This is an executive order I can support wholeheartedly:
President Bush signed an executive order Tuesday that bans the import of rough diamonds used to finance civil wars in Africa.
The order, which goes into effect Wednesday, brings the United States — the world’s largest diamond importer — into compliance with an international agreement prohibiting trade in “conflict” or “blood” diamonds.
The agreement, approved by the United Nations, creates a paper trail so that rough stones can be traced to a legitimate mine.
Diamond production has financed deadly conflicts in countries including Angola, Sierra Leone, Congo and Liberia. Human rights groups say rebels use forced labor to mine diamonds, then use the proceeds to buy weapons and finance military activity.
A threefer- stop putting money into the hands of terrorists, help to cu down on human rights abuses, and help those nations who engage in legitimate diamond trade. I can handle that- not to mention it is UN approved!
Devon
It’s about time. I hope this will make people recognize the ugly truth behind all of the overpriced engagement rings women are sporting these days.
Sean Hackbarth
What this does is increase the DeBears monopoly
David Perron
That would be DeBeers. And I’m not entirely sure it would. If those diamonds are more than a drop in the bucket of the diamond market, selling them on the open market out of a free, democratic country will do far more to destroy the DeBeers monopoly than paying a few blood diamonds on the black market do.
And by your logic, isn’t the fact that we all buy our women diamonds from the DeBeers monopoly more evil than supporting repressive regimes by purchasing blood diamonds?
The decision to ban or not ban blood diamonds should be made devoid of any consideration of the DeBeers monopoly. It’s a separate issue.
DANEgerus
Yeah, and Jesse’s already got his right?
frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9085
M. Scott Eiland
“What this does is increase the DeBears monopoly”
De Bears haven’t had a monopoly since the salad days of Walter Payton, Jim McMahon, and William “Refrigerator” Perry.
cameron
I think it was the Canadian government or a Canadian company who started to engrave, very minutly, a polar bear on their diamonds, signifying that there diamonds came from Canada, or some non war-supporting African company.
I’ve personally never been all that supportive of diamonds(I know, sounds cheap), but there is such a glut of diamonds being held back from the market, that if they were actually introduced(as opposed to being kept in warehouses) that they would literally be worth a dime a dozen.
Emeralds and rubies are much more rare than diamonds, yet so much less expensive, in price and in the manufactured belief that diamonds are the best.
The value of diamonds is one of the great myths in our society.
Of course DeBeers won’t tell you that. ;-)
David Perron
My wife has a 1.7 kt Ceylon sapphire sitting on her finger. Coupla small diamonds on either side. I’ve always liked sapphires better.
Emeralds are rather more fragile than sapphires or rubies. Sapphires and rubies are more or less the same thing with different trace elements. I think it’s not far off when we can just diamond-coat our glasses instead of that rather flimsy scratch-coating we use now, and window panes made of diamond are commonplace. Hey, we’ve got sapphire windows in pretty close to square-foot size already.
Mark
I think you all have the wrong end of the stick. The banning of conflict diamonds won’t increase DeBeers monopoly – it is the DeBeers monopoly, by artificially inflating the price of a stone that is so plentiful in Africa, that makes diamonds such a nice way to finance genocide against Hutus, Tutsis, or whoever. Its just one more way that evil DeBeers carries on the legacy of the vicious Cecil Rhodes, who basically used Aficans as slaves in his mines.