Nangula Shejavali
29 June 2009
THE Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) today begins a review mission to Zimbabwe amidst calls from international organisations to ensure that trade in diamonds is not being done at the expense of human rights.
But while the KP's communiqué on its 6th Intersessional Meeting held in Windhoek last week notes that Zimbabwe has welcomed the review mission "with a view to establishing the true facts with respect to Zimbabwe's diamond sector", the country's Deputy Minister for Mines and Mining Development last week told participants at the meeting that "Zimbabwean diamonds are not blood diamonds".
In a speech that seemed to attempt to clear the negative profile that Zimbabwe's Marange diamond deposits have received since they were discovered in 2006, with reports of mass violence, uncalled-for killings and mass graves at the hands of the Mugabe government's security forces, Zwizwai told the meeting that "there was no one killed by the security forces" in the Marange alluvial diamond fields.
According to Zwizwai, despite measures by the government to heighten security within the Marange diamond field in late 2006 by directing the Zimbabwe Republic Police to provide personnel to guard the area, "illegal diamond miners and dealers continued to besiege the area and in October 2008 the illegal miners re-invaded the Marange diamond field in increased numbers".
Zwizwai said this compelled the government to "direct security forces to conduct a special operation to flush out the illegal diamond miners to bring order and sanity in the area".
"Contrary to allegations by various sections in the local and international media, there was no one killed by the security forces during the operation," Zwizwai said, stating that the operation was "successful" and that deaths and arrests reported were a result of skirmishes among the illegal miners themselves.
Various reports from Zimbabwean human rights organisations, however, argue that hundreds of people were killed, beaten up, harassed and tortured by the security forces, and that such forces are in fact now being used to mine the area, to ensure that they are paid, and thereby prop up the current government under the presidency of Mugabe.
"The government has in a way crushed illegal panning in the Marange diamond fields, so that they could manipulate the resources," says Farai Maguwu, Director of the Centre for Research and Development in Mutare, Zimbabwe.
Maguwu, who along with other human rights activists held a press conference at the National Society for Human Rights on Friday, says that at least 300 people were murdered in the Marange fields between November 2008 and April this year.
But in welcoming the review mission, Zwizwai maintained: "There are unsubstantiated reports of a number of deaths and cases of human rights abuse which we are keen to investigate is anybody comes forward with any leading information."
The Deputy Minister told the meeting that "the government of Zimbabwe has never at any one time used the Marange diamond, or any diamond for that matter, to fund the alleged human rights abuse. Zimbabwean diamonds are not blood diamonds. According to the Kimberley Process conflict diamonds are diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments. There is no armed conflict in Zimbabwe."
But the human rights activists say that if this is the narrow definition by with the KP defines conflict diamonds, this definition needs to be changed.
"The Marange diamonds are being used to fuel conflict. Testimonies show that that there is a clear conflict between ordinary citizens and security forces, and what is lamentable is that a national resource is being used to serve the interests of a few. We also don't know where the diamonds are going and what it is being used for, but we see the issues, and the people's rights being violated. We see the army being used to suppress the people, and in this way, to prop up a repressive government," says human rights lawyer Trust Maanda.
The review mission, which starts today, will not focus so much on the human rights abuses that the government is accused of perpetrating, but on whether the KP's processes are being properly implemented in Zimbabwe, leaving several NGOs wondering whether the Kimberley Process is fully exercising its mandate.
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