Blood on the stone, Smillie, Ian

Africas diamond wars took four million lives. They destroyed the lives of millions more and they crippled the economies of Angola, the Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The biggest UN peacekeeping forces in the world--in Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Congo and Cote dIvoire―are the legacy of conflict or blood diamonds.

Blood on the Stone tells the story of how diamonds came to be so dangerous. It describes the history of the great diamond cartel and how it gradually lost control of the precious mineral, as country after country descended into anarchy and wars fuelled by diamonds. The book describes the diamond pipeline, from war-torn Africa to the glittering showrooms of Paris, London and New York. It describes the campaign that began in 1999 and which eventually forced the industry and more than 50 governments to create a global certification system known as the Kimberley Process, aimed at wringing blood diamonds out of the retail trade. This gripping account concludes with a sobering assessment of the certification system, which soon became hostage to political chicanery, mismanagement and vested interests. Too important to fail, the Kimberley Process has been hailed as a regulatory model for Africas extractive minerals. Behind the scenes, however, it runs the risk of becoming an ineffectual talk shop, standing aside as criminals re-infest the diamond world.