A Crimes Against Humanity hearing in the Hague heard in February that 75,000 people have died and up to one million had their hands amputated in Sierra Leone and Liberia, in a quest to control the diamond trade. Millions of land mines have been spread across the region to prevent ordinary people getting the diamonds, then children have been used to clear the mine-fields. The story has had limited media coverage, despite being the subject of a film, Blood Diamonds, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The dictator of Liberia, Charles Taylor, is in court, but neighbouing governments, Western arms manufacturers and diamond cartel, de Beers, who have been implicated in the tragedy have, apparently, broken no laws.
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