Word: conflict
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Leonardo DiCaprio plays a mercenary gem smuggler named Danny Archer in the new film Blood Diamond. Even before its December 8th opening, the project has generated controversy about its portrayal of conflict stones. TIME's Jeffrey Ressner chatted with DiCaprio about the debate over movie, his preparation for the role, and what it's like to shoot a big action film in poverty-stricken Africa...
...TIME: Before you got the script, how aware were you about conflict diamonds...
...DiCaprio: I'd heard whisperings. It was certainly out there in the public about what conflict diamonds were, and how people suffered as a result of natural resources being taken out of Africa. But I never understood the full story until I got this script and started doing research. I was pretty horrified about what went on in Sierra Leone in the late 1990s and how diamonds funded these warlords. Amnesty International projected around four million people lost their lives as a result of these diamond sales...
...movie has come under fire from the diamond industry, which insists the issue of conflict diamonds took place in the 1990s and has been almost completely eradicated. Did the gemstone industry contact you directly...
...this heated and polarized environment, conflicts and disturbances that seemingly have very little to do with national politics are often framed as a government-versus-opposition feud. When police injured eight people in a clash after fishermen seized a local port in the sleepy eastern town of Guiria, the local governor, a Chavez ally, was quick to blame the violence on "a group of people who want to destabilize the country." But when asked, fishermen said the conflict was far from political. They just wanted to be able to use their ice plant again, they said, since the port authority...