No agreement yet on Zim diamond future

By Alex Bell
05 November 2010

A four day meeting of the international diamond trade watchdog, the Kimberley Process (KP), ended with no sign of an agreement on Zimbabwe’s diamond trade future on Thursday.

KP Chairman Boaz Hirsch told a news conference at the end of the meeting in Jerusalem that “the government of Zimbabwe has not been given approval as yet to sell diamonds recovered from its controversial mine fields in the Chiadzwa area of Mutare.” He said an agreement had not yet been finalised.
“We hope to reach an agreement in the coming days...we are working with Zimbabwe and other countries,” he said.

Zimbabwe Mines Minister Obert Mpofu meanwhile told the media at the conference that the country would sell diamonds from Chiadzwa immediately, echoing the same threats he made earlier this week.
“Zimbabwe will sell diamonds without any conditions,” he said. “There is no opposition to that.”
The KP is now under pressure to find some solution in the coming days, and a report on the situation in Zimbabwe is being debated. According to Hirsch, the report “has found Zimbabwe to be compliant in certain areas.”

“In other areas, though, full compliance has not been achieved. It is still too early to say what action may be taken,” he added.

Zimbabwe was once again top of the KP’s agenda, with the group bickering amongst itself over whether to allow full diamond exports from the country to resume. Sales were barred last year over rampant human rights abuses at the Chiadzwa diamond fields, where possibly the richest alluvial diamond deposit in the world has been discovered. In 2006 the ZANU PF regime forcibly took over the fields and brutally clamped down on the entire area, using the military to unleash a campaign of violence, death, forced labour, and smuggling.

Despite pressure to completely suspend Zimbabwe from trade, the KP instead decided to give the government time to fall in line with international standards and clean up its act at Chiadzwa. In 2009 a Joint Work Plan was agreed to, which was meant to help Zimbabwe clean up its act. This year an agreement was eventually reached between the government and the KP to auction two batches of stockpiled Chiadzwa diamonds, under monitoring conditions. This was meant to pave the way for a return to full exports, and the meeting in Jerusalem this week was set to make this decision.

But human rights group have warned that the abuses at the hands of the military are still ongoing and have been pressuring the KP to uphold a ban on sales until there is significant change. These warnings have been countered by claims by the Mines Ministry and the ZANU PF aligned Affirmative Action Group (AAG) that all is well at Chiadzwa. The AAG, which stands to make its own personal fortune from Zimbabwe’s potentially lucrative diamond trade, this week also tried to pressure the KP into giving Zimbabwe the green light for sales.

The KP Civil Society Coalition, a grouping of rights organisations that have been campaigning for meaningful change at Chiadzwa, said on Friday that it “recognises that some progress has been made Chiadzwa.” But the group added that “key commitments made in the Joint Work Plan (last year) remain unmet.” Alan Martin, from Partnership Africa Canada, one of the groups in the coalition, told SW Radio Africa that “it is only through implementing these agreements that Zimbabwe will meet Kimberley Process minimum standards and prevent renewed violence in Chiadzwa.”

“The KP Civil Society Coalition remains committed to playing a constructive role in finding an agreement between the Kimberley Process and Zimbabwe,” Martin said. “This agreement must allow all Zimbabwean people to benefit from the country's diamond wealth, while ensuring that human rights are respected and the integrity of the KP scheme is preserved.”

Martin added: “Right now we are in a grey zone and it’s not clear what kind of solution will be reached.”