Kimberley Process meeting in Namibia - Zimbabwe's blood diamonds

This week all of the members of the Kimberley Process is meeting in Swakopmund, Namibia November 2 - 5 to mainly discuss what to do about Zimbabwe's diamonds.

The Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe was found in 2006 and is said to be the biggest diamond in the whole of Africa. It is technically own foreignly but Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party has sent military and has taken control of the Marange fields. According to the Zimbabwean government the military is there for the people's protection. But according to a alarming report by the Human Rights Watch the people say differently.

There has been said that up to 200 people have died in the hostile takeover of the fields and abuse is rampant. Many claiming that the military sensors what the people find and take what they want. Here is a list from the Human Rights Watch website

• The Zimbabwean army uses syndicates of local miners to extract diamonds, often using forced labor, including children.
• On September 17, a soldier shot and killed a 19-year-old member of one syndicate. The soldier stated, in the presence of witnesses, that he had shot the man for hiding a raw diamond instead of handing it over to the soldier.
• Local miners provided information that soldiers have begun to recruit people from outside Marange to join army-run diamond mining syndicates.
• Smuggling of Marange diamonds has intensified. Scores of buyers and middlemen openly trade in Marange diamonds in the small Mozambique town of Vila de Manica, 20 miles from Mutare.

Namibia has however stood by Mugabe and has opposed suspending Zimbabwe from the Kimberley Process group and says a reprimand would be enough. Stating that the diamonds are not used to funding a war. For that is the whole point of the Kimberley Process is there to stop the trade of diamonds to fund the wars in Africa. But Namibia is being pressurized in giving in because there might not be a 'war' but human rights are being violated and it is funding a corrupt government.

"You have a situation in which the exploitation of diamonds is accompanied by and very directly linked to human rights abuses which the Kimberley Process was designed to prevent," campaigner Mike Davies told AFP.

If they still insist that Zimbabwe can trade there would be costly consequences for their decision to back Mugabe. It would undermine the Kimberly Process's effectiveness over  the whole of Africa's diamond 'trade'.

Here is a whole series of investigations into the diamond 'trade' of Zimbabwe ZIMBABWE - blood diamonds 1/3

ZIMBABWE - blood diamonds 2/3

ZIMBABWE - blood diamonds 3/3

Zimbabwe Army Massacre Civilians in Diamond Fields