Ian Smillie

Blood on the Stone (eBook, PDF)

Greed, Corruption and War in the Global Diamond Trade

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

Africa's diamond wars took four million lives. They destroyed the lives of millions more and they crippled the economies of Angola, the Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The biggest UN peacekeeping forces in the worldin Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Congo and Côte d'Ivoire―are the legacy of 'conflict' or 'blood diamonds'.

'Blood on the Stone' tells the story of how diamonds came to be so dangerous. It describes the history of the great diamond cartel and how it gradually lost control of the precious mineral, as country after country descended into anarchy and wars fuelled by diamonds. The book describes the diamond pipeline, from war-torn Africa to the glittering showrooms of Paris, London and New York. It describes the campaign that began in 1999 and which eventually forced the industry and more than 50 governments to create a global certification system known as the Kimberley Process, aimed at wringing blood diamonds out of the retail trade. This gripping account concludes with a sobering assessment of the certification system, which soon became hostage to political chicanery, mismanagement and vested interests. Too important to fail, the Kimberley Process has been hailed as a regulatory model for Africa's extractive minerals. Behind the scenes, however, it runs the risk of becoming an ineffectual talk shop, standing aside as criminals re-infest the diamond world.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Anthem Press
• Seitenzahl: 252
• Erscheinungstermin: 15. August 2010
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780857286673
• Artikelnr.: 46144749

Autorenporträt

Ian Smillie has lived and worked in Africa and Asia as a teacher, consultant, investigator and writer. For the past ten years his career has focused on blood diamonds, the wars they fuelled and a scheme designed to stop them. This has taken him from the jungles of West Africa to the backstreets of Antwerp and a war crimes tribunal in The Hague, where he was the first witness in the trial of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor. Smillie was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2003.

Inhaltsangabe

Glossary
Preface
Prologue
1. Of Judgement and Cunning Work: Dirty Diamonds
2. The River of Big Returns: Geology and History
3. De Beers: The Delicate Equipoise
4. Strange Plumbing: The Diamond Pipeline
5. Angola: Another Distracting Sideshow
6. Liberia and the Love of Liberty
7. Sierra Leone: Diamonds in the RUF
8. President Mobutu’s Ghost
9. Enter al Qaeda
10. Boiling Frogs: Companies in Hot Water
11. Ice Storm: The NGO Campaign
12. Kimberley: A Hope In Hell
13. Endgames
Epilogue
Bibliography