FREETOWN ( 2008-08-22 03:51:45 ) :With the 2007 Hollywood movie 'Blood Diamond' still pulling big crowds into Freetown's movie halls, Sierra Leone's new promotion agency would like nothing better than to see it banned.
'This 'Blood Diamond' film is sending bad signals to the world about Sierra Leone,' the state-run Sierra Leone Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SLIPA) said Thursday.
The agency is urging the government and other partners "to ban the film with immediate effect," SLIPA head Adeyormie Sandy told AFP.
Set at the height Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war, the movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio as an unscrupulous diamond trader. The film shows gruesome scenes of fighting in Sierra Leone and details how rebels force civilians to mine diamonds for them to fund the war effort.
While the movie awakened the world to the problem of conflict diamonds, the promotion agency argues it hampers its efforts to rebrand Sierra Leone to lure new investors.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2008
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