KP must stand up to bully-boy Mpofu

But to any other Zimbabwean or the poorly paid teacher, nurse and other public servants failure by the KP to bless further looting of the Marange diamonds by a powerful and greedy elite is a perfect early Christmas present.

It is common knowledge that very little of the cash raised from the two sales of Marange diamonds held under KP supervision in August and September ever found its way into the public coffers.

One doesnt need to be a clairvoyant to know that the little was (and is) certain to dwindle to nothing especially after Mpofu and company ruled that all future auctions would be held in secrecy, conveniently citing security concerns.

The point is: it was wrong for the KP to authorise those two auctions in the first place in the absence of a mechanism to ensure that proceeds from diamond sales would go to funding provision of healthcare, education, food and other social requirements.

Likewise, it was gross dereliction of duty by the diamond industry regulator to have permitted exports in the absence of clear evidence that state-sponsored brutality at Marange had stopped or that the widespread smuggling of diamonds into neighbouring countries was curbed.

By authorising the August and September sales, all the KP did was to virtually aid through its certificates confirming the diamonds as clean the human rights abuses, forced labour and smuggling that continue at Marange even to this day.

It was a disservice to the villagers forced to work in the Marange mines on behalf of the soldiers and the many women raped by the armed men. It was a disservice to long-suffering Zimbabweans who had hoped discovery of diamonds at Marange would open up a new avenue of revenue to fund economic recovery.

It was a betrayal of the high ideals for which the KP system was, in the first place, set up to promote and uphold.

It was a terrible mistake but one that the KP and its chairman Boaz Hirsch can remedy by this time round refusing to bow to Mpofus bully-boy tactics and threats to distort the diamond industry by dumping millions of stockpiled Marange carats on the market without following KP processes.

The only way to end rights abuses and smuggling at Marange, indeed the only way to ensure Zimbabweans benefit from the gems is when operations at the diamond fields meet all conditions set by the KP.

Full compliance is what Hisrch and his KP should demand. Any other arrangement is unacceptable.