Global corruption report 2001

Abstract

"It is now widely known that so-called ‘blood diamonds’ have allowed brutal rebel movements such as Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and Jonas Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) to buy arms, sustain protracted conflicts and terrorise millions of the world’s poorest civilians. Diamonds have also fuelled recent conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Liberia. Dealers in these gems have hidden networks that reach deep into an underworld of arms merchants and international organised crime, with links to government officials and, sometimes, presidents. These corrupt, diamond-funded patronage networks have corrosive effects on the political economies of diamondproducing countries and raise serious issues of industry and consumer ethics. The diamond industry initially dismissed a challenge by activists to curb the trade in goods that are so easy to smuggle. But a new set of initiatives is now having a tangible effect on both rebel finances and industry transparency. These changes are testimony to the ways in which industry can be pushed to greater accountability by civil society protest.