Download Blood Diamonds: The Controversial History of Mining Operations in Africa That Subsidize Conflicts Across the Continent AudioBook Free
The commercial exploitation of Sierra Leonean gemstones began in the early 1930s, in the Kono Area in the east of the country. The first discoveries have been made by a British-held matter called Consolidated African Selection Trust, or Solid, in which a English shareholder body, Selection Trust Limited, shared a substantial interest with the precious stone giant, De Beers. Transparency, of course, had not been by any means overall, but under English colonial oversight, the activity of diamonds from the country was controlled and royalties channeled sensibly appropriately. Before, all precious stone mining in Sierra Leone acquired dropped under the control of the Sierra Leone Selection Trust - or SLST - a private investor body with exclusive privileges to mine gemstones in Sierra Leone. From the mid-1950s and 1960s, illegitimate and illicit mining acquired bought out large regions of production. Information vary, but by the 1960s, one can assume a figure of up to 100,000 illegitimate miners, both domestic and international, were mixed up in Kono District. Equipped groups began to appear, challenging private SLST security, eventually fermenting a predicament of anarchy under which controlled and taxed precious stone production reduced to a trickle. Naturally, the problem was at its most pervasive and creative adjoining gemstones. The industry was effectively criminalized, becoming the basis of a patrimonial shadow system geared toward sustaining prosperity and ability at its centre. Distrustful of his own countrymen and tribal opponents, Stevens handed off a lot of the day-to-day business of gemstones to Lebanese entrepreneurs who was simply a slightly anomalous occurrence in Sierra Leone since the end of the 19th century. From a peak of over two million carats officially exported in 1970, reputable diamond exports decreased to 595,000 carats in 1980 and 48,000 carats in 1988.
