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Kimberly Process Chooses Not to Suspend Zimbabwe
By B. Earth | November 9, 2009
Once again demonstrating its inadequacy at ensuring the ethical mining of diamonds, the Kimberley Process (KP) has opted to let Zimbabwe off the hook for grave human rights abuses taking place in the country’s mining fields. Those abuses are not the work of a private mining company but are being instigated by Zimbabwe’s own government. Instead of suspending Zimbabwe from the global initiative to clean up the diamond industry, the KP has proposed a “work plan” for the troubled nation. This amounts to a light slap on the wrist for practices that deserve no accommodation within a diamond certification program that supposedly ensures “conflict free diamonds”.
Since late 2008, Zimbabwe’s armed forces have been deployed in the diamond fields in the Marange district of eastern Zimbabwe. According to Human Rights Watch, police and army officials have been mining for diamonds using forced labor by children and adults. There have been numerous reports of rape, torture, and beatings. In taking control of the mining fields last year, the army killed about 200 people and deposited them in a mass grave. The army remains under the control of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, the party led by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
In July, a KP review mission recommended suspending Zimbabwe from the KP for a period of six months. But last week, the KP announced that Zimbabwe had until June 2010 to show that it was in compliance with a KP “work plan.” The details of that work plan have not yet been finalized, but early indications suggest that the plan will call for increased monitoring and a phased withdrawal of the Zimbabwean military. In essence, the KP has taken the position that it is better to keep Zimbabwe within the KP fold and work with it to address the human rights violations than to remove it from the KP entirely until it can show that things have changed.
Although it is tempting to take this argument seriously, the KP’s position has some basic problems. First, it is hard to take the KP at its word, given the political ties between Bernard Esau, the KP chair, and the ruling Zimbabwean regime. Brilliant Earth hopes whatever “work plan” is adopted will put a halt to the abuses taking place in Zimbabwe. However, we are concerned that the work plan could easily serve as a vehicle for permitting those abuses to continue. Second, if the human rights violations documented by Human Rights Watch are not severe enough to get a country suspended from the KP, then KP membership really has very little meaning. This decision really brings the KP’s credibility to a new low. Third, the KP’s decision will permit diamonds from Zimbabwe to continue to be sold on the international diamond market with the KP stamp of approval. Many consumers will be misled into believing that their diamond purchases are ethically-mined and conflict-free.
As Brilliant Earth has noted before, one of the root problems with the KP is the narrowness of its objectives. The KP’s core mission is to prevent the sale of “conflict diamonds,” narrowly defined as diamonds used to fund conflicts against recognized governments. Countries belonging to the KP must not produce or import conflict diamonds. The KP has been much more tentative in linking its membership to human rights abuses associated with diamond mining. The case of Zimbabwe shows the inadequacy of the KP’s approach. Murder, rape, torture, and forced labor should not be treated as side issues. These kinds of abuses should be at the heart of what the KP opposes.
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