英语听力：自然百科 国家地理：钻石：黑暗的一面—5

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

-Then Benjamin Y* introduced me to Issa. 

War criminal Issa Sesay controlled the diamond mines in Sierra Leone. He also recruited child soldiers and over-sows savage² spread of rape³ and murder. His reign⁴ of terror was sustained by the illegal trade in blood diamonds.

-He is the chief of the rebels. He's Sierra Leone.

From 1992 to 2003, the so-called rebels of the RUF, or Revolutionary United Front, terrorized the population, torturing, raping⁵, mutilating and murdering men, women and even infants, to seize power and diamond mines of Sierra Leone. Yet Samuel Sally apparently⁶ had no qualms⁷ in dealing⁸ with vicious warlord, a key perpetrator in a civil war that claimed some 120,000 lives and led tens of thousands mutilated.

At their first meeting, Sesay presented him with an impressive parcel of rough diamonds.

-This is the parcel I came for it, and it's all perfect stones.

The gem⁹ smuggler agreed to the 100,000-dollar asking price, knowing that its profit from the geminated sales in Antwerp would be huge. But if he want more blood diamonds from rebel h*, payment in cash wouldn't suffice.

-They want weapons, to be paid in diamonds. You have to have also stiff to do that.

Paying cash upfront, the deal was sealed on the understanding that the shipment of weapons will be arranged later. As a sweetener, the rebel commandor showed Samuel Sally a perfect, 37-carat diamond. He paid 40,000 dollars for it. Once it was smuggled¹⁰ back to Antwerp, Sally's finanical backer,A* , sold it on for 400,000 dollars, a staggering mark of 1000...

分享到：