Commentary - Chris Coleman: ‘Blood Diamond’ tells necessary story

The question surprised me, because, like most of my colleagues in the diamond and jewelry industry, I welcome the release of the film, which portrays the growing friendship between a diamond smuggler (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a Sierra Leone man (Djimon Hounsou) trying to rescue his son from abduction as a child soldier in that country’s brutal 1990s civil war.

Diamonds are meant to be a gift of love, and jewelers like me abhor the fact they funded the Sierra Leone conflict. “Blood Diamond” is a way for Americans to learn about this little-publicized tragedy. When we raise consciousness about such events, we help to prevent them from recurring.

The diamond industry has taken steps to ensure that conflict diamonds — which at worst comprised 4 percent of uncut diamonds traded — do not make it to market. In collaboration with governments and human rights groups including Amnesty International and Global Witness, it helped to create the Kimberley Process. After several years’ work to bring it to fruition, the KP system started in 2003.

Today, it regulates 99 percent of the rough (uncut) diamond supply, to prevent the sale of conflict diamonds.

The Kimberley Process works like this. Each of the 71 countries that trade uncut diamonds is legally required by the government-led system to certify its country’s diamonds as nonconflict before exporting them in a tamper-resistant container, with a forgery-resistant certificate listing the contents. The containers and packages are checked each time they enter a new country, through a series of customs laws that each Kimberley country had to pass in order to trade in rough diamonds.

What about after diamonds are cut and polished — the form in which most consumers know them? To support the Kimberley Process, our industry created a voluntary warranty system in which we are required to ask every single one of our loose diamond and diamond jewelry suppliers to provide an official written warranty that their diamonds come from Kimberley-certified sources and thus are not involved in funding conflict. From the time a diamond is cut, and each time it changes hands, whether to be re-traded or set in jewelry, we pass on these warranties, right down to the retail counter.

Thankfully, the dreadful war depicted in “Blood Diamond” is over, and the people of Sierra Leone are working to rebuild their nation. The diamond industry seeks to help Sierra Leone’s citizens in their rebuilding.

In addition to continued participation in the Kimberley Process system, it is also helping to improve the plight of itinerant miners who dig in open fields and alluvial deposits along riverbeds for diamonds in Sierra Leone. The diggers work in terrible conditions; projects like the Diamond Development Initiative try to help them benefit from their diamond resources, through education, business organization and improved infrastructure. It will be a long journey, but Sierra Leone needs its diamond revenues to survive, with so little other industry in the country.

Our hope as an industry is that one day Sierra Leone will be able to follow the model of peaceful diamond-rich African countries, like Botswana in southern Africa, where a responsible government has used diamond revenues to build schools, roads and housing. Botswana has also become a model for Africa in its handling of the AIDS pandemic. It is one of the few countries where the drugs needed to treat the HIV virus are free and widely available.

When you see the movie, you will learn of a beautiful country populated by Africans who are now working to make their diamond dreams a solid reality. They have made peace with their past and are looking forward to their bright future. That’s the best diamond dream I could ever wish for.

Chris Coleman is vice president and part owner, with his brother Mark, of Nelson Coleman Jewelers, a sixth-generation independent family owned and operated jeweler based in Towson.