PAC Calls for Venezuela’s Expulsion from KPCS

Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), an NGO and active Kimberley Process (KP) member is calling for the expulsion of Venezuela from the Process.  The demand has been made following PAC's claim that 90 percent of the country’s 150,000 carats annual diamond production is smuggled out of Venezuela.

In its latest report, PAC says Venezuela has not officially exported any rough diamonds since January 2005, adding that although it is a member of the KPCS, “it has essentially dropped off the KPCS radar.”

PAC points at a combination of efforts and events that have led to the current situation in which recent efforts to halt illicit mining in country have led to deadly violence, says PAC.  A combination of high taxes, ineffective currency controls, and bureaucratic ineptitude has driven Venezuela’s diamond dealers underground.  Lax controls mean that the country's entire annual diamond production is smuggled out through Brazil, Guyana, Hong Kong, the United States, and Belgium.

PAC reports that over the past ten years, Venezuela’s declared diamond production has dropped from 300,000 carats a year, to fewer than 30,000 carats.  Meanwhile, diamond production in neighboring Guyana has followed exactly the opposite track: from approximately 50,000 carats to almost 400,000 carats.  These changes have arisen despite the fact that diamond mining in both countries has remained relatively constant.  “The numbers in themselves suggest large scale smuggling, but there is no need to rely solely on statistical inference.”

PAC claims it has found direct evidence that Venezuelan diamonds are being smuggled into Guyana: “Individual miners and cooperative officers openly admit they hide a majority of their diamond production from the government,” PAC reports.  Venezuelan mine inspection officers estimate that only 10 percent, or even less, of Venezuela’s diamond production is declared and routed into legal export channels.

The NGO goes on to testify that diamond dealers said that they funnel tens and even hundreds of thousands of carats a year from Venezuela, though Boa Vista in Brazil, to Georgetown in Guyana.

PAC is calling for Venezuela's expulsion from the KP to protect the scheme’s integrity.  It also suggests that the KP assists in dismantling the Venezuela - Boa Vista - Georgetown route by creating and chairing a tripartite commission of enquiry and adjudication to coordinate a process of dialogue on diamond production and control procedures in Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana.