Harare - Diamonds have become a major factor in Robert Mugabe's desperate attempt to retain power in Zimbabwe. Diamond smuggling has become rampant and dozens of diamond miners have been murdered by the military, which now controls the country's main diamond fields. The horrors behind Zimbabwe's diamonds are the subThe PAC report describes the role that diamonds are playing in
Zimbabwe's growing misery, and says that the Kimberley Process, the
45-government international diamond regulatory body created to end
conflict diamonds, is unwilling and unable to deal with the problem.
Under Zimbabwe's new "Unity Government", the mining portfolio and the
military remain firmly under the control of Robert Mugabe and his Zanu
PF cronies, all of whom are subject to asset seizure laws and travel
restrictions in the European Union and the United States. PAC is
calling on the United Nations Security Council to step in, as it did
with blood diamonds in Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire,
and to place an embargo on Zimbabwean diamonds until they are under
legitimate and competent governance.
The PAC report says that Kimberley Process debates about how to respond
have been "sluggish, timid and wholly inadequate". "The almost
desperate insistence by some governments that the Kimberley Process has
nothing to do with human rights is disgraceful," said Ian Smillie,
PAC's Research Coordinator. "That is why our report is addressed to the
UN Security Council. In the Kimberley Process there is no appetite for
effective action. The PAC report warns that "Consumer confidence in the
purity of diamonds will only be maintained if the Kimberley Process is
willing to take vigorous action to prevent tainted diamonds from
entering the world's diamond stream. In the case of Zimbabwe, the KP is
currently failing the test." In addition to its appeal to the United
Nations, Partnership Africa Canada asks that the KP suspend Zimbabwe's
membership until its diamonds are properly managed, and until it can be
established that a stockpile of more than 1.3 million carats has not
been sold off illegally or bartered by the government. PAC also repeats
a growing demand that the Kimberley Process develop a clear and
actionable protocol on gross human rights abuse in the management of
diamonds resources.