If you think diamonds are forever, do you still believe in the tooth fairy?
Millions of years ago, massive pressures caused by the cooling of the earth's molten crust forced molecules of carbon into a three-dimensional lattice.
That tremendous energy stored within the lattice resulted in one of the hardest substances known — diamonds.
Now there is a lot of carbon in the earth's crust, and so there are lots of diamonds in many places in the world.
The original inhabitants of the land around the mouth of the Orange River bordering South Africa and Namibia were able to pick up these rather dull-looking objects along the river bed, but didn't really see the point.
But for members of the species to the north in Europe, these stones were not plentiful. Samples had filtered through from distant lands, and because there were so few of these, they were considered to be valuable.
As was the case with peppercorns.
Under normal circumstances, the discovery of large quantities of a valuable commodity would result in the price dropping substantially.
Pepper — once used as a currency — is now affordable even to cabinet ministers. Diamonds would no doubt have followed suit, and the Bushmen of the Kalahari would today be diamond farmers instead of near-extinct.
Cecil John Rhodes saw this, and shrewdly laid the foundation for what has probably been the most successful monopoly in history. His company, De Beers Consolidated Mines, began to buy every source of diamonds it could lay its hands on. By 1891, De Beers owned 90% of the world's diamond production.
For over 100 years, De Beers, by carefully managing the supply of diamonds, has managed to create an artificial market — a demand for a product that has negligible intrinsic value.
The profitability of this operation was enough to transcend the hatreds of the cold war. The Soviet Union threw in its lot with De Beers Central Selling Organisation (CSO) which effectively controlled worldwide pricing.
But the world is changing. Mobutu's regime in Zaire — long funded by mining revenue — fell to Laurent Kabila's forces.
With the absence of Mobutu's military support for Jonas Savimbi's Unita rebels, Angolan government forces were swift to take control of 10 Unita-held diamond-mining districts in the last month.
Kabila has already snubbed De Beers by awarding mining rights to American companies.
Angola's José Eduardo dos Santos is likely to follow suit now that the Unita mines are under government control. Unita is believed to have received as much as US $600 million a year through diamond sales via Zaire.
Across the Indian Ocean, Australia's Argyle Diamond Mine, which produces one-third of world production by volume, has quit the CSO and set up its own sales operation in Antwerp.
In Russia, diamonds worth about US $200 million have been seized by the government pending "re-evaluation". About 75% of these belong to De Beers. At stake is a Russian battle for control of the diamond export market.
It would appear that the haemorrhage has begun. Like the Arab stranglehold on oil which collapsed as more and more countries decided to go it alone, De Beers is not able to plug the holes anymore.
Industrial diamonds are already manufactured cheaply and accurately by sophisticated machinery invented by General Electric.
So the only real market — gem diamonds — will soon be flooded as producers begin to undercut one another.
Diamonds may be a girl's best friend, but most girls grow up.