by Jorge Barrera

Yellowknife ( Jun 07/00) - The diamond, a shard of immortal glitter encrusted in gold bands, earrings and necklaces. It is also a symbol of passion, of love between two people, a promise of an eternal sharing -- the things found in the script of a De Beers commercial.

In Sierra Leone this rock costs more than a hand, a foot, a family, a life. Over the last nine years this small country on the east coast of Africa has been ripped apart by a civil war over diamonds.

Sierra Leone sits between two countries -- Guinea to the north and Liberia to the south. It's a country rich in natural resources, and diamonds are its most valuable export.

Whoever controls the diamonds controls the country.

The pictures and stories have poured into the west. For the most part it seems that the developed world has turned a blind eye.

U.S. intervention

The U.S. has blocked $368 million in overdue payments to the United Nations in protest of a July 1999 peace accord between the Sierra Leone government and the Revolutionary United Front. The money is used to aid peacekeeping in places like Sierra Leone, Kosovo and the Republic of Congo.

The west keeps fuelling the front's war machine by buying diamonds smuggled out of Sierra Leone through Liberia.

As the civil war continues, Sierra Leone adds another sad chapter to forgotten Africa.

On April 27, 1961 Sierra Leone gained its independence from Britain.

Its short history has been mired by military coups and one-party governments. It wasn't until the March 15, 1996 election of president Ahmed Tejan Kabbah of the Sierra Leone People's Party, that Sierra Leone witnessed its first democratically-elected government.

The elections weren't without atrocities as Revolutionary United Front (RUF) forces -- which began an offensive in 1991, infiltrating from Liberia-- cut off people's hands to stop them from voting. The People's Party slogan was, "The future is in your hands." Most of the maiming was done by children.

Kabbah's government fell a little over a month later to dissident military forces.

A year later, Nigerian-led peacekeeping forces reinstated Kabbah in a counter coup on March 10, 1998.

Less than a year later, on January 6, 1999, the civil war hit its climax when the front's forces attacked Freetown and took over the eastern parts of the city.

On July 7 of the same year, President Kabbah signed a peace accord with the Revolutionary United Front.

But the fighting continued as the front controlled most of the mines in the east and fuelled their war with diamond exports to the west smuggled through Liberia.

In 1999, Sierra Leone had the lowest life expectancy in the world at 37 years. The global average was 65.

UN and Ecomog (African) forces captured the front's leader Foday Sankoh on May 17. Earlier that month the front's forces surrounded and captured 500 UN soldiers.

Most of them have been released. Those missing are thought to be dead.

On Monday, June 5, pro-government forces destroyed an RUF base in the town of Port Loko.

The fighting continues in Sierra Leone as African-lead UN/Ecomog and pro-government forces are pressing the Revolutionary United Front to relinquish control of eastern diamond mines.

In the middle of this conflict civilians have been murdered, maimed and raped by the front's rebels. Children are recruited, drugged and forced into battle.

Pro-government forces have also committed atrocities and recruited children. Jordan, India and Britain have sent, or are in the process of sending, military support.

Canada has pledged to send supplies.

A Sierra Leonese proverb in Krio says, "Howeva Tin Trangga Tete, Id e Dohn."

However bad things are they won't last.

A whole nation hopes this is true.