|
Get AfricaFocus Bulletin by e-mail!
on your Newsreader!
Print this page
Zimbabwe: Whose Diamonds?
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Jun 18, 2010 (100618)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
Zimbabwe's diamond wealth, which could potentially provide a
decisive boost for economic recovery, is instead still a resource
shared by diamond smugglers, army officers and police, and by
cliques of top officials in the country's security apparatus, says
a new report from "conflict diamonds" researchers at Partnership
Africa Canada (PAC).
The report comes just as Kimberley Process Monitor Abbey Chikane
has completed a draft report recommending certification of diamond
production from the Marange fields, which will be discussed at a
meeting of the group of governments, industry representatives, and
non-governmental organizations in Israel on June 21-23. Whatever
the outcome of that meeting, notes the PAC report, there are
fundamental weaknesses in the process, which formally only
considers "rough diamonds" sold by rebel movements, and does not
consider human rights abuses and corruption by governments
themselves.
The inadequacies were blatantly on view as the KP Monitor himself
was complicit in facilitating the arrest of the leading local civil
society diamond reseacher, Farai Maguwu of Mutare's Centre for
Research and Development. Chikane's draft report focused on
technical issues of security of processing procedure, and did not
address broader issues.
If exports from Marange are approved, it will only replace part of
the flow now going across the border through Mozambique by
syndicates partnered by military and police personnel with sales
through dubious companies established by the Ministry of Mines.
What is required, whether from internal pressure from within
Zimbabwe or from an improved Kimberley Process, is full
transparency and accountability that ensures that the proceeds
reach the public treasury rather than private factions relying on
force and corruption.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a press release and brief
excerpts from the new report by Partnership Africa Canada:
"Diamonds and Clubs: The Militarized Control of Diamonds and Power
in Zimbabwe." The full 32-page report is available from
http://www.pacweb.org / direct url to pdf
http://tinyurl.com/2dhjclw
For an excellent short analytical summary of the current situation
in Zimbabwe, see the issue brief from the Chr. Michelsen Institute
"Zimbabwe's Multilayered Crisis," by Alois Mlambo and Brian
Raftopoulos on http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org or http://www.cmi.no
/ direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/2clpxh7
The leaked draft report from Kimberley Process monitor Abbey
Chikane is available at: http://www.swradioafrica.com/Documents/KPMonitor090610.pdf
The report includes sections on the theft of his papers, as well as
his decision to hand over to authorities a document allegedly
shared with him by Farai Maguwu.
For an interview with Farai Maguwu, before he was placed under
arrest by Zimbabwean police, see.
http://www.swradioafrica.com/pages/hotseat070610.htm
The official Kimberley Process website is http://www.kimberleyprocess.com/
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Zimbabwe, see
http://www.africafocus.org/country/zimbabwe.php
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++
New PAC report on Zimbabwe diamond-related violence:
Diamonds and Clubs: The Militarized Control of Diamonds and Power
in Zimbabwe
Partnership Africa Canada
Press Release
June 14, 2010
Download report from http://www.pacweb.org / direct url to pdf
http://tinyurl.com/2dhjclw
See also new Global Witness report, Return of the Blood Diamond
at http://www.globalwitness.org
PAC Condemns Violence in Zimbabwe's Diamond Fields
PAC calls for the release from detention of human rights
activist, Farai Maguwu, and the suspension of Zimbabwe from the
Kimberley Process
A new PAC report about Zimbabwe's contested diamond fields is
about many things: smuggling and frontier hucksterism; a scramble
fuelled by raw economic desperation and unfathomable greed; and
heart-wrenching cases of government-sponsored repression and
human rights violations. It's a story about political intrigue,
ambition and a complete disregard for decency or the rule of law.
It is also a story of how the Kimberley Process - the
international initiative created to ensure that the trade in
diamonds does not fund violence and civil war - has lost its way.
