The Kimberley Process meeting held this week in Windhoek, Namibia is far from buying the drowsy event it was in past years. While NGOs issued combative and challenging statements ahead of their arrival in town, a Zimbabwean minister went to great lengths to deny any mass killings by security forces in the country’s diamond fields.

 

The annual KP summit, where delegates mostly fine tune closing statements on issues that have been agreed upon in advance, has become a battle ground this year with NGOs Partnership Africa Canada and Global Witness saying it’s “time to plug the leaks.”

 

The two groups accused the rough diamonds control system of failing to effectively address issues of non-compliance, smuggling, money laundering and human rights abuses in the world's alluvial diamond fields.

 

The groups highlighted four main issues of immediate concern: Human rights abuse in diamond mining areas in Zimbabwe coupled by smuggling and weak internal controls; unexplained discrepancies in Lebanon’s rough diamond exports that exceed its imports; a surprising 500 percent increase in Guinea’s exports over the past two years; and findings that diamonds are still being mined and smuggled out of Venezuela.

 

Guinea’s current government has acknowledged widespread corruption in the mining industry, according to the NGOs. A KP review team visited Guinea in August 2008 but a year later its report has still not been completed, “suggesting critical problems in the KP monitoring system.”

 

In the case of Lebanon, the two NGOs noted that the problem has been known for months, but the KP has been sluggish in its response.

 

In an apparent response to the NGOs, Zimbabwe’s Deputy Mining Minister Murisi Zwizwai denied there were any killings in the eastern Marange diamond fields last year, claiming the reports were “unsubstantiated.”

 

Zwizwai’s statement stands in stark contrast to documented reports and testimonies that, in a bid to drive illegal diamond diggers out, the military used attack dogs and machine guns mounted on helicopters, resulting in the deaths of about a dozen people.

 

Later reports stated that the military has closed the area and forced local villagers to mine for diamonds. It is believed that at least some of these goods did not make it to official government hands. Instead, the goods were sold illegally and smuggled out of the country.

 

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said that about 5,000 people were arrested during the army operation, with three quarters of them showing signs of having been tortured severely.

 

“Nobody was killed by security forces during an operation at Marange, where about 30,000 people descended onto the alluvial mining field,” Zwizwai contended. “These people comprised of cunning, die-hard illegal diamond diggers.”

 

The civil society groups call for action in the following areas:

Human Rights - suggesting adding the following to the preamble of the main KP document: The Kimberley Process shall promote respect for human rights as described in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and shall require their effective recognition and observance in the diamond industries of participating countries, and among the peoples, institutions and territories under their jurisdiction.

 

Monitoring - Significantly improve monitoring, saying that the forthcoming review of Zimbabwe must be thorough and provide clear direction where problems are identified. Ongoing problems in Venezuela, Guinea and Lebanon must be addressed and solved as a matter of urgency.

 

Cutting and Polishing Centers - Saying that the KP has long ignored a significant loophole in its control procedures, the two NGOs again call to ensure that statistics regarding the purchase, use and sale of rough diamonds in the cutting and polishing centers are incorporated into its internal control mechanism and reconciled in such a way that rough diamonds do not bypass other internal control measures.