Amnesty calls for diamond action

The human rights organisation Amnesty International (AI) has called on diamond manufacturers and traders meeting in Antwerp on Monday for their annual three-day congress to take direct action to help stop diamonds from rebel-held areas from being used to finance the Sierra Leone conflict. “Further delays lead to the possibility of more mutilations, amputations and deaths,” AI said in a news release on Friday. Governments and the diamond industry have recently announced a series of measures which aim to prevent ‘conflict’ diamonds from entering the international market place. The UN has imposed sanctions on diamonds from Sierra Leone unless the government certified them as conflict-free.