Zimbabwe is not the only country failing to meet some or all of
the basic requirements asked of diamond producing nations by the
Kimberley Process (KP). But Zimbabwe sets itself apart from the
others because of the government's brazen defiance of universally
agreed principles of humanity and good governance expected of
adherents to the KP. As such Zimbabwe poses a serious crisis of
credibility for the KP, whose impotence in the face of thuggery
and illegality in Zimbabwe underscores a worrisome inability or
unwillingness to enforce either the letter, or the spirit, of its
founding mandate.
There have been glimpses recently of a new strategy by Zimbabwe
in advance of the June 2010 KP Intersessional Meeting in
Tel-Aviv, where Zimbabwe's compliance with the KP's minimum
requirements will again be reviewed. For months both Zimbabwe
government officials and representatives of two new exploration
companies (Mbada and Canadile) have gone through the motions of
presenting themselves as legitimate partners in their efforts to
mine diamonds in the Marange region. In May, Mines Minister Obert
Mpofu pretended for once to recognize the authority of the KP by
issuing an export ban on all Zimbabwean diamonds until the KP
gives its blessing.
"It is, of course, a deception and a charade," explains Alan
Martin, Research Director at Partnership Africa Canada. "It's
calculated to confuse and soften the criticism of some KP members
as they congregate in Tel-Aviv in June. The Zanu-PF leadership
has no intention of voluntarily changing its tune. Zimbabwe
should be excluded from the KP."
On the eve of the publication of PAC's report, the crisis in
Zimbabwe's diamond fields deepened. The special KP Monitor sent
to assess Zimbabwe's compliance with the KP has produced a report
extremely favourable to the Zimbabwe authorities, a report which
is effectively a whitewash. At the same time, Farai Maguwu, the
leading Zimbabwean human rights activist monitoring the abuses in
the diamond fields perpetrated by Zimbabwe army and police units,
has been arrested following a meeting with the KP Monitor.
"This is the latest in a series of attempts by the Zimbabwean
authorities to intimidate human rights activists, and stop them
from investigating and publicising ongoing abuses in the Marange
diamond fields," said Bernard Taylor, Executive Director of
Partnership Africa Canada. "Such harassment is wholly
unacceptable and must stop. Farai Maguwu must be freed
unconditionally".
The PAC report, Diamonds and Clubs: The Militarized Control of
Diamonds and Power in Zimbabwe, makes a series of recommendations
to deal with the crisis in Zimbabwe and in the KP.
Recommendations include suspending Zimbabwe from the KP and
creating a new, broader definition of 'conflict diamonds'.
For further information, please contact:
Alan Martin: +1.613.237.6768 Ext. 6, Mobile: +1.613.983.6817
(English)
Bernard Taylor: +1.613.237.6768 Ext. 3, Mobile: +1.613.983.5708
(English and French)
Partnership Africa Canada been involved in efforts to halt the
trade in conflict diamonds since 1999. Other reports on conflict
diamonds can be found at http://www.pacweb.org
Zimbabwe: Diamonds and Clubs
The Militarized Control of Diamonds and Power in Zimbabwe
This paper is based on a field visit PAC undertook to Zimbabwe in
April 2010. ... It should be read as a companion to Zimbabwe,
Diamonds and the Wrong Side of History, a report PAC published in
March 2009.
[Brief excerpts only. The full 32-page document, including
footnotes and documentation, is available on the site of
Partnership Africa Canada (http://www.pacweb.org]
The first [contention] is that what is occurring in the two
contested diamond areas -- Marange in the eastern province of
Manicaland and River Ranch in the south -- cannot be seen in
isolation. They are inextricably linked to the same pursuit of
political power, and the same defiance of KP protocols.
Another is that Zimbabwe's diamonds are "blood diamonds". This is
a charge that Zimbabwe not surprisingly refutes, citing the KP's
own definition that the term applies only to "rough diamonds used
by rebel movements to finance wars against legitimate
governments". But that interpretation fails to recognize the
current political realities of Zimbabwe, or consider how, and to
what ends, political elites within ZANU-PF are using diamonds to
both jockey for power in a post-Mugabe era and destabilize the
Government of National Unity, created in February 2009 with the
inclusion of the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC). ...
