Critically Examine the Diamond Curse as the Bedrock of Civil Wars and Ethnic Conflicts around the World

The diamond curse refers to the paradox that countries endowed with an abundance of diamond resources often fail to grow as rapidly as those without such a resource, especially when they have weak governments thus making them prone to conflicts. The African continent typifies this situation, in that its economic growth lags behind the rest of the world in spite of its abundance of natural resources in particular diamond. Diamond producing countries in Africa include: Sierra Leone, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Botswana, Namibia, and the Republic of South Africa. Amongst these countries, we will do a selective identification of those that are prone to civil wars and ethnic conflicts as a result of the exploitation of diamond resource and they include; Sierra Leone, Angola and the DRC. Botswana, on the other hand, being one of the largest producers of diamond has greatly evolved in terms of good governance and has turned diamond resource into a blessing rather than a curse. Therefore, this assertion that diamond exploitation being the bedrock of civil wars and ethnic conflicts in the world can be nounced in the sense that there are other factors that contribute to civil wars and ethnic conflicts apart from diamond exploration, exploitation and production. These may include; poverty, human rights violations, bad and ineffective Governance and corruption, economic inequality, ethnic marginalization and the proliferation of small arms.