APSC denounces Hollywood collusion with diamond industry

At the recent Golden Globes ceremony, many of Hollywood's taste-makers participated in a new marketing campaign entitled “Raise Your Right Hand For Africa.”

This campaign was launched by the Diamond Information Center (DIC), a marketing arm of the De Beers diamond cartel. They’re advertising that women should buy a diamond ring to be worn on the right hand as a show of support for economic development for African people.

The “Raise Your Right Hand For Africa” marketing scheme follows an unsuccessful marketing campaign that De Beers ran in 2003 to popularize the concept of the right hand ring. At this time the right hand ring was promoted as a mark of women's liberation. Advertisements of this campaign urged women to “Express your pride. Your personality. Your independence. Your sense of adventure.”

Around the globe, human rights activists reject the DIC's claim that the act of purchasing and wearing a diamond is in any way beneficial to Africa or African people. They point to Botswana, the largest supplier of uncut diamonds in the world, where a fourth of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. A third of the people are undernourished and the life expectancy is 36 years. Botswana has the second largest per capita AIDS rate on the planet, with nearly a quarter of the people infected. Similar conditions persist throughout the diamond-producing regions of the world.

The World Diamond Council admits that $8.4 billion in rough diamonds are extracted from Africa each year. This amount multiplies as the diamonds are refined and sold, traveling from Africa to Antwerp to Israel and the U.S., enriching white communities along the way.

On February 5th at noon, human rights activists will hold a demonstration at the New York City Hilton Hotel (1335 Avenue of the Americas at W. 54th) where the 4th Annual Rapaport International Diamond Conference will take place.

Organizers of the planned protest reject the diamond industry’s recent publicity campaigns promoting the extraction and sale of "non-conflict" diamonds as beneficial to indigenous and African communities.

Protest organizer Robert Notowitz of the African People’s Solidarity Committee declares, “We have the responsibility to shut down an industry that ravages the land and labor of Africa to benefit the white world. For white society, the diamond is promoted to represent the ultimate expression of love. For Africa, the diamond trade has its origins in colonialism, with African people forced to labor on their own land under slave-like conditions for pennies a day. All diamonds are blood diamonds!”

Later, at 7:00pm on February 5th, a forum will be held at the Church of the Village, with speakers from the Uhuru (African Freedom) Movement, including Diop Olugbala, organizer of the Sean Bell Justice Tribunal, and Penny Hess, author of Overturning the Culture of Violence. Physicist Aisha Fields will discuss the Uhuru Movement’s clean water and sustainable electricity projects in Africa. The Church of the Village is located at 201 W. 13th Street in the West Village in NYC.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

• Join the Uhuru Solidarity Movement in the campaign to expose the truth that all diamonds are blood diamonds!
• Boycott all diamonds!
• Support reparations to African people.
• Donate your diamonds to the Uhuru Movement’s program to bring electricity, water purification and political power to African people

Join the All Diamonds are Blood Diamonds Campaign!

www.apscuhuru.org or www.boycottdiamonds.net

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