Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
Elsewhere, even in more sophisticated operations, the rules are roughly the same. In 1996, the
Angolan army captured the rich Catoca diamond mine from Savimbi's Unita guerrillas. Today, about
300 armed guards, most of them former Angolan soldiers, stake out a fortified perimeter around the
mine.
Although Unita soldiers had been chased away from the mine, they remain in the area, terrorizing
the local citizens with hit-and-run attacks. The United Nations finally banned the sale of Unita
diamonds in 1998, but with limited success. Experts estimate that the rebels still sell $80 to $150
million worth of stones a year.
There is no UN embargo on diamonds from Congo, where the hunger for looted diamonds is a major
reason why six neighboring countries have sent soldiers to fight in the civil war there. Angola,
Namibia, and Zimbabwe have sent troops to protect the government of President Laurent Kabila.
The rebels trying to overthrow him can count on Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda.
Together, the armies have shattered much of the economy of eastern Congo. Kisangani, once a
thriving port on the Congo River, has become a ghostly ruin. The streets are empty of cars, the
textile plant is closed, and there is hardly any water or electricity left.
But the diamond business is thriving. Garishly painted storefronts shout the names of diamond
buyers like Mr. Cash, and Jihad the King of Diamonds. One store bears an image of Rambo, his
machine gun replaced by a shovel. Inside the shops are hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of
stones. The war swirling through the region, says one diamond buyer named Papa Ben, is "only
about the riches of this country."
In Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, the surgeons are frantic. Scores of men, women, and
children, their hands partly chopped off by machetes, have flooded the main hospital. Amputating as
quickly as they can, doctors toss severed hands into a communal bucket.
The Revolutionary United Front, a rebel group, was trying early last year to conquer Freetown and
the surrounding diamond fields. Chopping off limbs was their trademark strategy. As word got out of
their approach, people fled. In the 1990s, the rebels chased half the country's population of 4.5
million out of their homes. Half a million fled the country.
According to several human rights groups and diamond experts, most of Sierra Leone's diamonds
are smuggled into neighboring Liberia, where they can then be sold in the international diamond
market.
Diamonds need not lead to horror. Botswana, the world's largest diamond producer, is one of the
most stable and prosperous countries in Africa. The diamond industry there accounts for two thirds
of government income. Botswana has a long tradition of democratic decision making, and its leaders
have built a nation devoted to improving the lives of its people, investing in roads, schools, and
clinics.
"Diamonds are not devils," says Terry Lynn Karl, a Stanford University expert on developing
countries. "What matters is that there be a tradition of good government and compromise in place
prior to the exploitation of these resources."
Putting an end to diamond smuggling and the war it breeds will not be easy. Officials at De Beers, a
South African company that controls two thirds of the world's wholesale diamond business, declared
in March that none of its diamonds would come from rebels. But about a third of the diamonds