'For the economist, this is a war motivated by greed. For the young fighter it is an injustice." Ultimately, most scholars agree that diamonds are the main reason for the atrocities that occurred in Serra Leone. Is the resource curse, the abundance of a natural resource causing fights over it, really the only reason why 50,000 people died in the bloody civil war? The difficulty in finding an answer is that neither party to the conflict wants the answer to come out. Unlike other civil wars, where one side is clearly the victim, both the rebels and the government of Serra Leone are guilty of brutally killing innocent citizens and forcing children to fight for their armies. If you were to do a Google search of Sierra Leone, you would find articles labeled “Blood Diamonds” and other things like that. Her obvious diamonds were somewhat of a factor, but what else was going on behind the scenes? Are we missing the bigger picture? The Revolutionary United Front (hereafter RUF) forced thousands of child soldiers to fight for their cause. But they didn't just attack the government and the army...