The obsessive control of the country's diamond resources by this
small renegade group threatens the viability of the Government of
National Unity (GNU) in other significant ways. Almost four years
after the military took control of Marange not one cent has
entered the national treasury. This has three consequences: it
starves the national treasury of any benefit that could steer
Zimbabwe back from economic ruin, it thwarts efforts to
re-legitimize public institutions and it leads to an overall lack
of confidence in the Government of National Unity in which
millions of Zimbabweans have put their trust to tangibly improve
their lives.
By not explicitly acknowledging these threats to Zimbabwe's
political stability, the ability of the KP and key foreign actors
to appropriately respond to this crisis is severely compromised.
Following this discovery [of diamonds in Marange in June 2006], a
frenzied diamond rush developed. When the government failed to
buy up the diamonds because of cash constraints, a thriving black
market quickly developed, accompanied by rampant smuggling.
Zimbabwe has been under increasing scrutiny since a KP Review
Mission visited Marange in July 2009 and concluded that there
were "credible indications of significant noncompliance" with the
minimum requirements of the Kimberley Process Certification
Scheme (KPCS). Among their chief concerns were evidence of
government involvement in human rights abuses, smuggling, and lax
controls that compromised the entire chain of production.
An attempt was made to help Zimbabwe meet its KPCS obligations by
appointing a KP Monitor, South African Abbey Chikane, in February
2010. The Monitor's duties include implementing a "supervised
export mechanism" under which he would examine and certify
Marange diamonds. Most of Chiadzwa, the district in which Marange
is located, remains a heavily militarized area, as security
forces fight a losing battle to keep out thousands of illegal
panners that are drawn to the region with the hope of striking it
big.
... Chiadzwa has been consumed by illegality and lawlessness,
much of it done with the sanction or direct involvement of
parties and individuals directly related to political elites
within President Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).
One of them is Minister Mpofu himself, who is clearly benefiting
from sources of revenue above his ministerial pay grade. In early
2010 he went on a real estate shopping spree buying several
properties in the Bulawayo area, including the Ascot Race Course
and Casino. Dimplomatic sources have also confirmed that he is
intimately involved in the running of Canadile, one of
government's joint venture partners. But despite this, it is
evident that Mpofu is not in charge of what is playing out in
Marange.
...
Recently the military chiefs have made their involvement less
subtle. On April 9, 2010, Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri
wrote to Mpofu "asking" for a mining concession for a shell
company controlled by his department. He included a map and
specified the areas in Chiadzwa he wished to mine.
The Chiadzwa Gang: "Shady individuals and fugitives"
In July 2009 the Ministry of Mines accepted expressions of
interest from companies willing to enter into joint ventures
agreements to mine in Marange. The process was undertaken under
the auspices of the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation, a
parastatal under the control of the Ministry. ...
Only two companies were cherry-picked for consideration: Core
Mining Resources, a small, unheard of diamond company based in
Kimberley, South Africa and Grandwell Holdings, a
Mauritius-registered company with ties to the New Reclamation
Group, a South African scrap metal company.
The ZMDC signed agreements with both companies on August 13 and
14, 2009, granting them each concessions measuring 2100 hectares.
In return, the companies pledged to invest $100 million in
equipment and machinery needed to build physical infrastructure,
including roads, security, processing facilities and water. ...
The joint ventures resulted in the incorporation of two new
distinct companies in which ZMDC (through Marange Resources) has
50% shares. Grandwell and Marange Resources formed Condurango,
which trades as Mbada diamonds. Core Mining formed a new company
called Canadile Miners Private Limited.
Both companies have 10 member boards of directors, of which the
ZMDC is allocated five seats on each. A ZMDC representative
chairs both boards, and like all the parastal's members, is
appointed at the discretion of the Minister.
The full corporate breakdown of the companies is far from
complete, however; although Dominic Mubayiwa, the CEO of the
ZMDC, confirmed the following individuals.
