Blood Diamonds Make War Crimes Trial Headline News

Aug 9, 2010
Jennifer Young

Uncut Diamonds - Photo by Dave Fischer

As the news media focus on Naomi Campbell's appearance in the witness box in a war crimes trial, attention is drawn to issues surrounding blood diamonds.

The reluctant appearance of the supermodel Naomi Campbell at the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, has brought a long-running trial to the media’s attention. Following Miss Campbell’s testimony, the actress Mia Farrow (who gave appeared as a witness on 9 August 2010) provided evidence which appeared to contradict Miss Campbell’s, attracting even more interest.

Naomi Campbell and Mia Farrow have been questioned not about war crimes but about whether the defendant had given Miss Campbell a gift of uncut ‘blood diamonds’. The trial itself, however, is not about diamonds but about the responsibility of Taylor for atrocities committed during the civil war which afflicted the West African state of Sierra Leone during the 1990s.

The Trial of Charles Taylor and the War in Sierra Leone

Charles Taylor was elected President of Liberia in 1997 after returning from exile in the United States where he had fled after falling out with his former ally (and also former president) Samuel Doe. His return led to a guerrilla war during which many atrocities were committed. The war was notorious for, in particular, its use of child soldiers.

Overthrown in 2003 after six years of rule, he was accused of a variety of war crimes, in particular relating to his reputed involvement in supporting the Revolutionary United Front, one of the factions involved in a bloody civil war which took place in neighbouring Sierra Leone. He was arrested three years later and placed on trial in The Hague under the jurisdiction of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (BBC News Online).

The indictment laid against Taylor by the Special Court of Sierra Leone extended to 17 separate counts. These covered a number of outrages for which it was claimed that he was responsible ‘by act or omission’. The counts against him included rape, murder, sexual violence, physical violence, abduction and use of forced labour and the use of child soldiers.

The trial currently taking place in the Hague has been ongoing since 2006 but has failed to make significant headlines worldwide until the calling of celebrity witnesses whose testimony might link Taylor to involvement with so-called ‘blood diamonds’ or ‘conflict diamonds’, which might have been used to fund the war. Naomi Campbell, it is claimed, was given a bag of such diamonds after a dinner attended by Taylor.

The charge sheet against the former Liberian president alleges that one of the reasons for his involvement in the civil war in Sierra Leone in order to ‘gain access to [the country’s] mineral wealth and to destabilise the Government of Sierra Leone’.

Blood Diamonds

Blood diamonds, or conflict diamonds, are defined by the United Nations as those which come from areas ‘controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council’. Having identified Sierra Leone as among the countries of particular concern, a UN resolution was passed in 2000 which recognised that such diamonds, being of high value even in their uncut state, could be used to prolong wars in some areas of civil and military instability. The resolution set out to reduce the scale of the problem by banning the trade in diamonds from these countries.

The main tool used in combating the problems of blood diamonds is a process of certification, known as the Kimberley Process. This requires all participating governments of exporting country to produce a certificate for each exported diamond guaranteeing that all stages of their production have been legitimate, and that the diamonds thus on the market are ‘conflict free’

Although blood diamonds play only a small role in the trial of Charles Taylor, the glamour of both the jewels and the celebrity witnesses associated with them will have done much to draw the attention of the media not just to the atrocities associated with the war in Sierra Leone but also to the wider issue of the international trade in blood diamonds and its implictions.