"Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't scare us.

We have nothing to complain about," the president of Israel's diamond exchange insisted, refusing to admit that the film - which makes its world debut on December 8 - has raised the ire of his colleagues across the world.

The subject of blood diamonds was taboo until about six years ago, when the industry and non-governmental organisations joined forces to tackle the issue.

The term describes diamonds used to finance child armies and civil wars that have ravaged African countries such as Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Set against the backdrop of the civil war that engulfed 1990s Sierra Leone, the movie tells the story of two adventurers on a quest to recover a rare diamond, bringing the chaos and bloody conflict to the silver screen.

When the new film starring DiCaprio hits cinemas, many in the diamond business fear human rights groups could unleash calls to boycott the precious stones, leading to a drop in sales and popularity - in a trend familiar to the fur industry.

But to avoid any nasty surprises from threatening sales during the peak New Year shopping period, the industry has gone on the offensive.

The World Diamond Council is spending around US$15 million on an awareness campaign to counter fallout, funded by heavyweights such as South Africa's De Beers group, ahead of the movie's release.

De Beers LV chairman Guy Leymarie has openly voiced his worries, telling CNN Money that the film "is absolutely a concern for us".

The stakes are particularly high in Israel, a manufacturing and diamond-trading centre with an annual trading volume of approximately US$6,7 billion.

"Today the number of suspicious diamonds stands at less than one per cent compared with a level of five to six per cent several years back - because our trade has imposed draconian regulations on itself" to reduce blood-diamond trade, said Paz.

At this point he held up a Kimberley certificate, considered a fairly certain guarantee that the stone in question is not a blood diamond.

Seventy-one countries are now signed up to the UN-mandated Kimberley Process - named after the diamond-mining city in South Africa - and can only buy and sell among fellow members.

The certificate takes for granted that the stone in question is a real diamond.

As part of the arrangement, rough diamonds are sealed in tamper-resistant containers and required to have forgery-resistant, conflict-free certificates with unique serial numbers each time they cross an international border.

"We can guarantee that not one single diamond enters Israel without being checked by the authorities," said Moti Ganz, president of the diamond institute located in one of the three tightly guarded skyscrapers of the diamond exchange centre in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv, which employs some 2 700 people.

But despite the tight restrictions, some traders have tried to dodge regulations.

Earlier this month, police seized a US$150 000 worth batch of diamonds at the exchange, and these gems did not have the authentication certificate.

"Certain sanctions could be used against those people, including their exclusion from the Tel Aviv diamond exchange as well as the other 26 exchanges across the world," said Paz.

To show how seriously such offences are taken, Paz pointed to giant posters hanging on the walls of the massive trade floor, where hundreds of millions of dollars worth of diamonds are bartered.

The names and pictures of rogue traders found guilty of breaching the regulations are splashed across the posters for all to see.

In a bid to avoid financial catastrophe and send a reassuring image of the diamond trade, the World Diamond Council launched a website - www.diamondfacts.org - offering answers to frequently asked questions on diamonds, mainly on blood diamonds.

The main banner on the website's homepage reads "more than 99 per cent of diamonds are today from conflict-free sources" and traded under the Kimberley process.

Paz wants to take the traders' war against blood diamonds a step further, calling it "an excellent opportunity" to show that jewellers have cleaned up and can now act as "models in the fight against all forms of whitewashing dirty money."

Nampa-AFP

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