Sometimes, books demand to be written.
This is one of them.
Greg Campbell risked his life to research this book. He went into
the bloodiest and most ignored battlezones in Africa, Sierra Leone,
to bear witness and to document the senseless mayhem that has been
going through the land there.
As he goes around the diamond mines, he sees the mindnumbing
violence, the mayhem, the atrocities that go on daily in order to
mine diamonds.
A land where children are given AK47s, doped up on drugs and sent
to "fight a war" where the goal seems to be to terrorise the
population into submission and slavery for the retirement funds of
the warlords.
A land where "military operations" are carried out on the civilian
population by commanders with nicknames like "Queen Chop Hands" and
code named "Operation No Living Thing".
A land where the rebels go around at random, rounding up villagers
and subjecting them to murder, rape and horrible mutilations, and a
whole generation of people are left without hands and legs as the
rebels chop them off and send them to the steps of the
government.
This book will put you off diamonds forever.
As you start to realise the price paid for these trinkets are the
blood of innocents.
Recommended. 4 1/2 out of 5