BLOOD DIAMONDS

Blood Diamonds

© Amnesty International USA“Blood diamonds are gems that have been used to fund rebel groups in wars in Africa, leading to more than 4 million deaths and millions more people displaced from their homes,” explains a joint statement from Global Witness and Amnesty International. The two human rights groups are driving international efforts to stop the worldwide trade of conflict diamonds and offer opportunities for individuals to get more involved with the issue.

Blood diamonds featured in the Sierra Leone civil war and in Angola, Cote d'Ivoire, and the continued instability in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), among other places.

Just this month, as Survival International reports, the Bushmen of Botswana’s Kalahari have appealed to DiCaprio to assist them in protecting their land from diamond mining, which they say threatens their livelihood and their survival as a people. Other celebrities, including supermodels Iman, Erin O'Connor, and Lily Cole, have lent their voices to the campaign to boycott De Beers, the company that runs the country's diamond mines alongside the Botswanan government.

Given diamonds’ controversial role in financing civil war and fueling conflict, international activist pressure led in 2003 to the launch of the Kimberly Process--a system of international certification requirements to verify that a diamond doesn't come from a conflict zone.

But many question the effectiveness of these protocols. According to Amnesty International, "government controls in the United States and in other countries are not strong enough or enforced © Global Exchangeeffectively to stop rebel groups from exploiting diamonds to fuel conflict." The San Francisco-based group Global Exchange is asking concerned members of the public to email the World Diamond Council to demand concrete measures to ensure that diamonds are conflict-free.

Visit the Blood Diamond Action Web site to find out more about the ongoing problem of blood diamonds and what you can do about it. If you're in the market for a diamond or you know someone who is, be sure to check out this buyer's guide (.pdf format) from Amnesty International. And if you're headed to the film, why not bring along a few flyers (.pdf format) to educate fellow movie goers about how they can take action against conflict diamonds?

And diamonds aren’t the only bit of fancy jewelry financing civil war and oppression. As Oxfam’s No Dirty Gold campaign explains, gold mining also bears the scars of conflict, destruction, and human rights abuse. In places such as the DRC, control of gold mines has been at the heart of some of the fighting. And in many Latin American countries, local communities protesting mining operations in their area have been intimidated, brutalized, and violently suppressed.

Child Soldiers

More than 300,000 children under 18 are fighting and dying in at least 30 conflicts worldwide. From Burma to Sri Lanka, armed groups recruit children and use them in both combat and non-combat duties in their operations. Children as young as eight years old have been used in conflicts across Africa. These children are often abducted or drawn by economic circumstances and the lure of status.

Many children are used as messengers, porters, and cooks, and are often forced into providing sexual services during times of conflict. But the proliferation of lightweight automatic weapons has greatly enhanced the usefulness of children as soldiers too.

In the DRC "child combatants are often considered ideal recruits by armed groups because they are relatively easy to manipulate, unlikely to question the group's motives, and arouse little suspicion," according to the advocacy group Refugees International. Children are not only the people most readily exploited into war; by the very nature of their immaturity they can often be induced to committing some of war's greatest atrocities.

A child’s role in conflict has, of course, not only significant educational and physical implications for his or her development, but long-term psychological consequences. In addition to working to stop the recruitment of children into armed conflicts, many organizations are helping to reintegrate youths back into their communities after their soldiering days.

© Refugees InternationalIt can be a difficult, yet immensely rewarding process. In the southern part of Sudan, where peace has reigned for nearly two years, UNICEF has helped the country's transitional government reintegrate nearly 90 percent of some 20,000+ child combatants. "It is time for these children to go home, go to school, and enjoy the fruits of peace," said UNICEF Sudan Representative, Ted Chaiban, at a demobilization ceremony earlier this year.

A 2005 Refugees International mission to Rwanda and the DRC showed--in pictures--the immense difficulties faced by many former child soldiers as they attempt to re-enter civilian life. The group is now calling for demobilization programs in the DRC to give special attention to girl combatants.

And as Sri Lanka has experienced a renewed surge of violence in recent months, Refugees International has expressed new worries about increasing child soldier recruitment in that South Asian country as well. For more background on child soldiering visit: