Alrosa roughs are not ‘conflict diamonds’, says India

Alrosa rough diamonds

Exports of rough diamonds from Russia’s state-owned Alrosa mines have resumed to India, although tensions remain high over such consignments. 

Many Western nations are seeking to shut down Russia’s diamond trade with India by calling Russian diamonds conflict diamonds, or blood diamonds.

Critics such as Cristina Villegas, director of the Mines to Markets program at Pact, a development NGO, was quoted by the India-phobic London based Guardian as saying: “These are objectively conflict diamonds: they’re funding an armed conflict against a peaceful neighbour, by a state actor.” Villegas was silent about the flood of cash going to Russia by oil and gas purchases from European countries.

Source: rough-polished.com