The World Diamond Council, afraid of losing its lustre in light of the Leonardo DiCaprio film Blood Diamond, has launched a public relations campaign months before its release.

The council is spending about $16.7 million Cdn on an awareness campaign to head off possible negative fallout from the movie, due to be released Dec. 15.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays the lead role of a smuggler in the upcoming movie Blood Diamond, set during the civil war that ravaged Sierra Leone during the 1990s.
(Stephen Chernin/Associated Press)

Council president Eli Izhakoff said his organization is choosing a "positive, proactive approach."

Blood Diamond is set in the Sierra Leone civil war of the 1990s, a conflict that claimed 400,000 lives and was bankrolled by the sale of uncut diamonds — known as "blood" or "conflict" diamonds.

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, now awaiting trial for crimes against humanity, fed a series of internal conflicts in his country and neighbouring Sierra Leone between 1989 and 2003 through the illegal sale and trade of the diamonds.

The council's campaign is fuelled by concerns by diamond producers, such as South Africa's De Beers, that the film could affect sales at such a crucial time. 

Jonathan Oppenheimer, the director on the board of the diamond giant, expressed his concerns the movie could affect diamond sales at a global mining conference in September 2005. The film was still five months away from shooting at the time.

'Today, significantly more than 99 per cent of diamonds are certified to be from conflict-free sources through a United Nations-mandated process.'-Lynette Hori, a spokeswoman for De Beers

The council sent a letter in February to Blood Diamond director Edward Zwick imploring him to highlight the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme in the movie.

The Kimberley Process has been adopted by 45 countries and the world’s main diamond producers. It requires any rough diamond entering or leaving a country to be transported in a sealed container and accompanied by a certificate attesting to its origin.

Zwick turned the industry down. "I don’t tell them how to do their job, nor do I think that it is appropriate for them to tell me how to do mine," the director told Entertainment Weekly magazine.

Certification process not foolproof: Amnesty

Lynette Hori, a spokeswoman for De Beers, emphasizes the film is "set in the past" and the industry wants the public to know that it has come a long way.

"Today, significantly more than 99 per cent of diamonds are certified to be from conflict-free sources through a United Nations-mandated process," said Hori.

The council has set up a website explaining the process and has delivered information packets to diamond retailers around the world. As well, it has bought full-page ads in major newspapers everywhere.

Amnesty International says the diamond industry's offensive is only serving to highlight the problem. It says the Kimberley Process is still not foolproof three years after it has been implemented.

"They need an auditable tracking system. The diamond industry is asking us to take them at their word. That's not good enough," Amy O'Meara of Amnesty International's Business and Human Rights Program told the Los Angeles Times in an October article.

"There is so much money at stake and so many hands in the pot. It's easy for the system to be corrupted."