Mbada Board:
Chairman: Robert Mhlanga (President Mugabe's former helicopter
pilot). ZMDC representatives: Sithengisiso Mpofu (sister-in-law
to Minister), Dingiswayo Ndlovu (personal assistant to the
minister) and Chrystesona Kanjoma, one vacancy. Grandwell
Representatives: Paolo Kasasola, Chad Smart and David Kassel, two
vacancies.
Canadile Board:
Chairman: Cougan Matanhire ZMDC representatives: Dominic Mubayiwa
(Chief Executive Officer, ZMDC), Alvin Ncube, Beauty Moyo, Mrs G.
Chikwava. Core Mining representatives: Lovemore Kurotwi, Adrian
Taylor, Yehuda Licht (Israeli diamond dealer), Danesh and Ashok
Pandeya
The choice of board members raises many questions about what, if
any, due diligence was undertaken by the ZMDC before making the
appointments. Insiders and family relations aside, almost none of
the board members have any experience in the legitimate diamond
mining business. Worse still, at least half of Canadile's board
is implicated in serious illegality on one kind or another. They
are, as one Zimbabwean paper called them, "shady individuals and
fugitives from justice".
Kurotwi is a retired officer who played a senior role during the
infamous 5th Brigade massacres in Matabeleland. Taylor is alleged
to have worked as a mercenary in Sierra Leone, while Licht is
believed to have spent time in jail in Angola on diamond-related
smuggling offences.
Danesh and Ashok Pandeya were active diamond smugglers in DRC
conflict and boast to be partners of high-level people in the
Zimbabwe government. Ashok is on the police wanted list in
Thailand over fraud involving diamonds worth US$100 million. ...
The Political Economy of Mugabe's kleptocracy
... the involvement of ZANU elites in the country's diamond
resources is the latest chapter in a long continuum by which the
violent expropriation and manipulation of economic resources have
been used for their political and economic gain.
It is a continuum manifested previously by three key events:
Zimbabwe's plunder of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the
orchestrated invasion and seizure of white-owned farms, and the
manipulation of foreign exchange rates during recent years of
hyper-inflation.
An examination of these events shows not only a similarity of
tactics, but also the same personalities orchestrating and
benefiting from such schemes. ... the same principals now
battling for control of Zimbabwe's diamonds, ZANU, and the
country as a whole.
The public faces of this power struggle are ostensibly the
Minister of Defence Emmerson Mnangagwa and his longtime political
foe, General Solomon Mujuru, the retired head of the armed forces
and one of Zimbabwe's richest men. Mujuru is also the husband to
First Vice President Joice Mujuru, who at times is considered an
equal partner in his presidential aspiration, but remains in the
shadows so as not to cause offence to President Mugabe.
While both men have long considered themselves the dauphin to
President Mugabe, the true power brokers of Zimbabwean politics
are members of the Joint Operations Command (JOC). The members of
the JOC are the high priests of Zimbabwean politics, the final
arbiters of tough decisions, and the architects of every single
government-sponsored act of repression from the 1985 Gukurahundi
massacres in Matabeleland, to the farm invasions, to successive
episodes of election-related violence. ...
[The other members are: General Constantine Chiwenga, commander
of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces; Lieutenant General Philip
Sibanda, commander of the Zimbabwe National Army; Air Marshal
Perence Shiri, commander of the Air Force of Zimbabwe and Robert
Mugabe's cousin; Commissioner Augustine Chihuri, Zimbabwe
Republic Police; Major General (Ret.) Paradzayi Zimondi, head of
the Zimbabwe prison service; Happyton Bonyongwe, director-general
of the Central Intelligence Organization; and Gideon Gono,
governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.]
While the succession issue is far from settled between these two
camps, both Mujuru and Mnangagwa are intimately involved with
efforts by the JOC to monopolize the country's diamond resources
-- just as they have been with all previous economic selfenrichment
schemes on which the JOC has embarked.
River Ranch: Solomon's Mine
River Ranch is known colloquially as "Mujuru's mine." ...
