Harare, Zimbabwe – The battle continues between Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF-run government and Kimberley Process officials, although it is decidedly one-sided.  For nearly two years, the Kimberley Process has been “looking into” the conflict over the Marange diamond fields, one of the richest active alluvial fields in the world.  After human rights groups stepped in and demanded that Zimbabwe be, at the very least, kicked out of the organization, a KP team went there to see what was really going on.  They decided to give Zimbabwe six months to comply with all necessary standards.  When that deadline passed with no change, the KP gave them another deadline.  All the while, Robert Mugabe has stood fast in his conviction to use any means necessary to mine the diamonds cheaply and sell them, at the cost of the lives of his own people. 

The European Union made an independent decision not to buy diamonds from Zimbabwe, and some major diamond jewelers followed suit.  Still under pressure from groups like Human Rights Watch, KP officials decided that diamonds from the Marange fields alone were not to be traded on the open market.  Since the diamonds couldn’t go the buyers, Mugabe decided to bring the buyers to the diamonds, arranging a diamond auction that would be any black-market diamond-sellers dream.  Because of massive pressure from human rights groups, again, and the promise that the names of anyone traveling to Zimbabwe around the time of the auction would be noted, the auction was canceled.  So Mugabe had his ZANU-PF militia supervise the building of an airstrip directly on the Marange fields.  He planned to fly the diamonds out straight from the mine, circumventing even his own police at Harare International Airport.   The European Union decided to renew their sanctions for another year.  In the meantime, the Kimberley Process did nothing except stick to their initial decision to give the government until June to rectify the rampant abuses committed by both the ZANU-PF-run army and police. 

Mugabe took his complaints to the media.  He said that he was not surprised by the EU’s decision, saying, “They don’t want anyone, any country in the developing world, to make any meaningful developmental strides…We have resources which they envy, natural resources that belong to us”.  He hoped to persuade the opposing Movement for Democratic Change that it was about land that the Europeans took and the ZANU-PF reclaimed for their country.  He continues to believe that no one will remember that his troops are responsible for the execution, torture, mutilation, and rape of their own people.  For those that do remember, he hopes to use the same techniques to intimidate them into allowing him to run the country as he wishes. 

Perhaps as a preemptive move, Mugabe has said that he might remove Zimbabwe from the KP altogether, telling reporters that, “We are trying to play it their own way, that is, following the KP, but we can do it otherwise”.  He followed that by ominously warning that, “We can sell our diamonds elsewhere”.  And he can.  The borders are porous and smuggling diamonds into South Africa and Mozambique would not be difficult.  Uncertified rough diamonds are not difficult to sell, and, once cut and polished, it is impossible to tell where the diamonds originated. 

On March 1, the KP announced that it appointed Abbey Chikane, a founding member of the group, to monitor the diamond trade in Zimbabwe.  According to Boaz Hirsch, the KP’s chairman, Chikane is “on a fact-finding mission to assess the situation and prepare from monitoring of the joint-working plan”.  The twelve-step plan (JWP) was created by the KP during its November plenary as a way to get Zimbabwe KP-compliant.  He added that, “The KP monitor’s role is to liaise with the government of the Republic of Zimbabwe, as represented by the Ministry of Mines, in order to assess implementation of the JWP”.  The JWP includes an agreement by Zimbabwe to withhold any exports of diamonds from Marange until Chikane deems them ‘KP-compliant’.  What it doesn’t account for is working with a government that has declared not only that it is uninterested in being a part of the KP, but that it will leave of its own accord and find a market for the diamonds on its own.  Mines Minister Obert Mpofu said last weekend that, “The KP does not own the diamond trade markets.  Zimbabwe will pull out of the KP and sell its diamonds to those markets”. 

The inability of the KP to enforce its rules was first criticized by founding member Ian Smillie, the driving force behind “Partnership Africa-Canada”, forcing him to quit.  "I am leaving Partnership Africa-Canada (PAC) because I feel that I can no longer in good faith contribute to a pretense that failure is success, or to the kind of debates we have been reduced to," he stated in a farewell letter to KP members.  Then, in the end of January, Martin Rapaport resigned from the World Diamond Council and called the KP a “sham”.  With the loss of perhaps the most important, respected figure in the diamond business, the KP took another huge hit.  Rapaport summed up his reasons for leaving by writing, “Our industry is providing money and distribution to those who murder, rape and enslave.”

This puts the burden of ensuring the sale of only conflict-free diamonds on individual diamantaires, miners, and jewelers.  Some have already done so, refusing to buy from sources that obtain their diamonds from Zimbabwe, but there are many who still need to change their policies.  Until the demand stops, blood diamonds will continue to flow out of the Chiadzwa fields in Marange, and Robert Mugabe will only grow richer and more powerful.  Legality is not an issue for him; as long as there are people willing to buy diamonds from questionable sources, he will used forced labor and intimidation to provide them. 

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