Kimberley Process Diamond Certification

According to the document, "An updated definition could apply to diamond-related conflicts that meet generally agreed-upon standards of armed conflicts, such as a resort to armed force between States or protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organized armed groups or between such groups within a State."

"Such a definition would not apply to individual or isolated cases. Neither would this apply to violence that is unrelated to diamonds."

Annie Dunnebacke, a campaigner for Global Witness, a UK-based NGO that was among the prime movers in the creation of the KPCS, told IRIN that civil society had been calling for reforms of the certification system, including an overhaul of the decision-making process. What we have now is block voting, and block voting leads to the lowest common denominator prevailing She said the dangers of an outright majority vote could leave civil society "without a voice", and that the organization would favour a "more flexible solution", with the possible use of majority voting on specific issues such as non-compliance by members. "What we have now is block voting, and block voting leads to the lowest common denominator prevailing." Just before the Tel Aviv meeting, Global Witness released The Return of the Blood Diamond, a report on Zimbabwe's diamond trade that called for the country's suspension from the KPCS for at least six months "or until such time as the diamond sector is brought into line with KP minimum requirements." The report on human rights violations contradicted the portrait painted by Abbey Chikane, Zimbabwe's KPCS monitor. His 25-page document, Second Fact Finding Mission Report, stated: "Zimbabwe has satisfied minimum requirements of the KPCS for the trade in rough diamonds" and should be permitted to export diamonds from Marange.

The three countries, among the world’s richest, point to claims made by two ostensibly independent nongovernmental organizations, Global Witness and Partnership Africa Canada, to justify their decision. They say the Zimbabwe military is committing human rights abuses at the Marange fields and running a smuggling operation. [4] So why did the Kimberly Process auditor recommend certification, despite allegations of human rights abuses and smuggling? First, the Kimberly Process seeks to prevent the sale of rough diamonds to finance rebel wars, not to prevent human rights abuses and smuggling. Second, Kimberly Process chairman Bernard Esau says there is “no proof of alleged human rights violations at the Marange diamond fields.” [5]

The MDC would end, and possibly reverse, Zanu-PF’s policies of land redistribution and economic indigenization [6] — policies which are giving substantive meaning to the country’s hard fought for independence.

Many NGOs active in Africa create the illusion of being independent of the Western governments that have historically despoiled the continent, while relying on the same governments to provide their funding. It’s highly unlikely that organizations whose existences depend on the support they can get from Western governments stray far from their funders’ interests and foreign policy imperatives. The implication that NGOs are independent of governments is deliberately deceptive.

South Africa’s post-apartheid leaders are simply unwilling to reverse a 120-year old structural relationship of exploitation, by which Johannesburg-based companies – such as those involved in eastern Zimbabwe’s bloody Marange diamond fields, controlled by Mugabe’s army – rip off the region’s resources. Marange is the world’s largest diamond find since Kimberley, South Africa in 1867.

In a hotel room in the eastern Zimbabwe city of Mutare on 25 May, Maguwu provided Chikane information about hundreds of murders at Marange since 2006, at the hands of Mugabe’s army. Instead of using the information to write a critique of Marange, Chikane turned out to be a narc, reporting Maguwu to the Zimbabwe police. When cops drove up at his modest house the next day, Maguwu went underground. During the search, the police beat and tortured family members, leading Maguwu to surrender. After a week in prison, he was hospitalised last Friday due to maltreatment, and then was denied bail on Wednesday by a pro-Mugabe judge.

Abbey Chikane has, in the process, wrecked the Kimberley Process’s reputation for monitoring blood diamonds in the same way that Mbeki-Zuma soiled Pretoria’s when it comes to justice and democracy for wretched Zimbabwe. The last decade has witnessed a variety of similar betrayals of their people by the SA and Zimbabwe elites.