But while Mujuru's ownership may be common knowledge, many other
things about River Ranch remain in the shadows. The reason: the
mine goes to the very heart of Mujuru's struggle for control of
ZANU, and allegations it is being used to launder some of the
plunder he and his allies secured in DRC.
In April 2004 Mujuru controversially grabbed the mine with the
help of Adel Abdul Rahman al Aujan, a millionaire Saudi real
estate developer who also owns luxury beach resorts and safari
camps in Eastern and Southern Africa that operate under the name
Rani Resorts.
At the time River Ranch Mine was owned and managed by Bubye
Minerals which took possession of the once insolvent mine in
September 1998. The proprietors of Bubye Minerals are Adele and
Michael Farquhar, who managed to turn things around so the mine
was producing an average of 30,000 carats per month.
The Farquhars' misfortune began after they gave Aujan a 30
percent stake in the company in 2002 after they ran into some
financial difficulties caused by a cyclone. By 2004 the two
parties had a falling out, and Aujan abruptly called in his
loans. Shortly afterwards he convened a meeting at the exclusive
Meikles Hotel in Harare, unilaterally reconstituted the company
as River Ranch Limited and appointed Mujuru and Trivanhu
Mudariki, another senior ZANU politician, as directors. Days
later the Farquhars were escorted off the property by police at
gunpoint.
The case has been before the courts ever since, with several
legal judgments upholding the Farquhar's legal rights. Despite
this, River Ranch Limited continues to occupy and mine despite a
lack of clear title.
...
In Zimbabwe it is the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe,
a parastatal within the Ministry of Mines, which issues Kimberly
Process certificates needed for the legal export of rough
diamonds.
Despite controlling the mine, Mujuru was initially prevented from
legally selling any diamonds, thanks to an injunction won by the
Farquhar's legal team. Undeterred Mujuru repeatedly pressured
Priscilla Mupfunira, the chairwoman of the MMCZ, to issue the
certificates anyway. She refused.
Mujuru turned to the Central Committee, the second most powerful
ZANU organ whose main duties include dispensing patronage. The
Committee is firmly controlled by Mujuru's wife, Joice, and
includes Mudariki among its members.
In late 2008 Mupfunira and most of the MMCZ board were abruptly
replaced. (Retired Lt-Col) Nelly Abu Basutu assumed the top job.
She came with impeccable connections: her husband is Air
Vice-Marshal Titus Abu Basutu, the deputy to Air Force Chief
Perence Shiri.
...
As is explained elsewhere in this report, it is often erroneously
assumed that the only fight for power in Zimbabwe is between the
two parties, ZANU and the MDC. In reality, the more explosive
turf war is within ZANU. While Mnangagwa's support base within
the JOC places him closer to Marange's riches, River Ranch
affords Mujuru unfettered access to his own diamond resource --
one that he has protected with no less ruthlessness.
Those who have borne the brunt of Mujuru's persecution are the
Farquhar's and their immediate supporters. The couple has
repeatedly been singled out for special harassment, including
frequent imprisonments, house break-ins and death threats, in an
attempt to force them to give up the mine.
The intimidation campaign took a very personal and tragic turn in
February 2010, when Adele's brother Richard Amyot and his wife
Tecla were murdered. Police ruled it a murder-suicide but
forensics done by the family disputed that finding. Tecla was
shot four times, including once from close range at the back of
her head while she was lying on the floor. Richard was found
slumped in a door frame as though running from the room. He, too,
was shot in the head, but from medium range. No gunpowder residue
was found either on his hands or at the bullet's entry point.
Despite all this, the Kimberly Process has never seen fit to
interview the Farquhars.
In Marange, soldiers applied the rent-seeking practices they
learned in the DRC -- in particular the practice of press-ganging
local peasant farmers into exploitative syndicates to extract
natural resources, including diamonds.
...
