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Botswana: D-Day Looms for Kimberley Process

Thato Moseki

30 October 2009

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A four-member team of senior Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources officials will join other high profile players in the international diamond industry for a meeting in Namibia next month that analysts say will either make or break the Kimberley Process as an organisation.

Formed in 2000 as a concept by several Southern African diamond producing states, including Botswana, the Kimberley Process is an initiative designed to stem the flow of rough diamonds used by rebel movements to finance wars against legitimate governments. The initiative has grown over the years to include joint governments, industry and civil society, with 49 members, representing 75 countries, and the European Community and its Member States counting as an individual participant.

The Kimberley Process (KP) operates by requiring member states to adhere to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), which ensures the detailed identity of each and every diamond traded within the organisation whose members represent 99.8 percent of global rough diamond production.

However, over the years, while the KP has vaunted its successes, evidence produced particularly by civic society has emerged indicating that conflict diamonds are on the rise while even within the KP, abuse of the certification system has enabled trade in these diamonds to continue.

Civic societies have long accused the KP of suffering from structural weaknesses that make it unable to confront rogue members, stem trade in conflict diamonds or even respond to the changing nature of the illegal diamond trade. These civil society organisations have said the KP is losing its relevance as an industry watchdog and is degenerating into a talk-shop and back-patting forum for diamond industry stakeholders.

All members of the Kimberley Process are due in Namibia in November for the organisation's Seventh Annual Plenary Meeting. The meeting will include the Chairman's state of the industry address, discussions on the diamond sector, decisions on rogue members and strategies for the KP's future and relevance. The Deputy Permanent Secretary (Minerals), the Director of Minerals Affairs and two officers from the Minerals Section will represent Botswana at the crunch meeting.

Coming exactly a decade after the first discussions about a diamond certification system began in southern Africa, the Namibian Plenary is expected to focus on the successes and failures of the KP and the contentious issue of its continued relevance.

Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), a Canada-based civil society organisation and KP member, has been among the most vocal critics of the KP's structure and efforts to combat trade in conflict diamonds. Ahead of the Namibian meeting, the PAC has sounded its battle cry, detailing seven issues that could make or break the KP at and after the meeting in Namibia.

Although the PAC is among the KP's foremost critics, it also believes the organisation should be panel beaten rather than dismantled. According to the civic organisation, while the KP has been able to choke diamond supplies to rebel movements in Angola and Sierra Leone, simultaneously raising the growth of legitimate diamond exports and tax revenues, its structure has been its biggest weakness.

PAC argues that the KP's biggest weakness is its inability to "plug holes, tighten loose bolts and fix the parts that are not working".

"A fundamental part of any regulatory system is the need to keep one step ahead of those who would evade it, as they figure out new ways around rules and regulations. But in the Kimberley Process, there has, from the beginning, been a prohibition against 'opening the document,'" PAC said in a special edition newsletter issued ahead of and for the Namibian Plenary.

"This means that while some things can be changed, anything one or two participants don't like can be blocked by a single veto. The time has come to re-examine this approach and to consider whether the Kimberley Process is meeting any of its most important objectives. If governments will not agree to fundamental reforms in the way the KP is managed, it may not be worth continuing."

The Canadian NGO said "make or break" issues within the KP include the organisation's consensus and decision-making processes. The PAC said presently the KP required unanimity in decision-making, as opposed to consensus, meaning that one or two participants, some of them with vested political or commercial interests, could hold up forward movements. The NGO is lobbying the Namibian Plenary to adopt a voting system and an end to "what is essentially a vetoing arrangement."

Another thorn in the PAC's flesh is the KP's monitoring structures. The organisation said the current peer review mechanism used by the KP was dysfunctional as reviews are slow and incompetent, often affected by vested interests of team members. "On other occasions when there is an urgent need for some kind of review, it can take months to get a team together.

"Because participation in review teams is 'voluntary' and costs are borne by the participant, some countries participate in more reviews than others and some never participate at all. The KP needs an independent arms-length monitoring and research arrangement that sets a high standard of evaluation, avoids conflicts of commercial and political interest and ensures timely follow up," said the PAC, adding that this would require a funding mechanism to ensure that money is not a limiting factor.

Of particular concern to civic organisations and some KP members is the organisation's disciplinary measures against rogue members. Evidence has long emerged of regular and continuing KPCS violations by and in countries such as Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cote d'Ivoire, Lebanon and Angola, but critics accuse the KP of inaction in all these and other cases.

PAC said the KP has exhibited "extreme reluctance" to sanction any kind of suspension against countries such as Zimbabwe and Venezuela, despite agreeing last year to the possibility of suspension for members guilty of "serious non-compliance".

"In 2009, Zimbabwean industrial diamonds showed up as far afield as Guyana and Sierra Leone, with neither country reporting this to the KP, while in the DRC, Angola, Sierra Leone, Guinea and others, internal controls are so weak that these governments cannot say with any assurance where as much as 50 percent of their diamond (imports) come from," the PAC argues.

The Canadian NGO recommends that in the absence of any other remedial action, a six-month suspension would serve as a "powerful wake-up call, but only if the possibility is real". PAC also identified issues of transparency and operational disorganisation and mismanagement as threats to the organisation's continued existence.

The Namibian Plenary will mark the 27th time governments, industry and civil society organisations have met for the KP since the first meeting held in Kimberley, South Africa in May 2000.

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