Blood on the Stone, Essay Example

“Blood on the Stone” is a story of how the diamond war evolved, a war that took over four million lives. The diamond business grew to be dangerous – quickly. The diamond cartel, despite their best efforts, began to lose control of their precious minerals. Each country shifted into anarchy because the diamonds continually funded and fuelled the war. A diamond pipeline was formed which ran from Africa to the Paris, London, to New York. The war was violent, and it grew out of control quickly, destroying anyone and anything that stood in its way. A campaign, known as the Kimberley Process, began in 1999 with more than 50 governments that focused on removing the blood diamonds out of retail trade. “Blood on the Stone,” tells the horrific stories of how diamond money funded violence and took the lives of many innocent people in the fight to remain in control of the market.

Criminalized Diamond Regime

Cecil Rhodes’-monopolization of diamond production in the Cape Colony and Orange Free State by the mid-1890s. He was a key player in the diamond war because he was directly in control of the market. Cecil Rhodes formed De Beers Mining Company in 1880. De Beers dominated the diamond industry under the control of Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes was an intelligent man with money and resources. By 1890, he had positioned himself to own over 95 percent of the world’s diamond production. Whereas he may not have started the wars and excessive violence directly, the indirectly influenced the need for control and money regardless of the cost.

Another major player in the criminalized diamond regime was Charles Taylor. Taylor was a warlord who became president of Liberia. Charles Taylor masterminded one of Africa’s worst wars, funding it with diamonds. “We had found much more evidence than I had thought possible on weapons trafficking, diamond smuggling, and even management of the RUF war from behind the Liberian border” (Smillie, 2012). It was recommended that all countries ban the Liberian diamonds as well as keeping Charles Taylor, his senior officials, his family, and cabinet ministers from traveling. His power and use of violence to control his empire made him an extremely dangerous character in this war.

Ernest Oppenheimer also was a key player in the criminalized diamond regime. Oppenheimer became Chairman of De Beers in 1926 and cartelized the diamond industry by the mid-1930s“Ernest Oppenheimer, who would eventually play king of diamonds to Cecil Rhodes’ knave, soon became a fixture in South Africa’s gold and diamond industries, but not as a sorter or buyer. Money and deal-making would be his forte – for Dunkelsbuhler, for the syndicate, and for himself” (Smillie, 2012). His power with the De Beer Empire made his extremely dangerous in the diamond wars as well.

Factors that Lead to the Regime’s Power

Diamonds funded the wars, making them long and horrific. The RUF began recruiting its fighters inside of the Sierra Leone. They kidnapped children and forced them to fight against their villages and families in order to ensure they will never be able to return home. They were introduced to an environment of murder and violence, and given drugs. A mixture called “brown-brown” which was cocaine and gunpowder, was put on their forehead scrapes that gave them wild thoughts and they believed they were immune to bullets. The children were given white tablets, red tablets, and crack as well as being injected with medication. It robbed their youth and made them child soldiers. The girls were kidnapped too, and they became sex slave and porters.

Rebel butchery left thousands of women, men and children without hands and feet, disfigured physically and psychologically for life. Diamonds were extremely lucrative. Charles Taylor had backed Sankoh in the Revolutionary United Front that provide the base for the war to be in Liberia and created an outlet for whatever they wanted to steal from Sierra Leone. “The RUF trademark was grisly: horrific rape was commonplace, and RUF ‘soldiers’ chopped the hands and feet off civilians, often small children. As a terror technique, it had no rival in clearing the country’s alluvial diamond fields, providing the RUF and Taylor with a highly rewarding money machine” (Smillie, 2010). The power to remain control fueled the violence and created no limits to the extent of terror is provided to the civilians.

There were clear relationships between a mining company and a purportedly democratic diamond-producing state. “Liberia could no longer be convincingly described as the beacon of hope to black people the world over, the only independent negro republic, but was looking more like a corrupt and ramshackle neo-colony, managed on behalf of the US government and the Firestone Rubber Company” (Smillie, 2010). The countries that produced the most diamonds were regulated by the De Beer Company as well as the power within that specific country. Having such a monopoly on the diamond industry, De Beer had the majority of the controlling power.

