By Violet Gonda
16 June 2010
A key meeting on Monday to debate the future certification of Zimbabwean diamonds came to no conclusion. The Kimberley Process Working Group on Monitoring (WGM) held a teleconference meeting to examine the recommendations made by Abbey Chikane, the KP certification scheme monitor on Zimbabwe. In his interim report, shortly after his second visit to Zimbabwe, Chikane said Zimbabwe had met the international diamonds watchdog’s minimum requirements and should be allowed to resume diamond exports from the controversial Chiadzwa diamond fields.
But Bernard Taylor, Executive Director of Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), an organisation in the WGM, told SW Radio Africa on Wednesday that no major decision was taken with respect to certification for Zimbabwe’s diamonds and a follow up meeting will be held in Tel Aviv next week. Israel is the current chair of the Kimberley Process.
Taylor said there are diverging positions in the WGM. There are those who want Zimbabwe suspended from the Kimberley Process, as had been recommended by a KP report last year, and that there were others who were in support of the Zimbabwe governments position.
“That hasn’t changed. There are mixed opinions and with the KP’s decision making process that leads to prolonged discussions,” said the PAC director.
PAC, which is also a member of the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition, says the civic groups believe that what is happening with the management of the diamond sector in Zimbabwe is totally unacceptable. “We maintain our position that the KP monitor has done a very poor job of monitoring what has been happening and should not continue in his position and that the monitoring process should be stopped. We further recommend that Zimbabwe be suspended from the Kimberley Process.”
However, ZANU PF Mines Minister Obert Mpofu reacted very strongly to this position, saying Zimbabwe will present its case at next week’s KP meeting in Israel, showing how it has been unfairly treated.
Minister Mpofu is quoted in the Herald newspaper saying: “We are a principled country. These people (PAC), have employed some locals to demonise their country. They are working against the people of Zimbabwe.”
“We are going to deal with those peddling falsehoods to international organisations legally.”
Farai Maguwu is one of the Zimbabwean rights activist currently facing accusations of ‘communicating falsehoods’ about the ongoing crisis at the Chiadzwa diamond fields. He has been in custody since June 3rd and his defence team has expressed concern that the State is dragging its feet so that it can continue to keep him incarcerated.
Speaking about his research organisation, before he was arrested, Maguwu said: “The Centre for Research and Development is a member of the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition, and this month we were due to travel to Israel to present our findings of the goings-on in Chiadzwa, especially matters of human rights abuses, panning and smuggling. This setting up and all these nefarious allegations being levelled against me are simply meant to start a long legal battle that will keep me in the country and that will also paralyse the operations of our organisation.”
Meanwhile the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights issued an alert on Wednesday saying the life of Maguwu is in danger, after police officers who abducted him from remand prison were alleged to have tampered with his medication.
Lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa told High Court Justice Chinembiri Bhunu that police officers who abducted Maguwu from remand prison over the weekend had tampered with the medication he was taking for a sore throat, and chest infection.
Justice Bhunu then ordered the human rights defender to be examined by a medical doctor of his own choice and postponed his bail hearing to Thursday.
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