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Since Kimberley was created, the industry says, 99.8% of diamonds are conflict free. Activists say that the situation is better but that diamonds are the cause of continuing misery. Two weeks ago, when Kimberley Process members sat down to their annual plenary meeting in Botswana to discuss how the watchdog system was working, the pressure for tighter oversight had ratcheted up. Responding to a U.N. report that poor controls are allowing conflict diamonds from war-torn Ivory Coast to enter the legitimate trade through neighboring Ghana, where they are being certified as conflict free, the diamond industry agreed not only to send a group to Ghana to ensure that it was complying with its obligations but also to publish annual industry-wide production and trade statistics for the first time ever.
The gem folks say the decision had nothing to do with Blood Diamond. "The movie had no impact on the deliberations and outcome of the recent Kimberley Process Plenary," says W.D.C. spokesman Carson Glover. "The diamond industry began confronting the problem of conflict diamonds long before Hollywood was aware of it and will be focused on it long after Hollywood loses interest." Activists, though, say the W.D.C. was much more proactive at this Kimberley Process meeting than in the past. "I think that the upcoming film must have had an impact on their moves to support calls to strengthen the Kimberley Process," says Susie Sanders, a campaigner with Global Witness, a diamond watchdog group. "We had raised Ivory Coast as a serious issue last year, but the industry reacted to it quite late in the day [and little was resolved]. This year it was very different."
Perhaps the industry would have acted anyway, or perhaps all the publicity nudged it forward a year or two. Whatever the case, it's hard to imagine that the rift between the gem biz and show biz is going to be permanent. While DiCaprio says he would no longer let any date of his wear diamonds, the years of jewelers lending free baubles to stars and their wives have to count for something. Come Oscar time, we'll see who gets iced out.