In Marange, the army rotates its brigades in the diamond fields,
bringing new ones in on a 2-3 month cycle. Among soldiers the
practice goes a long way in diffusing charges of favouritism (and
discontent in the ranks), as it gives everyone a crack at
supplementing their meagre army salary. The gwejas, as the miners
are known in Shona, have a different perspective. They have found
that in the years since mining began in 2006, the terms under
which they enter into syndicates with police or soldiers has
become more exploitative with time.
Profit-sharing within syndicates are generally constituted in two
main ways. In the beginning it was more common for a syndicate of
10 or so panners to work with one or two soldiers or policemen
and pay a flat fee of upwards of $1,000 to dig for a night. That
would get them about four or five hours in the fields. After they
paid their flat fee, they got to keep the remainder of their
proceeds.
But as the boom exploded, and with the arrival of each new
rotation of soldiers, the terms were often radically renegotiated
in favour of the security forces.
Currently most syndicates engage in 50-50 profit sharing
arrangements with their police or military associates, whose
involvement extends to accompanying the panners to the local
market to negotiate the sale of the stones.
Other than their obvious and absolute control of the means of
state violence, the JOC considers their control of Marange to be
their main instrument through which to engineer the defeat of the
GPA that underpins the fragile unity government.
Starving the national treasury of any revenues from Marange is
their most effective weapon in that regard -- something
acknowledged by Finance Minister Tendai Biti, the second most
powerful elected MDC official.
...
the logical question to ask is: then who has [benefited] ? Other
than a handful of big dealers in Vila de Manica and Mutare --
most notably Bothwell Hlahla, Tarzin Machingura, and another
simply known as Gonyeti -- the biggest winners are obviously the
same clique of insiders and securocrats that have always
benefited from illicit ZANU enterprises.
While the national treasury may be starved of funds, the same is
not true for the JOC. While no one knows the exact wealth of
Chiadzwa, Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank Governor and JOC member,
once estimated the value of smuggled Marange diamonds at $400
million in 2007 alone. Most of which is done by or with the
complicity of people close to the military. ...
Civil Society under Siege
...
One such person is Farai Maguwu, the executive director of the
Centre for Research and Development -- the leading civil society
group exposing the smuggling and government-sponsored human
rights abuses in Chiadzwa. On June 3, 2010, Maguwu turned himself
into police, after almost a week on the run from police and the
Central Intelligence Organization.
Equally as troubling are the tactics police and security forces
have used against Maguwu and his family-- the most egregious of
which was the treatment of his nephew Lisben, whom they kidnapped
and beat in an attempt to pressure Maguwu to turn himself in. CIO
agents also carried out an illegal search and seizure of property
-- including computers, a car and personal documents -- at both
Maguwu's house and office. Blessing Nyamaropua, a member of
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, was forced into hiding after
being allegedly assaulted by Chief Superintendent Crispen
Makedenge and Detective Inspector Henry Dowa, after he attempted
to make enquiries about Lisben. He was detained under Section 31
of the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act for "publishing
or communicating false statements prejudicial to the State".
Authorities allege he passed a restricted document to KP Monitor
Abbey Chikane during a meeting at the Holiday Inn in Mutare on
May 27, 2010. Maguwu denies the charges.
The supposed document in question had been in wide circulation in
Zimbabwe, South Africa and Europe for weeks. Entitled "Brief for
Sub-National JOC by Assistant Commissioner Mawere N. On Operation
Hakudzokwi Phase VII on 07/05/2010", it's not hard to understand
why the five page document caused such alarm for Zimbabwe's
military bosses.
Among the things it confirmed was:
- The JOC is the de facto authority in Chiadzwa.
- Both the army and police are engaged in illegal syndicates with
panners. The 2.2 Infantry Battalion is singled out for special
mention.
- The government has failed to demilitarize the diamond fields.
- Military personnel are involved in human rights abuses,
including summary executions of civilians.
- Security forces continue to lose the battle against illegal
panning or smuggling, particularly at new mining sites in
Chirasika and Jesse.
Maguwu's arrest is an undeniable assault on civil society and a
blunt warning to others who investigate and publicise ongoing
abuses in Marange. CRD has effectively been silenced.
