between that valueless item and something that is extremely valuable, which is human love. They created that connection ? they made it up ? and they’ve sustained it.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now that diamonds have come to symbolise the antithesis of love isn’t it time to break the connection?<\/p>\n

For further reading THE DIAMOND INVENTION<\/a> by Edward Jay Epstein is available in its entirety online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The report A Rough Trade was published by Global Witness in 1998 and examined the role diamond companies and governments played in the previous 10-years of conflict in Angola. UNITA, identified in the report as ?the Maoist but anti-Marxist? rebels, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-93","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}