Bling, bling, you're dead: Obsession for Diamonds Leading to Death of Africans

While we continue to display our childish lack of self-esteem by adorning our bodies with things that others can't afford - in particular, diamonds - then African children, mothers and fathers will continue to be slaughtered. With our love of bling, we in the west heedlessly fuel the unimaginable misery of millions of Africans. Brutal civil wars in Angola, Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone are mostly fuelled and funded by "conflict diamonds", an illegal trade where armed militia control mines, and even entire diamond-producing regions, in order to trade the rough diamonds directly for guns. In the 70s there was an eerily similar trade in Jamaica: guns for ganja - a straight swap with American gangsters. The crucial difference is that the Jamaican gunmen moved into the local town to prosecute criminal activity; they didn't visit systematic rape and massacre upon the locals until they had all accepted the invitation to leave. Three million people were murdered in Congo alone over the past five years as a result of this disgusting trade. So why not make conflict diamonds illegal, remove their value to the murderers and ethnic cleansers, and consequently the cause for the killing? [more ]