Diamonds From Sierra Leone

Diamonds may be forever, but they are not priceless. Due to the resource curse in Sierra Leone, the country has been taken over by a rebel army called the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). The RUF has been at war with Sierra Leone since 1991 and had been actively fighting until as late as 2002. The RUF was notorious for brainwashing children into becoming child soldiers. These children were taken from their villages against their will and forced to kill. This would not have happened if Sierra Leone did not randomly fall victim to a resource curse. A resource curse is when a small, underdeveloped country has an indigenous item that is very rare, lucrative and worth a lot of money. An example of a resource curse in the Middle East would be oil, for that is the motive for many of the international conflicts to have occurred there. In Sierra Leone, their resource curse is diamonds.

Ironically enough, the discovery of diamonds was the worst thing to ever to the beautiful nation of Sierra Leone. It is less the resource itself that is the problem, but more the artificial value that has been created for diamonds over the last century. Buying a diamond engagement ring was not always the social norm for couples. This was not a trend until the De Beers Mining Company created the slogan for the diamond company’s ad campaign: diamonds are forever. The diamond was to be a symbol of the eternity of love and marriage. Fast forward to 2017 and you can tell yourself, wow did that ad campaign start a financial and economic revolution. The average engagement ring now costs $4,000. This is due to the “rareness” of diamonds. Rareness was used in quotations for good reason, however.

Diamonds are a lot less rare than the public assumes to believe. As a matter of fact, diamond miners are notoriously known to have held onto diamonds in secret reserves. This was done to make the supply appear to be less prevalent than what it actually was, thus making the demand skyrocket. And since the diamond industry was practically monopolized by the De Beers Mining Company, they had full market control over the fluctuation of pricing. This gives them the ability to raise diamond prices around holiday seasons, such as Christmas or Valentine’s Day.

The resource curse can be handled much better than it historically is. For example, I propose that there should be some sort of national agreement made on any hot commodity discovered in a nation in which the GDP falls under a certain percentage. This would look out for the smaller, more vulnerable areas who have no control over what has naturally developed in their land. It is not fair that Sierra Leone had to endure the resource curse that they did. It could have been any country. If it were a much more developed country, this would not be an issue. I would be typing this on my diamond Macbook, and we would think absolutely nothing of it. The point I am making is that because diamonds were mined in such a corrupt environment, the way that their production and distribution has entailed has left the resource to be marked up at incredibly overpriced rates. Diamonds may be forever, but the resource curse does NOT have to be.