How Much we people know about diamond?

How Much we people know about diamond?

As we know diamond is a precious stone which we can purchase individually or studded with jewellery for present, gift to a special one and for investment purpose. There are lot of different kind of diamond stones which have a different story. I would like to go share with you one diamond story which you might have heard about that story and that is called "BLOOD DIAMOND". It looks normal like a other diamond but its production was used for illegal and unethical purposes.

Blood diamonds is known as Conflict diamond,Brown Diamond, Hot Diamond and Red Diamond are diamond mined in a war zone and sold it to finance an insurgency.Diamond mined during the civil wars in Angola, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia,Guinea and Guinea Bissau have been given the label.

There were many countries that involved in different way of diamond production and trading in 1980's. That was completely illegal and it was used for unethical purposes. By 1999 that time World diamond council had estimated on the illegal world trading which was reduced till 4% of the total trading.

All diamonds are very precious but blood diamond is unethical when I start my journey in diamond industry I quit number of times have heard about this story. I started feeling more curiosity to know about the story of this diamond and what makes it different than other diamonds. Generally diamond is not easy for every pocket but every one like to know more about diamond and it always attract to people. Similar like this there are many things to know about diamond with different stories and knowledge.

  

A short information about blood diamond which I could find by different sources:

Reports estimated that as much as 21% of the total diamond production in the 1980's was being sold for illegal and unethical purposes and 19% was specifically conflict in nature.By 1999, the illegal diamond trade was estimated by the world diamond council to have been reduced to 4% of the world's diamond production. The world diamond council reported that by 2004 this percentage  had fallen to approximately 1% and up to today the world diamond council refer to this illegal trade to be virtually eliminated,meaning that more than 99% of diamond being sold have a legal background.  

The very specific UN definition of blood diamonds was formulated during the 1990's when brutal civil war being waged in parts of western and central Africa by rebel group based in diamond-rich areas of their countries. Three specific conflicts- in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sierra Leonel.- directed world attention destructive role of diamonds, though the problem arose in other countries as well. 

Rough diamond mined in rebel- controlled areas were directly sold to merchants or were smuggled into neighboring countries, where they merged into stock of legitimately mined diamonds and then sold on the open market. Proceeds from diamond sales used to buy arms and war material for the rebel groups, some of which conducted extremely violent campaigns that brought great suffering to civilians.

Once a conflict diamond had entered the processing stream and been cut and polished,  it was virtually identical to any other diamond. Worldwide concern arose over the entry of these gemstone into the huge customer market into the west, where were unable to distinguished conflict diamonds from legitimate games and where the origin of the stones could not be verified. 

Diamond traders, for their part become worried that growing revolution against blood diamond might lead to calls for the boycott of all the gems. Indeed, in 2000 the UN security council issued a report on the present of the Anglo- African company that specifically implicated De-Beers consolidated Mines, Ltd, the Anglo-South African company company that controlled about 60% of the global trade in rough diamonds.

The reporter also criticized the world largest diamond market, in Antwerp, Belgium, for not verifying the origin of the diamonds traded there. Trade association therefore joined Human rights groups and the UN in establishing the Kemberley Process, a certificate scheme that in 2003 begins to verify  whether exporting countries  diamonds were "conflict - free. " Since then, as the worst of the African civilian wars ceased and as central government restored control over rebel- held areas, the share of blood diamonds in the global diamond trade fell from as much as 15% in the 1990's to less 1 % by 2010. 

However, some human right activities noted that those figures may be meaningless, reflecting only the UN's specific definition of blood diamonds as gems that fund rebellion against a country's government. Citing Zimbabwe as a specific example,observers pointed out that, even in countries certified as conflict-free,it is entirely possible for officials of recognized governments to use their control over legal diamond operations to enrich themselves, preserves their power, or prompt their associates-often at the expense of diamond miners and other workers,who can be treated with brutality and denied basic human rights. Abuse of the legitimate diamond trade in Zimbabwe prompted calls to redefine blood diamonds as gems whose trade is based on aggression or violence of any kind. Such a redefinition would expand the campaign against blood diamonds to some diamond-rich countries where the denial of human rights is common.