This I Believe: Living a Good Life

Inspired by This I Believe, “a national media project that engages people in sharing and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives,” I have decided to take a different approach from the previous weeks by sharing a personal story that may help provide my readers with some insight into who I am and why I decided to focus on human rights and animal welfare as the main theme for this blog.

I remember being a child growing up in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and having many long captivating conversations with my grandfather about what it meant to live a “good” life. He always used to say, “Uno sobrevive con lo que gana, pero uno vive por lo que da.” Loosely translated, it means: “You make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give.” I know it might sound a bit cliché, but this was honestly the type of person he was. My grandfather was the kind of man who believed that everyone, even if in a small way, had the ability to help make the world a better place. As a young child I admired his convictions and as an adult I revere him even more because I have a greater appreciation for what he was saying. In fact, I have adopted his philosophy as my own. So when I ask myself, what do I want out of life? What do I believe in? I realize that I believe in living a good life, the kind of life that would make him proud, a life in which my work brings about a positive and significant impact on the lives of others and that inspires individuals to do the same.

I chose to write a blog about human rights and animal welfare because I recognize that sometimes we can easily get so caught up in our own lives that we tend to forget about the fact that there are countless amounts of people and animals who are suffering elsewhere, at this very moment. I do not intend to come off as patronizing or preachy through my posts. I never want to be that person. My true goal is simply to inform and educate others on these very real matters. Once we are informed it should be our obligation to do whatever we can do to elicit change, no matter how insignificant our action appears to be. As I have mentioned in my posts before, even something as easy as making more conscious decisions in our purchasing habits can make a difference. Collectively, we can have a big impact on the world and help end suffering one being at a time. It may sound corny, but it is the truth.

Two weeks before my grandfather passed away, he asked me, “What do you want most for your life?” That was easy to answer; I told him that I wanted to be just like him. He smiled and said, “Tu destino te aguarda cosas mas grandes.” This means, “You are destined for greater things.” I do not know if this is true, I do not even know if there is such a thing as destiny, but I do know that we are all capable of doing great things, and so I will always do my best to make him proud.

Conflict Diamonds: Not Just a Product of Hollywood

Diamonds are a pivotal part of our culture. The partnership Africa Canada organization reports that “collectively, the world spends about sixty billion dollars a year on diamond jewelry, and every day, tens of thousands of people think about diamonds for an engagement ring, an anniversary, for decorative jewelry or bling bling.”Unfortunately, diamonds have also helped fund catastrophic civil wars in Africa that have resulted in the deaths and displacement of millions of people. Amnesty International reports that an estimated 3.7 million people have died in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia and Sierra Leone in conflicts funded by diamonds. These diamonds are called conflict diamonds. They are from areas controlled by forces and factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military actions in opposition to those governments, however; I do not mean to say that these are functioning or non-corrupt governments. Sadly many of them are just as bad as the groups that seek to overthrow them. Nevertheless, these diamonds are used to fund military actions by opposition groups and profits from the trade are used by warlords and rebels in those countries to buy arms and commit atrocious acts against civilians, including murder, rape, torture and mutilation. In Sierra Leone, the rebel groups embarked on a campaign against the country’s elections by cutting off people’s hands in order to intimidate them not to vote, the woman pictured above was a victim of such act. Also, children as young as eight years old have been used in conflicts across Africa. These children are often abducted or drawn by economic circumstances and forced to fight with opposition forces and in some cases for those groups in support of their government. The picture below is of a child soldier in Sierra Leone.

To combat the trafficking of conflict diamonds significant action was taken in 2003 when the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme was introduced. The KPCS is a program that requires participants to certify that shipments of rough diamonds are conflict-free by placing the diamonds in tamper-proof shipping crates and providing enough detailed information about their origin. In the United States the KPCS is enforced by the Clean Diamond Trade Act which was also launched in 2003 and requires annual reviews of the standards, practices and procedures of any entity in the U.S. that issues Kimberley Process certificates. Though some progress was made and the amount of conflict diamonds in the U.S. market was significantly reduced to about two percent (in the 1990’s roughly twenty percent of diamonds were said to be elicit) there still remain flaws in the implementation and oversight of the KPCS that allow for loopholes. Consequently conflict diamonds continue to find their way into the American market today from countries like Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Amnesty International states that the recent conflict in Sierra Leone has shown that "even a small amount of conflict diamonds can wreak enormous havoc in a country."

We simply cannot sit back and allow these atrocities to take place. It is up to us, the consumers, to make ethical and informed choices. However, I am not suggesting for us to boycott all diamonds because according to the partnership Africa Canada organization, the economies of many poor countries with absolutely no connection to conflict diamonds, such as South Africa and Botswana, will be devastated. Also, diamond cutting and polishing employs more than a million people in India. Hence to boycott diamonds would only serve to make poor countries and the people whose lives depend on diamonds, even poorer. Instead, we can demand for retailers to provide assurances necessary to prove that the diamonds they sell are conflict-free. “Americans buy half of the diamond jewelry sold worldwide, thirty three billion dollars a year in U.S. sales,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. With such enormous profits retailers should be required to do all they can to help solve this problem. Furthermore, the U.S. and other governments must carry out stricter monitoring of the diamond industry and strengthen the enforcement of the Kimberley Process and Clean Diamond Trade Act. Controls on conflict diamonds will cut off sources of funding for rebels and help shorten wars. Peace in diamond producing regions will bring about the potential for economic development as legitimate mining ventures increase.