I think after seeing this movie, people will feel it incumbent upon themselves to ask for a warranty, so as to guarantee the diamond they’re buying is not from a conflict zone."ġ. "A purchase of a diamond just has to be an informed purchase. "What I wanted to create in their minds is consciousness," said Zwick. Zwick refused, and indeed, while the flow of blood diamonds has slowed, human rights groups say that this is more due to the ending of wars in Sierra Leone and Angola than to the Kimberley certification process. Fearing that it would affect sales, the World Diamond Council spent $15 million on a public relations and education campaign, which started months before the movie came out.Īccording to a National Public Radio (NPR) program in October 2006, the Diamond Council tried to persuade Blood Diamond's director, Edward Zwick, to add a disclaimer to the film that would cite the Kimberley process and note that Sierra Leone's civil war was long over. in December at the beginning of the holiday shopping season. This action-packed Hollywood film with the star Leonardo Di Caprio was nominated for five Academy Awards, and has brought the issue of blood diamonds to a much wider audience across the world. Diamonds with a Kimberley Process Certificate are guaranteed to be conflict-free. This was a real conference that convened in May of 2000 and led to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which was implemented in 2003. She and Solomon travel to the Kimberley Conference in South Africa, where representatives from major diamond trading and producing countries have gathered to discuss solutions to the blood diamond problem and where Solomon will give eyewitness testimony. Archer then tracks down Maddy Bowen, an American journalist looking to do a story on blood diamonds, and promises to give her damning information about the world's leading diamond corporation if she helps him find Solomon's family.Īfter many dramatic and violent twists and turns, Archer finally sides with Solomon against his evil boss, Solomon is reunited with his family, including his son, and Maddy gets her story. He arranges for Solomon's release, hoping to get the diamond for himself in return for helping Solomon to find his family. Because of a diamond-smuggling deal gone wrong, Danny Archer ends up in the same jail and learns about Solomon's pink diamond. The Sierra Leone army launches a deadly air strike against the rebels and the survivors, including Solomon, are arrested and brought to a jail in the capital. Later he is shown at an RUF camp, being taught with a group of children his age to forget their families, pledge absolute loyalty to the RUF, fire weapons, and to kill without shame.Īt the mine, Solomon discovers a remarkably large and valuable pink diamond and buries it for safekeeping. Soon after, his elementary-school-aged son is also captured. Solomon is captured and forced to work in an RUF diamond mine. The RUF used an estimated 10,000 child soldiers to wage its violent war. The RUF was notorious for using child soldiers, kidnapped from their families and trained as killers. Several of the rebel fighters firing AK-47's into the crowd of fleeing villagers are children. The film begins with an RUF raid of Solomon's village. These diamonds-blood diamonds, or conflict diamonds, as diamonds mined in war zones and used to fund insurgencies are now called-eventually found their way into markets around the world.Īgainst this historical backdrop, Blood Diamond, set in Sierra Leone in 1999, tells the story of the intersecting lives of Danny Archer, an Anglo ex-mercenary from Zimbabwe, Solomon Vandy, a fisherman from Sierra Leone, and Maddy Bowen, a American reporter. The bulk of the mined diamonds were smuggled out of the country through neighboring Liberia, where warlord and later president, Charles Taylor, supported the rebels. Diamonds were critical for the survival of the RUF, which traded them for weapons. Many of those who were captured had their hands and feet hacked off by machetes (there were an estimated 100,000 victims of mutilation), and others were forced to work as slaves in the country's diamond mines. Villages were burned, women raped, and children gunned down. Initially, the RUF appeared to be fighting for the country's rural poor, but it quickly lost sight of its founding goals and began a brutal war of terror against ordinary Sierra Leoneans. The conflict created over 2 million refugees and completely destroyed much of the country's infrastructure.
From 1991–2002, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) waged an insurrection that ravaged the tiny West African nation of Sierra Leone.
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