Build a movie plot around this: What are Mende locals enslaved for? harvest diamonds
Answer:
It is 1999 and Sierra Leone is ravaged by major political unrest. Rebel factions such as the Revolutionary United Front frequently terrorize the countryside, intimidating Mende locals and enslaving many to harvest diamonds, which fund their increasingly successful war effort. One such unfortunate local is fisherman Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) from Shenge, who has been assigned to a workforce overseen by Captain Poison (David Harewood), a ruthless warlord.One morning Vandy discovers an enormous pink diamond in the riverbank and buries it in the soft earth. Captain Poison learns of the stone, but before he can follow up, the area is raided by government security forces. Both Vandy and Poison are incarcerated in Freetown, along with Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), a white Rhodesian gunrunner jailed while trying to smuggle diamonds into Liberia. These were intended for Rudolph van de Kaap (Marius Weyers), a corrupt South African mining executive.Having managed to learn about the pink diamond, Archer arranges to have Vandy freed from detention. He travels to Cape Town, meeting with his former military contacts, including Colonel Coetzee (Arnold Vosloo), an Afrikaner formerly with the apartheid-era South African Defence Force. Coetzee now freelances with a private military firm. Archer says he wants to recover the diamond and use it to leave the continent forever, but Coetzee counters with his claim, saying his lost stake in Archer's botched Liberian operation entitles him to the diamond as compensation. Archer returns to Sierra Leone, locates Vandy, and offers to help him find his family if he will recover the prized possession.Meanwhile, RUF insurgents escalate hostilities. Freetown falls to their advance while Vandy's son Dia (Kagiso Kuypers) is among those rounded up to serve as a child soldier under a liberated Captain Poison. Archer and Vandy narrowly escape to Guinea, where they plan to infiltrate Kono with an American journalist, Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly). They will give her inside information...