The Angolan Civil War: the concept of "Blood Diamonds" explained
The Angolan Civil War was started just after Angola was declared free from Portugal, the war lasted from 1975 to 2002.This was not the first civil war to occur in Angola there were two previous, the Decolonization Conflict that ran from 1974 to 1975 and the Angolan War of Independence from 1961 to 1974. The idea behind the Civil War was that there was a power struggle between the MPLA, which is Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, and the UNITA, which stands for the National Union for Total Independence of Angola. Angola back in the 80's was considered a battleground for the Cold War, which was due to a heavy integration by opposing powers Soviet Union, and the United States.
Back in 1961, many of the Angolan nationalists that were based in different foreign countries that supported two of the most recognized world powers the United States and the Soviet Union; they declared independence, which started off a guerilla campaign on many different fronts. The Portuguese Colonial War included the Angolan War of Independence. This movement lasted until the Portuguese regime was overthrown in 1974.
The South African government did get involved in the conflict when many of the African Heads of State asked for some support to help challenge the Chinese troops in the region. The war lasted about 27 years and was divided into three major periods of fighting; the first was between 1975 to 1991, 1992 to 1994 and 1998 to 2002. At the end of 2002, the MPLA scored victory but in that time 500,000 people had been killed and one million people have been internally displaced. Angola, which then was a colony of Portugal, was declared independence in 1975; there were three fronts in the civil war, the MPLA, UNITA and the FNLA, which stands for National Liberation Front of Angola.
During the years of 1992 to 1998, UNITA was selling diamonds that were valued in price of $ 3.72 billion dollars; they used this money to fund their fighting in the war against the government. The United Nations understood that the role that the diamonds were playing in the UNITA war. In 1998 the UN passed the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1173 and the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1176. These resolutions banned the purchasing of diamonds from Angola.
Even when the UN put the ban in effect, the UNITA was still able to use diamonds to either sell or barter some diamonds to increase the efforts in the war. The United Nations did set out to investigate any illegal trade that was being conducted to fund the war. Angola was not the only region that Blood Diamonds occurred, places such as the Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo and Liberia and Sierra Leone are just some of the few regions that have experienced Blood Diamonds and some of the effects.