Conflict Diamonds
| Conflict Diamonds Effect on Security & Peace in Africa | International Relations | | | 5/21/2012 |
Asad Malik
Hassan Sarfraz Khan
Introduction
Throughout the history, for one reason or another mankind has been fighting wars. Human being has been selfish when it comes to fulfilling his own desires. Men fought for the basic individual needs like food and then it was countries which started fighting to fulfill their people needs and wants. This is why Natural Resources like Diamond, Oil and Water are blamed for the plunging the countries into a state of war. Every state is trying to acquire these resources and to do this they are not hesitant to make any move; no matter what the consequences are.
Conflicts over diamonds started in early 80s in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone and then spread to different countries across Africa. The social, political and economic conditions started depending upon the mining activities of diamond. The paper argues that Diamond Conflicts are blamed for most of the unrest that has been created in the recent two to three decades in Africa, with the rest of the world constantly involved in the destruction of this continent by trading Blood Diamond.
Diamonds or ‘Blood Diamonds’
No one can ever imagine that the diamond they are buying to add happiness in their lives, reaches them are covered with blood of the people of Africa. The value that has been added to the beauty and worth of diamonds in fact comes at the expense of thousands of deaths, reason why they are known as ‘Blood Diamonds’. Still no one is concerned and why would they be, when illegal diamond trade is worth US$ 56 billion dollars, contributing a lot to certain economies of the world. The other side of the picture however, tells us that the civil war broke out due to the blood diamond trade has left 6.5 million refugees and 3.7 million people dead in the last one decade.
African governments and rebels have been used
Asad Malik
Hassan Sarfraz Khan
Introduction
Throughout the history, for one reason or another mankind has been fighting wars. Human being has been selfish when it comes to fulfilling his own desires. Men fought for the basic individual needs like food and then it was countries which started fighting to fulfill their people needs and wants. This is why Natural Resources like Diamond, Oil and Water are blamed for the plunging the countries into a state of war. Every state is trying to acquire these resources and to do this they are not hesitant to make any move; no matter what the consequences are.
Conflicts over diamonds started in early 80s in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone and then spread to different countries across Africa. The social, political and economic conditions started depending upon the mining activities of diamond. The paper argues that Diamond Conflicts are blamed for most of the unrest that has been created in the recent two to three decades in Africa, with the rest of the world constantly involved in the destruction of this continent by trading Blood Diamond.
Diamonds or ‘Blood Diamonds’
No one can ever imagine that the diamond they are buying to add happiness in their lives, reaches them are covered with blood of the people of Africa. The value that has been added to the beauty and worth of diamonds in fact comes at the expense of thousands of deaths, reason why they are known as ‘Blood Diamonds’. Still no one is concerned and why would they be, when illegal diamond trade is worth US$ 56 billion dollars, contributing a lot to certain economies of the world. The other side of the picture however, tells us that the civil war broke out due to the blood diamond trade has left 6.5 million refugees and 3.7 million people dead in the last one decade.
African governments and rebels have been used
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