Confusion surrounds Zim ‘blood’ diamonds auction

By Alex Bell
07 January 2010

A controversial planned auction of Zimbabwe’s blood diamonds was reportedly cancelled Thursday, after it emerged that the international diamond regulatory body, the Kimberly Process, and other key government departments had not been informed of the sale.

An estimated 60kgs (over 300 000 carats) of Zimbabwe’s blood diamonds were set to go on sale on Thursday, in a move that has shocked rights groups campaigning for a boycott of the country’s controversial gems. But according to online news service ZimOnline, the Ministry of Mines permanent secretary, Thankful Musukutwa, and Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation director Onesimo Moyo rushed to the auction site to stop the sale from going ahead. This was reportedly because of the absence of Kimberley Process regulators at the sale, and the lack of proper notification of the government.

The diamonds, mined from the Chiadzwa fields, were set to be auctioned at a new diamond processing plant, conveniently located at Harare International Airport. The state authorised mining company heading the diamond auction, Mbada Diamonds, said the sale would be the first of more to come, with the profits going directly to the government. This was announced by Mbada’s chairman Robert Mhlanga, a former air vice-marshal who has a known close relationship with the Mugabe’s as a former courier for the first family. Mhlanga was also in the diamond trade in the DRC when Mugabe commited Zimbabwean troops to the war there. He was also a key witness in the 2003 attempt to frame Tsvangirai, then the opposition leader, for treason. Mhlanga testified that he had contact with a former Israeli spy who claimed Tsvangirai hired him to kill Mugabe.
According to South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper, Mhlanga operates from expensive offices in Johannesburg and his links to Mugabe “are so strong that he flies his helicopter in and out of Zimbabwe without passing the usual customs controls,” the newspaper recently reported. Mhlanga was also a key figure in the plan to convert the old Harare domestic air terminal into the new diamond processing plant, which the Sunday Times has said is a way of “getting round any future diamond export ban.”
Mhlanga told journalists on Wednesday that the auction was in compliance with standards set by the Kimberley Process, the international diamond trade regulatory body. The body last year spared Zimbabwe a potential ban from international trade, over human rights abuses at the Chiadzwa fields. Its weak excuse was a technicality in its mandate that defines blood diamonds as those mined by abusive rebel groups, rather than abusive governments.

The planned auctions are a slap in the face for international human rights groups, diamond retailers and other advocacy groups who have called for a boycott of Zimbabwe’s diamonds, citing ongoing rights abuses at the Chiadzwa diamond fields. Last year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) made a written appeal directly to top retailers, urging them to shun Zimbabwe’s gems. The group warned that diamonds from Zimbabwe were being produced through “the use of forced labour of adults and children, killings, and severe beatings.”
“By any reasonable assessment, diamonds from Marange are ‘blood diamonds’ and we are publicly calling upon retailers and interested consumers to boycott Zimbabwe diamonds unless and until the abuses that we uncovered come to an end,” HRW said.

At the same time, international diamond traders, the Rapaport Group, has also called for a ban on the diamonds, stating that blood diamonds from Zimbabwe may have been illegally exported and may even be reaching retailers. The boycott appeal has also since been picked up by Ingle & Rhode, the UK’s principal retailer of ethical jewellery and engagement rings produced using ‘conflict-free’ diamonds.

“Continuing to allow exports of Zimbabwean diamonds would make a mockery of the Kimberley Process that is meant to avoid just such practices from occurring,” the company said in a press statement.
Gabriel Shumba, the co-coordinator of the Zimbabwe Blood Diamonds Campaign, told SW Radio Africa on Thursday that the auction is a glaring indication that the Kimberley Process has failed Zimbabwe, and its own mandate. He echoed calls for the Kimberley Process to drastically reform, arguing “what more proof of blood do they need to intervene when hundreds of people are dead, women are being raped, and many are being tortured.” Shumba also argued that the country is being ‘bled dry’ by people wielding power, adding that the government is being funded by murder and abuse.

Meanwhile HRW, in an online campaign, is appealing to the public to send a letter to member states of the Kimberley Process, urging them to take action to stop the abuses in Chiadzwa. The letter, which can be sent straight from the HRW website, is addressed to five representatives of the Kimberley Process, the World Diamond Council and other major players in the diamond trade industry. It asks them to change the rules of the Kimberley Process to include human rights, as a mandatory minimum standard in the diamond industries of all participating countries, and to end the abuse in Chiadzwa.

Diamond buyers from across the world have flown into Harare International Airport to partake in the three day auction that was supposed to go ahead Thursday. It is not yet clear who the potential buyers are what countries they are from, or even if the auction will go ahead at a later stage. The convenient location of the diamond processing plant at the airport has already raised some concern, because of the direct access for other countries noted for their plunder of natural resources.

In 1998 the ZANU PF government established direct air links, under the control of the air force, between Harare and the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa to ‘facilitate trade’ between the two countries. This came not long after Zimbabwe was given a number of mineral and mining concessions by the DRC, allowing the plunder of its natural resources, in return for Robert Mugabe’s support in the five year conflict that erupted in the DRC in 1998, a conflict that was fuelled by the DRC’s enormous mineral wealth.

The relationship of plunder that still exists between the two countries is well known, and recently SW Radio Africa revealed that the daughter of Vice President Joice Mujuru, Nyasha del Campo, tried to set up a deal involving illegal gold from the DRC. She and her husband Pedro live in Madrid in Spain where they set up two companies, allegedly with the help and financial support of her mother.