Effects of the pernicious States in the 1990s

Angola was a hidden society full of secrecy full of theft, corruption, and smuggling.

Between $350 and $420 million in smuggled diamonds left Angola in 2000. Angolan elite to milk the country’s diamond resources is, in fact, limited only by its imagination. They were the source of Portuguese settler’s minerals, coffee, land, and raw material. It had been determined that only Angola’s certified diamonds could be legally traded. The 37-year war had its toll on Angola. It is estimated that 300,000 Angolans had died in the war, and hundreds of thousands more died from other causes. The diamond war created displacement for millions of people. In 1975, the country’s infrastructure was completely destroyed. It had been determined that 200,000 people became disabled by land mines and three out of ten children died before their fifth birthday.

The population was living in poverty, on less than a dollar a day. Despite the significant carnage that took place in Angola, the commercial channels continued moving UNITS diamonds out into the market worldwide while bringing weapons back in. “After independence, the MPLA government had nationalized DIAMANG and created a new enterprise, ENDIAMA (Empresa Nacional de Diamantes de Angola), with De Beers contracted to manage the country’s mines, a relationship that lasted for several years” (Smillie, 2010). UNITA continued operating control through the 1990s that directly affected the government revenue and production, while taking what it needed for itself.

Sierra Leone War was based heavily on diamonds and weapons, and lasted from 1991-2002. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) created a rebellion that started in 1991 which contained horrific brutality on its civilians. It is recorded that 75,000 people – most of them civilians – lost their lives, but the number is probably much higher. Children were forced into combat and sexual slavery. Diamonds set the stage for a power struggle early on. “While in Sierra Leone, Kalmanovitch brought in other money launderers, drug traffickers, and arms dealers, all scrambling to gain access to diamonds” (Smillie, 2010). Marat Balagula a mafia member found himself in Sierra Leone trying to get his part of the diamond empire.

Liberia was run by warlord-turned-president, Charles Taylor. Taylor had financed the early stages of his own warpath by selling timber. But diamonds soon proved more lucrative. Taylor backed Sankoh’s fledgling Revolutionary United Front, giving it a Liberian base, weapons, and an outlet for whatever it could steal in Sierra Leone. “Liberia’s trafficking in diamonds stolen from Sierra Leone became a concern to the pre-independence colonial government in Freetown, especially after a diamond rush in the 1950s triggered massive smuggling of the country’s gems through Monrovia” (Smillie, 2010). Liberia’s borders operated on a see-no-evil mentality when dealing with the US dollar. It was a higher, untaxed price that was provided by the dealers in efforts to smuggle diamonds. It was estimated that by 1950, 20 percent of all stones were smuggled from Sierra Leone.

The Congo told a tragic and bloody history, with the complete meltdown forestalled only by the arrival of a UN peacekeeping force, ramped up to almost 19,000 troops and civilians by 2005. The IRC estimated that in a 32 month period between August 1998 and March 2001, 2.5 million more people died than would have been the case under normal circumstances. Most of the deaths resulted from disease and malnutrition brought on by the fighting, although 350,000 people had been killed in the conflict. “Because such diamonds were available in the Belgian Congo by the ton rather than by the karat, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer knew he had to gain control of the Forminière production” (Smillie, 2010). De Beers maintained its leading position in diamonds by controlling the Congo production.

“Blood on the Stone,” tells the horrific stories of how diamond money funded violence and took the lives of many innocent people in the fight to remain in control of the market. The struggle for power was brutal, and it spread across many different countries. Poverty and famine were present in many locations; however, the rich continued to get richer. Millions have died a result of the diamond money and the desire to remain in control. The diamond war lasted for decades and were a historical lesson on how power and greed can control an empire. Key players in the war continued their paths of destruction virtually uncontested. Ian Smillie’s novel “Blood on the Stone” may not have been the easiest to read, it provides significant insight into the struggle to control the diamonds in the world’s market.

Reference

Smillie, Ian. (2012) Blood on the Stone: Greed, Corruption and War in the Global Diamond Trade. Anthem Press.