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.
SWRadio Africa
Post published in: Economy