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Guest Commentary: July 3, 2001
Time to End the Diamond Blood Trade
The Honorable Tony Hall
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Progress [has been] made in recent days in building the consensus needed to end the trade in conflict diamonds. Senators Dick Durbin, Mike Dewine and Russ Feingold [have] introduced a companion to H.R. 918, the Clean Diamonds Act, that incorporates a compromise among American jewelers and the legitimate global diamond industry on the one hand, and Senators, Members of Congress, and the 100-plus-member human-rights organization dedicated to eliminating the trade in conflict diamonds, on the other hand.
This compromise brings together elected representatives of the nation that is world's largest consumer of diamonds, the industry that markets those gems, and the respected human rights advocates who have brought the role that conflict diamonds play in the legitimate trade to American's attention.
These diverse groups united in supporting this bill in the hope that leaders of the global initiative, under way for the past year, will see in our unity a call to move beyond debating this problem, and actually devise a system capable of ending the trade in conflict diamonds -- a system that many of us here today have been calling for since early 2000.
I think we all have great respect for the 30-plus countries working through the African-led "Kimberley Process" to end this blood trade; their task is a challenging one. The compromise legislation aims to spur to action those who want to continue exporting diamonds to our market, but the road they take must be one charted by the Kimberley Process. However, the time for more talk, more meetings of this august body, and more delay is past.
Seven months ago, the United Nations General Assembly voted unanimously to act to eradicate this scourge. Coming together was not easy for all of the world's nations. It has not been easy for those of us here today. And it won't be easy for participants at July's meetings. But a coordinated, global approach offers the only real hope of ending a trade that has fueled the wars devastating countries that are home to 70 million Africans -- and that surely will spark more violence if this problem is left to fester. Today, some of the most significant stakeholders in the Kimberly Process' work banded together to call for swift follow-through on December's unanimous directive from the United Nations.
I hope history will judge this to be a turning point -- the moment that Americans' representatives in the faith, humanitarian and human rights communities, as well as their elected officials, joined hands with the industry that brings us one of the many African resources that make our lives sweet; the point at which we began working together on an issue of life-or-death importance to African people and communities.
This work entails more than introduction or a passage of the legislation, and more than implementation of a global regulatory scheme. To achieve lasting success, this work requires us to find a way to not merely break the curse that diamonds too often have been -- but to transform diamonds into a blessing for all of the communities that mine them.
Diamonds are the most concentrated form of wealth mankind has ever known -- so it is an intolerable irony that they do precious little to enrich many of the communities where they are mined: places which are located atop diamond-rich soil but nevertheless rank among the poorest and most miserable in the world, places like Kenema in Sierra Leone, where nearly one child in three dies before his first birthday, even in years that see little fighting for control of its diamonds. As long as conditions like this persist, as long as there are few alternatives for Kenema's people to careers begun as child soldiers, as long as diamond mines are an easy target for criminal takeovers, it is doubtful that stricter customs laws alone will be capable of holding back the violence bred of this despair.
I am heartened that the Diamond Dealers Club of New York is continuing an initiative launched by my friend, Mayer Herz. It will directly link Sierra Leone miners with American retailers, and reinvest more of the dollars American spend on diamonds in the African communities that produce them. I would like to see more joint ventures like that, and I encourage other responsible members of the legitimate diamond industry to follow this example. ...
As valuable as the industry's efforts have been, the Campaign to Eliminate Conflict Diamonds is the real father of this success. The human rights activists and members of the humanitarian and faith communities who launched that campaign, along with the organizations they represent, have done heroic work that has brought us to this point.
First, they have catapulted this issue into the consciousness of Americans who never give Africans a thought otherwise -- and made many people think for the first time about what our sparkly tokens of love and commitment symbolize to many people at the other end of the supply chain.
Second, they have worked with the industry at every level to convince jewelers and industry leaders alike of the urgent need for an effective and immediate solution. That required standing up to a powerful industry while simultaneously remaining flexible enough to work with it when the situation warranted that.
Third, they have persuaded a quarter of our nation's elected representatives, one by one, to support this call for clean diamonds -- a call that until today put Members of Congress on the side of faraway African victims and at odds with jewelers in every Congressional district.
And last, they have done all this without resorting to the easy answers and hype that could destroy consumer confidence in diamonds and devastate the economies of the countries they benefit.
If we heed this call, we can make today the milestone it has the potential to be, the moment history marks as the beginning of diamonds' transformation, from a curse on too many Africans, to a blessing for all the people whose lives they touch.
Note: This column has been adapted from a speech Rep. Hall delivered on the floor of the House, June 21, 2001.
 How to contact Representative Tony Hall (D-Ohio)
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