Why Muammar Gaddafi Was Not As Bad As Portrayed

 By Emeka Chiaghanam

 

I want you to picture a child digging in the mud with bare hands, not for treasure, not for fun, but because a man with a gun told him to. The hole gets deeper, the sun gets hotter, and the only reward is another day alive.

If you think the child is playing, he isn’t, he’s mining. Maybe for the gold in your wedding ring. Maybe for the coltan in your smartphone. Maybe for the diamonds that once seemed so romantic.

It’s easy to forget where things come from. Take a look at your credit cards, we swipe credit cards, unwrap packages, slip on jewelry, and never think about the chain of suffering that might have brought it to us. Do we? But somewhere, that chain exists. And more often than we’d like to admit, it’s soaked in blood.

The Currency of War

Wars to some people is real business and costs money. A lot of it. And in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Bolivia and Myanmar etc, the money doesn’t come from taxes or foreign aid, it comes from the earth. Gold, diamonds, tungsten, coltan, these aren’t just minerals. They’re lifelines for warlords, militias, and corrupt governments. They’re the reason a village gets raided at midnight. The reason a woman walks ten miles with a sack of rocks on her back for pennies. The reason a child never sees a classroom.

Take coltan, for instance. You’ve probably never held it in your hand, but it’s in your phone, your laptop, your gaming console. It’s what makes our devices fast and efficient. The Democratic Republic of Congo supplies 60% of colton, a country so rich in resources it could be paradise, but instead, it’s a battleground. Since independence the mineral rich country has been plagued by resources inflicted conflict both internal and external. Armed groups fight over mines, enslave locals, and sell the minerals to smugglers who slip them into the global market. By the time coltan reaches a factory, it’s been laundered, no fingerprints, no guilt.

Diamonds are even worse. We’ve all heard of "blood diamonds," but hearing isn’t the same as knowing. In the 1990s, rebels in Sierra Leone traded gems for guns, hacking off hands to terrorize civilians. The Kimberley Process was supposed to stop this, but loopholes are everywhere. Diamonds still fund violence in Zimbabwe, Angola, and beyond. And let’s be honest, do you really know where your jewelry came from? Or do you just trust the little certificate that says "conflict-free"?

The Corporate Shell Game

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: multinational corporations don’t want to know and will never give a damn. If they looked too hard, they’d have to stop. So they look the other way. They turn a blind eye and buy from middlemen, and shrug when reporters ask tough questions. A 2023 report from Global Witness found that over 70% of gold exported from Congo has suspicious origins. Yet it ends up in vaults, in watches, in the teeth of wealthy people who’d never dream of hurting a soul.

And then there’s the legal fiction of "due diligence." Companies say they check their supply chains, but how deep does that check go? Do they do the check in the first place? A mine owner hands them paperwork. The paperwork looks fine. No one asks who held a gun to the miner’s head while he signed it. No one wonders why the "official" export numbers don’t match the actual digging. It’s like buying a stolen car with the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) scratched off and saying, "Well, the dealer said it was clean."

The Consumer’s Dilemma

So where does that leave us? If corporations are complicit, are we?

I’m not saying we’re all guilty. But we’re all part of the machine.  Yes, part of the evil cycle killing children with other negatives impacts. We want cheap gadgets. We want flawless diamonds. We want fast fashion and next-day delivery. And somewhere, that demand fuels a cycle of exploitation. Maybe not directly. Maybe not intentionally. But it does.

The good news? We’re not powerless. Awareness is the first step. Fair-trade gold exists. Ethical diamonds (lab-grown or carefully sourced) exist. Some companies do care. The problem is, they’re the exception, not the rule.

A Way Forward?

I wish I could end this with a neat solution. A magic label to look for, a brand to trust. But the truth is messier than you think. The truth is, real change means asking uncomfortable questions, paying more, demanding transparency, and sometimes going without. It means caring about people we’ll never meet.

That child in the mine doesn’t know you. But you, you could know him. You could remember him the next time you upgrade your phone, or buy a ring, or think, It’s just one purchase. What difference does it make?

The difference is this: every war needs funding. And as long as we’re willing to look away, someone will keep paying for it.

The question is, are we okay with that?