Diamond Mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Document from the year 2015 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Africa, grade: 95, University of California, Berkeley , course: Peace & Conflict Studies, language: English, abstract: This paper is intended to trace the evolution of conflict diamond mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the success of international effort by means of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme to eliminate conflict by means of civil war, war, terrorism or insurgency. By evaluating the Kimberley Process and synthesizing the views of different authors, organizations and critics, I determine whether or not the process has accomplished what it set out to do and if it should be kept.

Diamond mining is part of the cycle of natural resource exploitation that plagues the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as many other parts of Africa, for decades in diamonds and centuries in human labor and other resources. The diamond issue was lowly ranked on the international radar for decades and became a clear priority during several civil wars in Africa in the 1990s. The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme is an international effort that was put in place to eliminate conflict diamonds from being sold and financing war, insurgent groups or terrorism.