APRIL 2014
H
business elite canada
17
W
hile diamonds are the most
strictly regulated raw materi-
als in the world, there are still
speculations of illegally traded gems that leak
into the market. Most commonly referred to
as ‘blood diamonds’ – diamonds mined in war
zones – the countries most affected by this
epidemic are Sierra Leone, The Congo, Angola
and Liberia where violent efforts are used to
extract the precious metals.
To battle this hysteria, the Kimberley Process
came into effect more than a decade ago
which required a certification scheme to go
along with every diamond sold to prevent fuel
armed conflicts, though the problem is still ex-
istent today. While stringent policies created
by the United Nations have created awareness
and broadened the minds of North American
consumers, the Kimberley Process does not
intervene when diamond miners are killed,
but are involved with after-the-fact measures,
and these regulations sometime make it im-
possible to tell which are blood diamonds and
which are clean.
The market still consists of roughly 25 per-
cent blood diamonds, though African colonies
Cameroon and Chad have recently agreed to
tighten their border security to stop the flow
of conflict diamonds.
