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To: blam
Oh sure, they are not conflict diamonds, wink, wink.

How the heck do we know for sure? They all pass thru Amsterdam or Brussels..

sw

8 posted on 01/06/2007 7:56:12 PM PST by spectre (Spectre's wife ("One Nation, One Standard")
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To: spectre
That IS the point; you really can't tell! I read an article about that, a few months back, and it stated that there really was only the sellers' word.

OTOH, why aren't Russian diamonds considered to be "blood diamonds" too? The stinking Commies had blood dripping from their collective hands for generations.

21 posted on 01/06/2007 8:11:43 PM PST by nopardons
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To: spectre; blam; nopardons
They all pass thru Amsterdam or Brussels..

Not all of 'em.

www.gemesis.com

www.apollodiamond.com

31 posted on 01/06/2007 8:27:36 PM PST by uglybiker (A bunch of radical Unitarians left a flaming question mark on my lawn!)
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To: spectre
Brussels was the biggest conduit of conflict diamomds. One of the doc channels had a two hour "Blood Diamonds" show on a week or three ago.

All the conflict diamonds invariably come from former European colonies that were left with the basis for a fairly decent society. Most became corrupt basket cases. One country, Sierra Leone, that was able to beat back the sadistic terrorists, RUF, iirc, made the mistake of abandoning a military dictatorship too soon, and electing some quack UN type. The RUF immediately went on the offensive, and resumed killing, raping, maiming, and enslaving people. That's not to mention the absolute corruption of adolescents who probably will never be able to be integrated into any civilization.

Anyway, back to Brussels. I think it was Liberia that was doing about $10M a year in diamonds, and with all the conflicts, it shot up into several billion, since Liberia was the laundering operation for hiding the true source of "blood diamonds". All those old trading and smuggling trails from years gone by. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

33 posted on 01/06/2007 8:29:57 PM PST by Calvin Locke
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