Bus Ethics Blood Diamonds.docx

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2 Develop a short activity/questions to debate- something for us to interact with

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4 Identify the various stakeholders in the ethical situation – who is involved and what are their perspectives and needs?

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5 Analyze the situation from at least 2 ethical models to explain what is happening.

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7 Find a video about the issue (not required, but this will help us understand the issue – no more than 5-8 minutes)

Most Blood Diamond operations are in African nations, mainly Sierra Leone, Angola, the Ivory Coast, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but there have also been reports of serious diamond mining rights violations in some South American countries as well as the smuggling of these illegal diamonds.

Humans Rights Abuse The main Rebel in the blood diamond case was the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) that fought an eleven year war form 1991-2002. The RUF is no more a Rebel but are in many political party till today because of which many parts of Africa is still corrupted. Some of the human rights are as follows: 1) Rights to adequate standard of living 2) Rights to fair wages and fair pay for equal work 3) Rights to rest and holiday pay 4) Freedom from discrimination, torture and slavery. Child soldiers, broken families, Handicap citizens were all in the power if the RUF and around 11,000 child soldiers were been captive and taken away for performing civil wars. Thousands of girls and young boys were abducted to serve as prostitutes, child soldiers were even forced to murder their own families because they believed that it would make them fearless and brave. People who would go against them would either be killed or seriously wounded where they would cut certain body parts such as hands, nose, legs, ears etc. In this action of violence 120,000 people were found murdered.

Roles, Needs and Perspectives of Stakeholders People often convey love by purchasing luxury such as diamond, gold, silver etc. But, in this case if diamonds which come from the Marange diamond field form eastern Zimbabwe then it could have a bloody past and abuse. 1) Consumers Every consumer should be well aware of what they purchase because most of them just follow blindly to the manipulative words of the supplier. The diamonds Eureka were high on demand after it was displayed in the world fair in Paris. Customers see diamonds as one of the most luxurious item because of which diamonds have high preference but at the same time want it at affordable.

2) Retailers

To meet the high demands of the consumers and make profit at the same time the retailers had to strategize a profitable plan, so they got involved in unethical practices like hiring smugglers that would smuggle diamonds at a very low cost then instead of importing them.

3) Smugglers In order to purchase these conflict diamonds smugglers had to keep contacts with unethical rebels so that they could purchase them for cheap and later on sell them out of the country with profit to different retailers that were interested in buying them.

4) Rebels The rebels were the most unethical element in this senior because in order to make money to fund their act they had to enslave children, men and women to mine diamonds for them so that they could not incur cost and if anyone who would go against them they would use rape, torture, murder, kidnapping and many other illegal intermediary as a tool to carry forward their work. These rebels were so powerful that they even attempted to over throw the government and illegal diamond trade was made openly.

Kimberly Process They were the only governing body that wanted to put a stop to the conflicts diamonds. It was started on May 2000 and recognized in 2003 where they tried to negotiate between governments, civil societies and international diamond industries which as a result led to the creation on the Kimberley Process Certificate Scheme (KPCS). The main reason why they wanted to stop was because blood diamonds had been violating human rights and the money that the rebels earned was used just to fuel up was and led Africa with corruption. The KPC was formed by the united nation resolution, following a series of reports which first exploits the link between the trade of diamonds and the financing conflicts. These two processes has two main flaws, first the certification if not a broad term because it focus mainly on the mining and distribution of these blood diamond which as a result caused

many health problems and not to forget the use of child labor. Second, the KPC doesn’t apply to an individual stone but a batch of stones which are well polished and cut and supplied all around the world because of this the stones couldn’t be traced back. Due to these flaws the KPC implemented strict policies and procedures such as under the KPC rough diamonds can only be imported and exported with countries that are a participant member of the Kimberly Process. Any uncertified shipment relating to rough diamonds would not be permitted to enter or leave unless the package has the KPC stamp on them. By doing this the KPC has made sure that rough diamonds are not sold in order to fund uncorrupt government or to fund wars. Has It Stopped? Although the Kimberly Process has reduce the trade happening on a large scale but in many parts of the world human rights are still being violated. The rebels themselves cannot smuggle rough diamonds but they can get them certified through the countries that are a members in the Kimberley Process.