Sierra Leone, a small country located in west Africa, has recently dropped its population from 4.4 million to 2 million because of a massive war that had struck quite swiftly. This war had been a great tragedy to those who were in Sierra Leone at the time for they were innocent and had no do of wrong. To dig to the core, you would find that this war was primarily caused by the diamonds in the country. In efforts to preventing such a tremble in this or any other country again, many solutions to this issue have been brought up from around the world.
A war named Blood Diamonds had hit in Sierra Leone, causing many tragic events to occur including the 50,000 people dead. In efforts for the war to be named Blood Diamonds, the war had been caused mainly by the easily extractable diamonds in Sierra Leone. Attacks of the Revolutionary “United Front (RUF) ,led by former army corporal Foday Sankoh”(Encyclopedia Britannica), were on government military and civilians. In response to a corrupt government, the RUF performed violent and terrorist acts that scarred many. “The RUF captured civilians ...
Blood diamond is a story start with the capture of a fisherman, Solomon Vandy, by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) revolts when they invade the small Sierra Leonian village of Shenge. Solomon had lost his family and being force to work in the diamond field under the order of Captain Poison, however his son, Dia, is turning into a hardened killer through brainwashing. The RUF often trading for arms by using the fund of diamonds. One day, Solomon found a rare pink diamond. Captain Poison tried to get the pink diamond, but the government troops suddenly attack that area.
During the author’s life in New York and Oberlin College, he understood that people who have not experienced being in a war do not understand what the chaos of a war does to a human being. And once the western media started sensationalizing the violence in Sierra Leone without any human context, people started relating Sierra Leone to civil war, madness and amputations only as that was all that was spoken about. So he wrote this book out o...
Deep within African mines, elusive diamonds lay enveloped in the Earth’s crust. Possessing much influence, beauty, and tension, nature’s hardest known substance causes parallel occurrences of unity and destruction on opposite sides of the globe. Diamonds, derived from the Greek word "adamas", meaning invincible, are formed deep within the mantle, and are composed entirely from carbon. Moreover, only under tremendous amounts of heat and pressure can diamonds form into their preliminary crystal state. In fact, diamonds are formed approximately 150km- 200km below the surface and at radical temperatures ranging from 900-1300 C°. When these extremes meet, carbon atoms are forced together creating diamond crystals. Yet how do these gems, ranking a ten on Moh’s hardness scale, impact the individual lives of millions of people besides coaxing a squeal out of brides-to-be? These colorless, yellow, brown, green, blue, reddish, pink, grey and black minerals are gorgeous in their cut state, but how are these otherwise dull gems recognized and harvested? Furthermore, how and why is bloodshed and violence caused over diamonds in Africa, the supplier of approximately 65% of the world’s diamonds? (Bertoni) The environmental, social, and economic impact of harvesting, transporting, and processing diamonds is crucial because contrary to popular belief, much blood has been spilled over first-world “bling”.
Being located in the west coast of Africa and between Guinea and Liberia, “Sierra Leone has an abundance of easily extractable diamonds”(BBC News). The diamonds had brought “encouragement” for violence in the country in 1991. Attacks of the Revolutionary “United Front (RUF) ,led by former army corporal Foday Sankoh”(Encyclopedia Britannica), were on government military and civilians. In response to a corrupt government, the RUF performed violent and terrorist acts that scarred many. “The RUF captured civilians and forced them to work”(Analyzing the Causes) in their army to gain control over Sierra Leone. The savages went a...
There was a war in Sierra Leone, Africa, from 1991 to 2002 where a rebel army stormed through African villages amputating and raping citizens left and right (“Sierra Leone Profile”). Adebunmi Savage, a former citizen of Sierra Leone, describes the reality of this civil war: In 1996 the war in Sierra Leone was becoming a horrific catastrophe. Children were recruited to be soldiers, families were murdered, death came easily, and staying alive was a privilege. Torture became the favorite pastime of the Revolutionary United Front rebel movement, which was against the citizens who supported Sierra Leone’s president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.
Whilst the Civil War in Sierra Leone now seems archaic, the RUF still competes in a battle for control over the diamond-producing regions of Sierra Leone.
