Little Was Know in Sierra Leone and How it Connect to the Diamonds We Own

A few years back, I read an article on Diamonds detailing with Blood Diamonds that were fueling civil wars in several African countries. They were called Blood Diamonds of course because much blood was shed to control these diamonds so they can sell them to stores like De Beers just to spend the money on more guns and ammo to further the civil wars leaving innocent people that happened to be in the path of the rebels without hands or legs, well at least the lucky ones.

After hearing this I made a silent protest, no longer wearing any time of jewelry including a watch but would be more than happy to tell people why whenever they ask why not. The lone non-clothing I wear these days is a LiveStrong bracelet (speaking of which, check out the latest issue of Newsweek that has LiveStrong on the cover for a great story on living with cancer). But it has been an uphill battle trying to convert other as most people I run into care much more about a rock than handless children hundreds of miles away. Seriously, see how fast your marriage proposal will be rejected when you tell her you didn’t put a diamond on the engagement ring because of the bloodshed it causes.

Despite almost two decades of Civil War in Sierra Leone, Blood Diamonds are just recently getting the much deserved attention. Two years ago, Kanye West changed one of his songs names to Diamonds from Sierra Leone, the video and remix of which delt with the effects of Conflict Diamonds. More recently VH1 filmed a documentary in which they took some rappers, a genre overly obsessed with bling, to Africa. But the biggest impact was that of the Leonardo DiCaprio led movie Blood Diamond.

The movie se in 1999 Sierra Leone intertwines the lives of two very different people, DiCaprio (The Departed) who trades arms for diamonds with the Revolutionary Untied Front and Djimon Hounsou (Amistad) as a fisherman who was put into slavery in the diamond fields by the RUF and separated from his family. When they are both incarcerated in the same jail, DiCaprio overhears Hounsou being accused of hiding a rare pink diamond and realizes this is his best chance at getting off the continent and makes a deal with Hounsou if he helps him get the diamond, he will help him find his family.

There is plenty road bumps in the way between the two and where the diamond is hidden, but both lead actors are up for the challenge even though the plot is sometimes hard to follow although the film does a decent job at relaying the atrocities that have been happening in these African countries. Another plot point that was really unneeded was a love story between DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly (Hulk) but hopefully the film helps bring into light the civil wars brought on by the sale of Conflict Diamonds and change the practices of those profiting from them and ultimately people buying them something to think about.

Blood Diamond gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

Download Blood Diamond on Amazon Unbox (which you can trasfer to your Tivo).