Jewelers Nervous About 'Blood Diamond' Film


By Eric Onstad
Reuters








JWANENG MINE, Botswana (May 25) - The U.S. jewelry industry is gearing up to counter any negative effects from the upcoming film "The Blood Diamond" which shows how illicit gem trade fueled bloody civil wars, a trade group said.

The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a South African mercenary jailed for smuggling in Sierra Leone, ravaged during a brutal civil war lasting until 2002 that killed 50,000 people.

The picture started filming in February, but Warner Brothers has not said when it will be released.

"The danger is that people will think the situation in the film is continuing today," said Peggy Jo Donahue, public affairs director of trade group Jewelers of America.

"We're going to educate our jewelers about the issue. There's lots that's not understood," she told Reuters this week during a tour of diamond giant De Beers' operations in Botswana.

A new web site on diamonds is being set up to answer queries from consumers.

Rebel groups in countries including Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Liberia have used billions of dollars from the sale of diamonds to fund wars, but the industry and human rights groups differ on how much the practice persists.

Amnesty International said in February in launching a Valentine's Day campaign against so-called conflict diamonds that diamonds mined in rebel-held areas of West Africa's Ivory Coast were still reaching the international market.

Sierra Leone's Mineral Resources Minister told Reuters last year that the country had boosted legitimate exports, but was still trying to stamp out smuggling.

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The Kimberley Process, an international certification program set up in 2000, says the vast majority of the world's rough diamond trade is now under its strict controls.

The chairman of the Kimberley Process, Kago Mashashane of Botswana, wrote earlier this year to the producers of "The Blood Diamond" asking that it include an epilogue explaining the measures taken to stem the illicit trade.

He said Botswana, the world's biggest producer of diamonds, was worried that a consumer boycott could damage its efforts to boost education and healthcare since the diamond sector accounted for around half of government revenue.

The diamond trade was working hard to shed the secretive nature of the business, Donahue said.

"The industry must be much more transparent now, it can't be as secretive," she said.

Currently the Kimberley Process regulates the trade in rough diamonds, but a new group is seeking to extend scrutiny all the way to the retail level, she said.

The Council for Responsible Jewelry Practices hopes to set up a certification program for gold and diamonds within a couple of years from the mine to the consumer.

In the diamond sector, the U.S. jewelry industry has a voluntary system of warranties that try to ensure that only gems from the Kimberley Process are used in products, Donahue added.

Jewelers of America has 11,000 members, including the largest U.S. retailer, Zales, and luxury groups Tiffany and Co and Cartier.

De Beers, 45 percent owned by mining group Anglo American plc, is the world's largest diamond producing group

their PR machine is already in motion over this...BUT that's only for the small % of people who would actually care and not make a diamond purchase if they knew the truth....

Vast majority don't care......and would not care even if a no holds barred-complete truth telling documentary aired on free tv about this.



People are only concerned about themselves...

what do the limbs, and lives of a bunch of people who look JUST like them in another continent matter...??? as long as they can shine and buy luxury items....

and blaming rappers is a scapegoat......"well educated" & older people probably purchase more diamonds and jewels than anybody...

Jewelers don't need to worry about any film on blood diamonds. There're enough materalistic people around who don't give a sh*t about the plight of others as long as they can get their bling on.

^^ Hmmm. Sometimes I wonder where that bling bling saying came from. Shame that rappers are the ones promoting it all with the Jewish behind them all the way. Running the diamond industry, the music industry.

Definatly going to see the film though, theres been quite a few goodfilms out recently. Lord Of War - Constant Gardner - Hotel Ruwanda and follow up movie - and this one.

Hopefully it'll wake a few people up.

Thought the same thing.

So you'd say that its part of our culture and in following European perspective we've come to think of it as a display of wealth?

The Ancients called gold ''sun metal'' not sure what diamonds were called.Its all compressed carbon, long dead organic material.

Do you have a picture of the modern day tribal chiefs?Wouldbe cool to seewhat they look like,the Hindus wear it in the same way but I haven't seen anyone else but them wear it religiously.

think it's a part of human expression.....



people do it in different ways.....



there is photo book of african chiefs that my sis owns...I'll find title and look on amazon for pictures......

they display clothing, crowns, colors and jewels that signify their status.....



gold coast region chiefs were wearing PURE gold.......so pure it looked white



I'm from the diaspora so I don't know what my specific tribe is or whether ornate jewery is an accepted part of the culture....but

every culture has ways that they shine or display wealth.....

haven't spoken to my fam about book title but I haven't forgotten...





by the way...there is a book called "bling bling" about hip hop and jewelry ..VERY interesting and honest book.....even if , like me, you think that the stuff is gaudy and tacky.....

yeah Prince Hak,



along those lines......mad gold.....thick ass bracelets that must weight like half a pound of pure gold....

that's it....



=========================================

The book "bling bling" gets at the root of the big gold craze in earlier hip hop and new york urban communities....



and thi sis from the rapper's own mouths....



they said that it (chains, bracelets)was style of hustlers....and heavily influenced by caribbean, jamaican...guyanese, panamananian drug dealers..... the big gaudy jewelry was then copied by huslters/drug dealerswho worked around these guys...



they said the gold teeth was style of older caribeean/latin americanpoor people who replaced their rotted teeth with gold ones......



slick rick, who is of jamaican heritage.......gave a very detailed history of how the styles started...



hip hop could have only gotten started in a place like new york , where so many cultures were meshed and mixed together...African american, Caribbean american, Latin american.....each had a hand in crafting the general culture...