Blood Diamonds

by Greg Campbell, tells the story of how diamonds in Sierra Leone fueled one of the most bizarre civil wars in history. Increasingly corrupt governments failed to address basic needs and basic responsibilities (such as control of the borders), and a flourishing smuggling trade grew up. The diamond cartel (founded by the infamous Cecil Rhoades) had and has a strong interest in buying up all the rough diamonds it can, in order to keep the price from collapsing, so these all-too-easily transported rocks always had ready buyers.

The RUF was formed as a thin veneer of revolutionary rhetoric over an organization designed to smuggle the diamonds that they mined using slave labor in the conquered territory. The proceeds bought more guns, helicopter, cars, and drugs. Even AlQaida took an interest in the trade, buying large numbers of rough stones (which can't be traced through bank transaction records).

The RUF is best known for their intimidation campaigns, in which they attacked civilians and chopped off hands of the people they left alive. They had no affinity for any local ethnic group, no ideology, no plans for government, and no long term schemes for keeping the wealth they accumulated--most of which seems to have gone for guns and drugs. They were vicious thugs looking only at short term money and power.

The groups that opposed them tended to become like them. The Kamajors were tribes from near the border with Liberia that armed to fight the RUF, but they soon found that they needed money, thus they needed diamonds; and they got into the smuggling and intimidation business. The governments troops were not controllable, and often banded together with rebel groups. The ECOMOG (West African economic community military forces--mostly Nigerian) peace keepers were venal and careless, and came to represent "Every Car Or Movable Object Gone." The UN peace keeping forces (in the most expensive peace keeping effort in UN history) were ill-coordinated, ill-equipped, given ill-considered mandates and generally ineffective.

There were only two bright stars in this ugly mess: Executive Outcomes (a mercenary company!), and the British government which sent in paratroopers to straighten out the mess the UN had gotten into. In an absolutely staggering oversight, Campbell completely omits the role of the British troops in salvaging the peace. If you read his book you'll think the UN troops and workers eventually saved the day--and it wasn't so. The UN was in deep trouble until the Brits arrived and put the fear of real armies into the combatants, and started training real police instead of the freelance shakedown artists.

Campbell names names and sources, and I learned a few things (I'd been keeping an eye on events here for some years, so it wasn't exactly new to me). Yes, find and read this book. And see if you want to buy a diamond again, even if only 3% of the share comes from bloody regions. Who says "Diamonds are Forever?" (Answer: The folks trying to keep prices artificially high by monopolizing the supply. DeBeers cannot have 3 executives in the US at the same time or they become liable to arrest and prosecution under US anti-monopoly laws.)