6 - Parallel Economies, Global Criminal Networks & Sierra Leone Diamonds

Summary

‘Diamonds have been to Africa what cocaine has been to Latin America.’

(Plaut 2002: 1)

Sierra Leonean diamonds form part of a much larger global trade in diamonds which in turn is an integral part of the wider global economy. In recent years economic growth across the globe has led to numerous parallel developments seen in the expansion in global trade and services that have become increasingly infused with corporatist ideology. Such moves reflect what some would call the hegemony of free-market economics. Indeed, as free-market economics has become the trade mark of global trade and services this has both encouraged and cultivated ever more patterns of privatisation, particularly of public services like defence and security once controlled by national governments and often paid for (in the developing world) with natural resources. The growth in private security firms is indicative of this. Moreover, economic globalisation has also witnessed selective wealth creation as seen in the growth in socioeconomic disparity linked to resource predation and potential conflict. Such resources, whether oil, diamonds, timber or other sought-after resources tend to flow from the developing to the developed world. The struggle for such resources often leads to potential or actual conflict such as that witnessed in Sierra Leone.