Russell Simmons In Diamond Conflict
Hip Hop Mogul In War of Words With Blood Diamonds Director
Russell Simmons has found himself in a somewhat heated exchange of words with “Blood Diamonds” film director Ed Zwick.
Simmons, who owns his own jewelery company, Simmons Jewelry, recently was the host of diamond giant DeBeers and went to several diamond mining sites in Africa on a fact finding mission to witness how, in his words, regulated diamond mining can empower African communities with the money necessary to pay for education and health care. His position has drawn criticism from Zwick, whose soon to be released film “Blood Diamonds” covers the underhanded practices behind conflict diamond mining in Sierra Leonne.
Of the movie, Simmons is criticizing the film for portraying the practices portrayed in it as still in widespread use. He points to the four old piece of called industry regulation called the Kimberly Act which was diseigned to keep combat diamonds off of the international market. According to Simmons, conflict diamonds now account for only one percent of all diamonds mined.
On the flipside of this argument, Zwick has stated that Simmons is being “misled and embarrassed by Debeers”. It his view point that Simmons is being fed misleading statistics and he is making the error of only focusing on "internationally" recognized areas of conflict.
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