The scheme no longer addresses some of the pertinent issues facing the African continent. Farai Maguwu, Executive Director of the Centre for Natural Resource Governance, said things had changed since the Kimberly Process was initiated.
The scheme was originally designed to deal specifically with rebel movements across Africa who were using revenues derived from diamond trading to purchase arms of war and with gross human rights violations perpetrated in such conflicts.
He acknowledged that the scheme had managed to address this situation successfully.
“The problem we have is that legitimate governments are now the main perpetrators of diamond related human rights abuses. We are deeply concerned that the current weak definition of ‘conflict diamonds’ makes it easy for purchasing countries to harvest diamonds from Africa while the African people sink deeper into poverty,” Maguwu said.
Diamond revenue was a key issue, he added. “The Kimberly Process can only certify whether diamonds are conflict diamonds or not, but they don’t mind where the revenues are going. They have lowered their standards to such an extent that all diamonds coming out of Africa are now considered to be conflict free,” he said.
Melanie Chiponda, Chiadzwa Community Development Trust coordinator, said diamond mining should take into consideration the needs of the local community.
“As the community of Chiadzwa we were hoping that the discovery of diamonds in our area would translate into jobs for Marange, wealth and development but we have been disappointed to note that what we expected and what has transpired are totally different things,” Chiponda said.
She said the local community had suffered innumerable human rights abuses at the hands of both the state and mining companies.
“People do not have freedom of movement the whole area has been militarised. We have been stripped of our rights and there are government officials now purporting to speak on our behalf because it’s election season but where were they all along,” Chiponda said.
She said people who have been relocated have not been given guarantees of land for cultivation. “We are not against relocations but we are against loss of livelihoods.”
Nixon Nyikadzino, the Programmes Manager for Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, said civil society organisations were not against Zimbabwe trading in diamonds but “we are for the interests of the people of Zimbabwe”. “The government cannot monitor itself. It needs an independent arm for the sake of transparency,” he said.
Nyikadzino attacked the involvement of the military in diamond mining in Zimbabwe where at least one of the firms in Marange is said to be a joint venture between a Chinese company and defence forces. “When we have the military directly involved in diamond mining we risk creating warlords in Zimbabwe. We don’t know who exactly receives the revenue and how it is used,” he said.
The civil society organisations called for the definition of conflict diamonds to be changed to “rough diamonds used to undermine human rights, democracy and sustainable development”.
Post published in: News