Conflict and Blood Diamonds

I recently saw a full page Ad in NY Times by an organization called diamondfacts.org established by the World Diamond Council. The Ad proclaimed that they wanted to present the positive side of diamonds and how diamonds are helping the world with education, healthcare, and HIV AIDS. How about that? Did you know that (1) Diamond revenues enable every child in Botswana to receive free education up to the age of 13, and (2) The revenue from diamonds is instrumental in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Well, these are just a sampling of the facts listed in diamondfacts.org.

The problem with this website is that the motivation is not all that fair. Diamondfacts.org has been specifically set-up to counter the negative publicity generated by a new movie, "Blood Diamonds" staring Leo DiCaprio, to be released in December. Ha, there we go!! Another industry group trying to portray itself as nice as the oil industry. According to a story in NYT on Sep. 4, the attempt to sell itself as Mr. nice industry is another cynical attempt much like the oil companies.