Angola's civil war raged for almost a decade. In Sierra Leone, the war lasted more than eight years. From 1989 to 2003, Liberia was embroiled in civil war, and Côte D'Ivoire, whose present Unity Government has been described by some international observers as "unstable," has seen repeated uprisings since 1995.

What do these countries have in common? One thing is the way their coups and civil wars have been financed, mostly from the sale of illicit diamonds abroad.

Though Lancaster County is far from western Africa, several local jewelers have taken steps to ensure their diamonds arrive through reputable sources. And with the recent release of films like "Blood Diamond" starring Leonardo DiCaprio, as well as 2005's "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" from Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West, local consumers also are going out of their way to make sure the diamonds they buy are conflict-free.

"We have received several questions from customers, though mostly on larger purchases.

"This leads me to think that, when a customer knows he or she is going to be spending a lot of money on a diamond, they do more investigation as to where it comes from," Michael Warren, co-owner of Warren Jewelers, 1490 Harrisburg Pike, said.

"For us, this is an important issue because ... it affects people and their futures in Africa. If we couldn't guarantee a diamond's source, we wouldn't sell it."

Unfortunately, for many dealers in the diamond industry, that hasn't always been the case — in the 1990s, reports estimated as much as 20 percent of the world's new diamonds were being sold for illicit purposes, and as much as 15 percent were being sold specifically to fund wars and coups in Africa.

"What was going on with diamonds in the 1990s should never have been allowed to occur," said co-owner Alan Friedland of Ream Jewelers at 58 N. Queen St.

"For us, we believe that customers should be able to trust a diamond's source, which is why we were so glad to see the nations of the world start banding together to ... try and halt the sale of these kinds of stones."

Starting in 2000, the trade group World Diamond Congress met in Antwerp, Belgium, to sign a resolution that strengthened the diamond industry's ability to block sales of conflict diamonds; since then — at least as of 2004 — the New York-based World Diamond Council reported the percentage of sales of conflict diamonds had fallen to less than 1 percent.

For Ream Jewelers and Warren Jewelers — as well as their competitors Zales Jewelers, with two locations in Lancaster — selling conflict diamonds hasn't been a problem: Ream receives the majority of its diamond supply from countries outside of Africa, while Warren utilizes a brand that certifies its diamonds are conflict-free.

Zales declined to be interviewed for this article, directing questions on conflict diamonds to its Web site, www.zalecorp.com, which states the company "participates in a voluntary program of self-regulation."

"There are plenty of places in the world that produce diamonds outside of the war-torn areas of Africa, and those places are where we turn for much of our supply," Friedman, of Ream Jewelers, said.

"Russia, Australia, Canada, even Alaska produces diamonds, and not a lot of people know that."

His firm's view on the issue, Friedland said, is that Ream's customers "should be able to trust our integrity" when it comes to buying diamonds.

"Integrity is why we've been in business in downtown Lancaster for 72 years and why we never, ever want our customers to feel uncomfortable with what they're buying," he said.

For Warren, making sure their custom jewelry is being mounted with "clean" diamonds is easy. Their stones are certified through the world's largest diamond manufacturing organization, De Beers.

"We utilize the Hearts on Fire brand, of which the majority come from South Africa and are 100 percent conflict-free," Warren said.

"For us, this is a superior-quality product, superior even to Tiffany, and when it comes to Hearts on Fire, it gives us a comfort level that we're dealing with a responsible company."

When it comes to conflict diamonds, Warren said, what he finds amazing is that "30 years ago, all business was done on the street level with a handshake" and that "people just trusted in the idea that diamonds were just generally good for Africa."

"No one ever asked for a paper trail," Warren said. "And ironically, that's what led to this problem because that trust was the Achilles' heel of the system.

"No one was watching where the diamonds were coming from, and no one was tracing where the money was flowing back to.

"It was the honor of doing business with a handshake that led to the problem, and now, the only ones who do business that way are the bad guys."

On April 25, 2003, the United States enacted the Clean Diamond Trade Act, which was designed to stop the trade of diamonds that fund violent civil conflicts in Africa, requiring certification (known as the "Kimberley Process Certification Scheme") to certify a diamond's origin.

In 2004, Republic of the Congo was removed from the scheme because it was found unable to prove the origin of its gems.

Recently, the Kimberley Process has drawn fire from human-rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the Canadian Aid Organization OneSky, which charged that, "without a system of expert, independent and periodic reviews of all countries, the overall process remains open to abuse."

If someone is in the market for a diamond, Warren said, they should ask their local jeweler about whether the stone is conflict-free before making a purchase.

"This issue is a big deal, and it is something that should be brought out into the open," Warren said.

"Like any other product, people should know exactly what they're buying.

"No reputable dealer wants any part of a dirty product."