Notwithstanding the detention of its director, CRD has had its
assets frozen, and its entire staff forced into hiding.
...
Maguwu's arrest represents a massive breach of trust and
challenge to the future of the Kimberley Process in Zimbabwe. The
KP has been presented with damning and undeniable evidence of
continuing major human rights abuses on the part of the Zimbabwe
police and military. It has been given information showing that
the Chiadzwa diamond fields are still largely controlled by the
military, which operates its own mining syndicates. Smuggling is
rampant and illegality abounds, with leading politicians and
officials steeped in this mire. In the face of this overwhelming
evidence of noncompliance, the Kimberley Process has allowed a
key witness to be arrested.
...
Zimbabwe's mockery of the Kimberley Process should not be
tolerated any longer. If the KP is to maintain any shred of
credibility it must take bold and decisive action to defend its
founding principles. ...
Recommendations to the Kimberley Process
Suspend Zimbabwe
The Zimbabwean authorities have been given ample opportunity to
demilitarize and legitimize its diamond industry, to respect the
rule of law and stop the harassment and abuses of panners and
civil society groups alike. They have chosen otherwise. The KP
cannot in good conscience turn a blind eye to this behaviour any
longer.
PAC calls on the KP to suspend Zimbabwe immediately. The
suspension should remain in effect until there is legitimate and
competent governance of the country's diamond resources.
Redefine "blood diamonds"
The Kimberley Process Certification System was designed to
protect governments from rebel movements threatening their
sovereignty. This is reflected in the definition of conflict
diamonds found in KPCS founding documents, which described them
as "rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to
finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments."
This definition is outdated and needs changing. It erroneously
assumes all governments are "legitimate" and does not recognize
that such governments, in whole or part, could engage in acts of
terror or criminality as egregious as any rebel movement.
The JOC and other ZANU insiders are clearly using the country's
diamond resources to finance and further a narrow and
illegitimate agenda that is at odds with the unity government.
The military's role using diamonds as a barter good for weapons
brings a sense of urgency to this situation, offering a
disturbing echo of how diamonds financed arms purchases that
fuelled the wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
The KPCS's strict interpretation of conflict diamonds fails to
capture consumer concerns about rape, murder and mutilation being
linked to products that are supposed to symbolize love and
commitment.
Martin Rapaport, the publisher of the Rapaport Diamond Report,
has coined a new definition that reflects the changing nature of
conflict diamonds, and acknowledges the central role human rights
have, and should, play in the Kimberley Process: "Blood diamonds
are diamonds involved in murder, mutilation, rape or forced
servitude."54
PAC endorses this definition and calls on the KP to adopt it at
the earliest possible opportunity.
Include cut and polished stones to the Kimberley Process
Certification System
Zimbabwe underscores an all too common shortcoming of the KP:
once rough diamonds are smuggled out of a rogue country there is
no accounting for how they end up in the legitimate diamond
trade. Large quantities of Marange diamonds are known to have
made their way to Europe, Asia and the Middle East. This sullies
the entire diamond industry and creates uncertainty for consumers
who want ethically sourced gems.
PAC calls on the KP to widen its monitoring and enforcement
mandate beyond the trade of rough diamonds to include all stages
of the polishing and cutting process in the KPCS.
Investigate River Ranch
Marange has garnered most of the media headlines, but the KP has
also failed to stop illegal behaviour at River Ranch.
River Ranch must be a factor in any future action taken by the KP
with respect to Zimbabwe's diamond sector, including Zimbabwe's
readmission to the KP.
Join EITI
One of the most troubling aspects of Zimbabwe's diamond sector is
the dearth of independently verifiable data surrounding their
extraction, sale and export. Similar problems occur in countries
such as Angola and Venezuela.
PAC calls on all diamond-producing countries within the KPCS to
join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and set up
tripartite multi-stakeholder coalitions at the national level to
track the generation and disbursement of diamond revenues.
...
...
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at [email protected]. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org
|
