Antwerp Invites DiCaprio to “Discover the Real Diamond World”
January 18, 07
A week before the controversial movie Blood Diamond premieres in Belgium, The Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) expresses its regrets in an official announcement about the totally false image that this Hollywood production creates of the diamond sector.
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AWDC acknowledges that this is “just” a film, but at the same time, it questions several aspects of this latest Hollywood product. “Blood Diamond is more than mere innocent entertainment in the cinema. It is the first public film to feature the history of conflict diamonds,” says Freddy J. Hanard, managing director of the AWDC.
The story goes back to the nineties in the last century. One of the subjects it covers is the trade in conflict diamonds.
Hanard said that the reality today is quite different, then that depicted in the movie. “This is why we have invited DiCaprio to the world diamond centre. Here in Antwerp he will be able to discover the real diamond world and see for himself how diamonds are traded today, how transparency has been the key word in the organization and structure of the sector for several years now.”
He will also be able to see the strict monitoring systems that have been developed as part of the Kimberly accords. Antwerp has the strictest regulated market in the world. A policy of zero tolerance is applied here to the so-called conflict diamonds,” Hanard concludes.