Global diamond body orders ban on Chiadzwa diamonds
By Alex Bell
03 April 2009

The world’s diamond certification body on Friday ordered a ban on the trade of diamonds from eastern Zimbabwe, over concerns of human rights violations at the Chiadzwa diamond fields in Marange.

The President of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) on Friday released a statement announcing the decision, which is only set to affect the Marange deposits. The WFDB only allows its members to trade in diamonds that are accompanied by a Kimberly Process certificate, meant to guarantee that the gems are not fuelling conflicts. The Kimberley Process is a regulatory body that was set up in order to prevent the trade in conflict diamonds.

But the Kimberley Process’ ineffectiveness in Zimbabwe has now been highlighted with the WFDB decision, which follows a recent and damning report by a Canadian NGO, involved in stopping the trade of conflict diamonds. The group, Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), last month released the report titled ‘Zimbabwe, Diamonds and the Wrong Side of History’, and accused the Kimberley Process of being unwilling and unable to deal with Zimbabwe’s diamond crisis.

The PAC report came in the wake of widespread accounts of killings in the Chiadzwa area, which has been the centre of controversy since last October when the army was called in to disperse thousands of illegal diamond hunters. The government had originally illegally seized the Chiadzwa diamond claim in 2007, and set off a diamond rush when it encouraged locals to help themselves. But the arrival of the army last year resulted in violence and murder, after the area was sealed off with military roadblocks and troops. Accounts from survivors of the military onslaught detailed the killings, speaking of machine-gun attacks by helicopter and armed attacks by troops on the ground. Civilians in the region also reported that anyone attempting to enter Chiadzwa was arrested and often tortured and killed.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights have said that about 5,000 people were arrested during the army operation, with three quarters of them showing signs of having been tortured severely. The MDC has also claimed that hundreds of people were buried in mass graves “to hide the regime’s murderous activities,” and that the soldiers sent to ‘guard’ the fields had become illegal diamond dealers themselves.