Ans. 1) Genocide, child soldiers, slavery. Solomon was forced into slavery in a diamond mine, working in terrible conditions against his will by Captain Poison. After Solomon escaped his son Dia was captured by Captain Poison and he too was forced into slavery as a child soldier, Dia was brainwashed by the RUF and forced to take part in the torture and murder of innocent civilians, he was drugged and mentally tortured. Solomon’s whole village was burned down and the villagers who were not fit for work has their hands cut off. Those who were fit for work were torn from their families and forced into slave labour. Refugees including Solomon’s wife and
The Sierra Leone Civil War was a savage conflict that would rage for over a decade, claiming the lives of 300,000 and displacing 2.5 million civilians. The Bite of the Mango and A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier are firsthand accounts of children affected by the war. Mariatu Kamara had her hands severed and was left for dead. Ishmael Beah was conscripted by the government army to fight the rebel forces. Ishmael and Mariatu were both victims of the bloody Sierra Leone civil war, however their journeys to safety were vastly different.
One can easily note the physical and sexual violence brought upon the people (black and white) of Congo after independence, but we must locate the other forms of violence in order to bring the entire story of Patrice Lumumba to light. The director’s attempt at bringing the story of Patrice Lumumba to the “silver screen” had political intentions.
This relates back to Congo, where violence spurred by ethnic rivalries is due to local groups’ desire to make money by getting into the extractive industries. In another example, Newmont, an American company, mines Ghanaian gold and pays the government part of the profits. Here, Burgis shined the spotlight on an environmental issue: the sodium cyanide spill in Kwamebourkrom that killed aquatic life and posed hazardous living conditions for locals (Burgis, 134). Finally, in the last few chapters, Burgis touched on Cecil John Rhodes’ legacy as the founder of De Beers, blood diamonds, imperialism, and violence carried out by local governments and mining companies in order to protect their interests.
In” Blood Diamonds” Weinstein (2006) showed that a civil war happened in the 1990s in Republic of Sierra Leone. Archer, Vandy and Bowen were the main characters in the movie. They were risking lives and circulating countless battles. They finally had a common goal that they wanted to uncover the dark side that was the black market of diamonds in Africa and America.
The war was worsened by the wealthy minerals in the ground and the influence of the mineral was strengthened by the fear and displacement the war caused. The intertwining of these two destructive forces is seen in the story Salima is told by a man who bought her. In this he tells of a man who stuffed”...the coltan into his mouth to keep the soldiers from stealing his hard work, and they split his belly open with a machete”(31). Not only does this story show the harsh conditions the men are exposed to in war, but also it further demonstrates the hold coltan has on the minds of those who live in the Congo. The want for coltan leads to the destruction of the community and individual identities of those involved as it perpetuates a cycle of war that damages men, induces violence against women, and ultimately creates a cycle of lost identity.
On the other hand, with multiple stories, it is possible to accurately view the people of Sierra Leone. Beah’s experience in Sierra Leone was just one perspective, as a young boy and a brainwashed soldier trying to survive during the civil war. However, there are many other people with different viewpoints in Sierra Leone such as rebel soldiers, government officials, or citizens. “A Long Way Gone,” does not show how the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) forced citizens to mine diamonds, which they sold to fund the civil war, as the documentary “Blood Diamonds”(Brummel) explains. The memoir also does not explain why the RUF attacked or even how the war started . With so many factors missing from “A Long Way Gone” judgements will not be equitable. In order to judge people or a place, you must have more points of view, or information than one
For the past sixty-seven years, the citizens of India have embraced their country’s independence all the while seeking to regain their past. Prior to this renewed sense of freedom, India had belonged to the British Empire. From 1858 to 1947, the British government claimed India and its inhabitants as a colonial possession. Before the British Empire laid claim to the vastness of India, the British East India Company helped to oversee the transfer of the Kohinoor Diamond from the Sikh Empire to their motherland in 1851.
... rebel fighters and insurgencies. The practice is most often associated with conflicts in Africa. The argument surrounding blood diamonds was brought to light in the early 1990s with civil wars in Sierra Leone, Angola, the Republic of Congo, and Liberia. During this time, blood diamonds comprised about 5 percent of the world diamond market, according to the World Diamond Council’s DiamondFacts.org website.