History of Conflict Diamonds

Conflict diamonds, or blood diamonds, gained attention because of warlords who obtained diamonds found in Sierra Leone, Angola, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia and sold them to fund violent acts.

Conflict diamonds, also known as "blood diamonds," are diamonds that originated in areas of violent conflict and civil war. These diamonds are usually sold in a covert manner, in order to purchase weapons while covering the trail of the financing for the conflict. The African nations most noted for blood diamonds are Sierre Leone, Angola, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia. As diamonds represent compressed and easily transported wealth, conflict diamonds, in the past, formed an easy means of income for warlords to continue on their campaign of terror and exploitation.

In recent years the steady stream of conflict diamonds has been reduced to a trickle of its former self. This is due to a concerted and unified effort by governmental and non-governmental groups. The diamond industry itself has done much to staunch the flow of blood diamonds out of Africa by aiding in the instituting of the current stop-gap measures. This ongoing enterprise is known as the Kimberley Process.

The Kimberley Process is so-named for the city of Kimberley in which the multi-national agreement was first discussed in May of 2000. The agreement was drawn up and put into effect with the cooperation of the world's diamond producing nations and the diamond industry in November of 2002. The Kimberley Process requires that any country participating in the agreement provide a certificate that cites the origin of the rough diamonds. In addition to this, in order to receive the certificate, the country of origin affirms that the income from the diamonds does not go to warlords or to the funding of conflict in any way. 98% of the world's rough diamonds now go through the Kimberley Process prior to coming to market. Diamonds West only offers diamonds that have undergone the Kimberley Process in order to assure that we provide conflict-free diamonds.