Campbell, a freelance writer, sets out to rub the noses of diamond-lovers in
the gore of Sierra Leone's brutal civil war (1991-2001), in which a rebel army
of thieves seized the country's diamond fields and specialized in amputating
the limbs of villagers to force their cooperation in the plunder. Arriving on
the scene in 2001, Campbell interviewed survivors and observed efforts, often
bumbling, by the UN's huge peacekeeping mission to stabilize the country.
Is there a way to bar the sale of tainted gems on the world market?
Ultimately no, the author says, given the ease of smuggling something with
such low weight and high value. But this fact has not stopped the De Beers
corporation, which still controls about 65 percent of world sales of uncut
diamonds, from trying mightily to convince consumers that its diamonds are
clean. At this stage, however, few consumers know about the villagers in
Sierra Leone, or that al Qaeda laundered money by buying blood diamonds,
or that Liberian President Charles Taylor, the Slobodan Milosevic of Africa,
has remained in power largely through illicit diamond deals with the Sierra
Leone rebels.

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