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The
Bradenton Herald
July 30,
2006
by Robin
Roger
People
buying diamond rings often know to look for the four c's:
color, cut, clarity and carat. But there's actually a fifth
c: conflict.
Conflict
diamonds, also known as blood diamonds, come from African
countries like Angola, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic
of Congo. Money from the export and selling of the diamonds
has been used to fuel civil wars there. Often, unwitting consumers
become part of the issue.
"We
didn't know anything about it," said Ethyl Arnold, 76, of
Palmetto, who visited a jewelry shop in downtown Bradenton
with her husband recently. "The younger generation is more
up on that than the older generation."
But
as information spreads about conflict diamonds, more and more
customers are questioning jewelers about where their diamonds
come from.
"The
Blood Diamond," a movie set to debut Dec. 15 starring Leonardo
DiCaprio as a diamond smuggler in Sierra Leone, is expected
to increase interest and even stir up controversy on the issue.
Some
local jewelers admit they don't know much about conflict diamonds,
but others have researched the issue.
Jack
Webb, of Webb Brothers Goldsmiths in Palmetto, recently read
an article in a trade magazine warning jewel-ers to be prepared
to answer questions about conflict diamonds once "The Blood
Diamond" comes out. But, he admit-ted, after three years in
business on Riverside Drive he has not been asked one question
about the topic. Most people don't know about the problem,
he said, probably because they buy diamonds so infrequently.
Webb
and his brother made conflict-free diamonds part of their
quality statement. A sign on the wall lists the stan-dards
of the company. One of the last sentences reads, "Our vendors
warranty they do not sell conflict diamonds."
The
vendor Webb uses - Stuller Inc. - includes a statement on
all of its invoices stating that they purchase diamonds from
sources not involved in the conflict.
"You'd
almost need to go out of your way to get a conflict diamond,"
Webb said. However, one of the places where you might run
into conflict diamonds is on the Internet, he added.
As
a retailer, Vanessa Baugh said she must trust a vendor's word
about where they get their diamonds. Her store, Vanessa Fine
Jewelry on Main Street in Lakewood Ranch, uses two diamond
vendors, one in the United States and an-other in Israel.
Baugh said she waited until she had researched the company
in Israel and was satisfied with its practices before doing
business with them.
Still,
Baugh said there is always room for doubt.
"Can
I 100 percent say that we do not carry a single conflict diamond?
No," she said. "But we try to do everything we can to make
sure we're not involved with anything along those lines."
She
believes most jewelers want to do the right thing and do not
want to sell conflict diamonds. Any store that car-ries conflict
diamonds is probably not operating above board in the first
place, she said.
"It's
inexcusable," Baugh said. "It's a terrible thought that something
so beautiful could be used for something so horrible."
Gemesis,
a local company that creates diamonds in its plant on Professional
Parkway in Lakewood Ranch, is stay-ing out of the argument.
"We're
part of the industry as a whole and any negative that comes
against the industry hurts us as well," said Clark McEwen,
chief operating officer. "We are an alternative, but we definitely
don't try to use that in our marketing in any way."
The
company uses a tiny seed of a diamond and graphite and applies
heat and pressure to create a cultured dia-mond. McEwen said
the diamonds they create are 100 percent the same as natural
diamonds mined from the earth. The one exception is that Gemesis
specializes in creating what they call "fancy yellow" diamonds.
Jewelers use Gemesis diamonds alongside natural white diamonds.
Conflict
tapering off
Some in the diamond industry said conflict diamonds are
not as common as they once were.
"Right
now there is sporadic fighting going on, but the conflicts
that caused this whole thing are essentially over," said Russell
Shor, a senior industry analyst at the Gemological Institute
of America. "Plus, the diamonds that were at issue probably
represented at the height of it only 3 or 4 percent of the
diamonds in the market."
These
days, Shor said, conflict diamonds probably account for less
than 1 percent of the diamonds in circulation. Angola is no
longer at war and a quarter of the world's diamond production
comes from Angola, South Africa and Bot-swana, he said.
The
diamond industry has worked as quickly as it could to remedy
the problem of conflict diamonds, Shor said, but met roadblocks
along the way as different countries struggled to work together.
In
2002 the United Nations made an attempt to decrease the number
of conflict diamonds in the world market by approving the
Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. It required participating
countries to meet three requirements: ensuring that the sale
of any diamond originating from the country does not fund
a rebel group, making sure that a cer-tificate accompanies
each diamond export and ensuring that no diamond has been
exported to or imported from a coun-try that does not participate
in the process.
DeBeers, the largest diamond mining company in the world,
and the World Diamond Council are participates along with
more than 40 countries including Canada and the United States.
Since
participation is voluntary and self-enforced, critics have
said there is no guarantee that the Kimberley Process has
successfully lowered the number of conflict diamonds in circulation.
Activist groups have also argued that the proc-ess ignores
human rights violations in countries that are not at war and
diamonds that may have been used to fund ter-rorist groups
like al-Qaida and Hezbollah.
"The
Kimberley Process is not solving the problem," said Beth Gerstein,
a director of Diamonds for Africa, a non-profit that aims
to end the conflict-diamond trade. "It only deals with the
UN's definition of a conflict diamond. It does not address
local brutality in diamond mining, child labor or environmental
issues."
Tracking
diamonds
Diamonds for Africa collects used diamond jewelry and cash
and donates it to the bushmen in Botswana and chil-dren in
the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone.
The
organization recently sent out a release about the movie "The
Blood Diamond." Gerstein thinks Hollywood will put a spotlight
on the issue and push the industry into the mainstream.
"The
only way to ensure that a diamond is 100 percent conflict
free is to purchase from Canadian mines, as they track and
monitor above and beyond current controls," the nonprofit
says.
Gerstein
also owns Brilliant Earth, a company that deals solely in
diamonds from Canada. She started Brilliant Earth with her
husband a year ago when they got engaged and were looking
for a conflict-free diamond.
They
had heard about the issue on 60 Minutes and had read about
the civil wars being waged in Africa. They had difficulty
finding a jeweler that carried conflict-free diamonds.
"We
were pretty surprised that most of the retailers did not know
about these issues and were selling us on the beauty of the
diamond," she said.
Gerstein
researched the industry by contacting non-governmental organizations
such as Partnership Africa Canada and Global Witness.
Brilliant
Earth then partnered with Canadian mines where diamonds are
tracked from the mine through cutting, polishing, transport
and the customer.
"Any
diamond that gets through that does not meet those high ethical
standards will taint the supply," she said.
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