Zimbabwe at Kimberley Process

The Kimberley Process inter-sessional meeting held in Israel this year, and presided over by Israel as Chair, has reach ends with no resolution.

The Kimberley process is a body of civil society, governmental and diamond industry groups set up in 2003 to stop the sale of conflict or “blood” diamonds.

One of the key issues at the meeting is the controversial situation in Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields. In 2009 alleged human rights abuses were confirmed by Kimberley Process officials, suspending accreditation of Marange’s production. 

The situation in Zimbabwe is said by many human rights NGOs to have not improved, despite the recent report of a Kimberley Process monitor stating that Zimbabwe has met the minimum conditions set by the regulator.

[Seth Klaye, Diamond Trader, Ghana]:
“I think that we need to be careful how such a situation is handled so that it doesn’t really go out of hand. I believe that since the swakopmund plenary Zimbabwe has demonstrated that they are willing to learn and move quickly out of their current condition.”

The meeting could not reach a consensus on the issue.

[Annie Dunnebacke, Global Witness]:
"At the very least we have a number of conditions that we want to see met before we would be happy with export from Marange. And those conditions relate to human rights, an end to the human rights abuses in the diamond fields, an end to the militarization of diamond mining and syndicates formed by soldiers and a general clean up on the situation so that Zimbabwe is in compliance with the minimum standards of this process.”

The Kimberley Process Chair declared an impasse and called for another meeting to find a consensus-based resolution.

Israel will host the plenary meeting in Jerusalem in November this year.