Conflict and diamonds.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)

In "Bloody Nonsense" (Nov. 20), Jack Jolis writes of the "non-issue of 'blood diamonds.'" He asserts, "If there were not a single diamond produced on the African continent, there would not be one fewer war there, nor one fewer human victim thereof."

He maintains that the majority of diamond-producing countries are free of conflict and that many civil wars in Africa occur in diamond-free countries. But this is trivial: No organization that has worked seriously to stop the bartering of "conflict diamonds" claims that a large fraction of the world's diamond supply comes from conflict areas. It is virtually undisputed that only a sliver of the world's diamonds are "conflict diamonds." The problem is that this sliver still represents tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) of dollars.

And what do these millions of dollars buy? Not just machetes and AK-47s, as Jolis claims, but, according to a January 2001 U.N. Report, items such as tanks, missiles, artillery, and landmines. The majority of Angolans maimed during the civil war (around 80,000 people) were injured by landmines. People continue to be killed and maimed today. A2004 BBC report estimated that there were somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million landmines in ...