Topic: Conflict Commodities
Country: Netherlands
Delegate Name: Lauren Gajda
School: Saline High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Netherlands position papers GLIMUN 2007 committees
We the Netherlands do not believe in having conflict diamonds enter our country. That is why the United Nations have a sponsored system called the Kimberley Process. The Kimberley process is to make sure that no profits from the diamonds go to war funded conflicts. A conflict diamond is a diamond that is paying for a war mainly a civil war and going to the government to pay for the supplies to the side that they agree with. The main problem that we the Netherlands face is with Cote D’Ivoire and the fact that they lied to us through selling cocoa to other countries and the country not even knowing that they just fed into a war. Once there is more awareness there will be more of a chance for the conflict goods to stop entering countries that don’t want to contribute to a war.
The Kimberley Process has been working for years now but we think that we should update the Process and have more security from other countries come into monitor. The problem is that people have been cheating out the Kimberley Process by mining up the diamonds and end up still selling them as they are conflict diamonds. We the Netherlands are under the impression that conflict diamonds are being funded to pay for the civil war.
The average person working as a diamond miner is getting approximately $1 a day. So why can they pay the workers $1 a day then sell the diamond for $1000 to the next country, all the money goes into the war. If we educated people and create more sanctions from the other countries who are trying to sell conflict diamonds and other goods then we could possible stop the funding for civil wars.
