Diamonds are forever ... but so also are controversies: Diamonds and the actors in Sierra Leone's civil war

Abstract

While the world waits to see if the July 1999 peace agreement between the government and the rebels in Sierra Leone holds, controversies still surrounds the war that has left more than 20,000 dead, several hundreds mutilated and up to a million displaced. Most of these controversies centre on the dynamics that gave the conflict life. Extant knowledge places premium on the economic ramifications of the conflict, particularly the importance of diamonds in explaining its complexities. This article seeks an understanding of the controversies surrounding the role of diamonds in the conflict, discussing the arguments for and against various perspectives of the role of the resource. It concludes that the need to control access to diamonds, and to exploit it for personal accumulation proved crucial in explaining the attitudes of the warring factions to the conflict, to the peace moves, as well as explaining the intricacies of foreign involvement.