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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Tragedy of Sierra Leone: Diamonds and Warlords |
Author: | Dorward, David |
Year: | 2001 |
Periodical: | Australasian Review of African Studies |
Volume: | 23 |
Issue: | 1 |
Period: | June |
Pages: | 38-48 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Sierra Leone |
Subjects: | civil wars illicit trade exports diamonds diamond mining Politics and Government Law, Human Rights and Violence Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Ethnic and Race Relations Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
Abstract: | Since 1998 the international community has attempted to halt illicit traffic in so-called 'blood' or 'conflict' diamonds from Africa and to bring the diamond market back under control. This paper examines the ways in which 'blood diamonds' became an integral part of the competition for power that underlies the Sierra Leone conflict. It argues that today's conflict was fuelled by the illicit diamond trade which began before independence and which, by the 1990s, had reduced the State to a client of a succession of foreign interests. The paper first outlines the origins of the diamond industry in Sierra Leone in the 1930s and the emergence of illegal mining which, by the mid-1950s, had become a major political problem. Then it examines the role of politicians in the diamond industry after independence in 1961 and the involvement of Israelis, Liberians and mercenaries, in particular Executive Outcomes, in the illicit Sierra Leone diamond trade and in the civil war of the 1990s. Finally it discusses peace initiatives, notably the 1996 Abidjan Peace Accord and the Lomé Accord of 1999, and continuing international attempts at controlling illicit diamonds. Notes, ref. |