Diamond rush africa desperation5/11/2023 This became a new regulatory scheme for a largely secretive and globally dispersed industry, and it was laid down, remarkably, in less than three years.Īlthough the trade in conflict diamonds has almost entirely stopped, the industry still finds itself linked to all manner of controversies – everything from strengthened arms-smuggling and money-laundering networks, to drug shipments and terrorist financing.īut perhaps none of these controversies has been more damaging than the effort to certify diamonds exported from Zimbabwe’s recently discovered Marange mine. In 2008 a diamond rush at the mine resulted in a massacre of as many as 200 diamond diggers, allegedly by the Zimbabwean armed forces.Ĭivil society groups also documented massive volumes of Zimbabwean diamonds smuggled out through neighbouring Mozambique. This is contrary to the procedure’s most basic principle: that no rough diamonds may leave or enter a participating country without a government certificate. The findings – first presented in October 2008 by Global Witness – have emphasised the urgent need for reform of the Kimberley Process. They have played out since then amid a lurching monitoring scheme that has seen Kimberley participants bickering over whether to suspend or expel Zimbabwe.Īlready two founding fathers of the Kimberley Process – civil society member Ian Smillie and industry member Martin Rapaport – have walked away from the scheme in disgust. With more people and organisations threatening to follow, the very legitimacy and continued functioning of the Kimberley Process is at stake. Seven years after its launch, the Kimberley Process still does not have a secretariat, a professional staff, headquarters or any sort of independent funding. DIAMOND RUSH SOUTH AFRICA DESPERATION PROFESSIONAL Its enforcement largely rests on the good faith of government participants to report suspicious trades. When members fail to comply, it lacks the tools to take action, Smillie says. He likens widespread murders and cross-border diamond smuggling in Zimbabwe, Angola and Venezuela to the same kind of lawlessness now being exposed at the ongoing trial – featuring Naomi Campbell et al – of former Liberian president Charles Taylor in The Hague. DIAMOND RUSH SOUTH AFRICA DESPERATION TRIAL “The fact that you have governments killing people, raping people, arresting people and forcing them to march hundreds of miles across bad roads … this is not the kind of thing NGOs want to be a part of or be seen in any way to support,” he says. Smillie traces the process’s fundamental design flaw to consensus decision-making, which lends legitimacy but also means any country can block or use procedure to delay action. Putting human rights explicitly on the agenda, then, becomes a near-impossible task, though civil society organisations have been buoyed in this rearguard action by companies that are decidedly more aligned with NGOs than they are with governments.ĭespite these failings, the regulatory effort can claim considerable success on a number of fronts.Īs a member government, Zimbabwe could block its own suspension. Since the late 1990s, the incidence of conflict diamonds in the pipeline fell from a high of 4% to less than 0.2%, according to the World Diamond Council, the body set up in 2000 to represent the industry in the then fledgling negotiations. Today, 75 countries have joined the Kimberley Process and largely adhere to its extensive requirements. DIAMOND RUSH SOUTH AFRICA DESPERATION SERIES.DIAMOND RUSH SOUTH AFRICA DESPERATION PROFESSIONAL.DIAMOND RUSH SOUTH AFRICA DESPERATION TRIAL.
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