PAC Report Sheds More Light on Zim’s Shady Diamond Trade

A report titled ‘Zimbabwe, Diamonds and the Wrong Side of History’ released by Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) describes the role diamonds play in the

Zimbabwean economy and how they are used in the country’s “increasingly repressive governance.”

Following a report it published in January, PAC is detailing “growing evidence” of rough diamond smuggling out from the country, the growing involvement of the army in the local diamond industry and negative affect it has on the global diamond trade.

PAC concludes that the Kimberley Process, the international diamond regulatory body created to end conflict diamonds, “is unwilling and unable to deal with the problem.”

The 16 page report opens with an overview of Zimbabwe, its cholera epidemic and government power struggles with the opposition party.

It than goes on to state that “Zimbabwe is no longer able to manage its diamond industry in a way that is consistent with respect for human rights, or in accordance with Kimberley Process minimum standards.”

Throughout the report, PAC criticizes the Kimberley Process for “consistently” failing to say or do anything that makes “the slightest difference with respect to Zimbabwe.”

“When regulators fail to regulate, systems collapse and the people they are designed to protect suffer,” PAC writes.

PAC claims that Zimbabwean diamonds are “no longer ‘clean’. They bear the blood of Zimbabweans, shot down by their own government. They are produced from mines that benefit political and military gangsters, and they are smuggled out of the country by the bucketload.”

PAC is repeatedly calling on the Kimberley Process to widen its scope from technical supervision of the global trade in rough diamonds, to taking into account human rights. Zimbabwe is a key test case for this. The Kimberley Process certification is granted by government entities, usually customs officials. If a government manages its diamond riches violently, as Zimbabwe is accused of, but then exports the mined diamonds according to Kimberley Process regulations, than - judged from a technical perspective - the exports are “Kosher.” However, PAC claims, if diamonds are mined violently, there is nothing Kosher about it.