Campaign groups Global Witness and Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) have categorically rejected allegations that they offered to support Zimbabwe's bid to resume diamond exports in exchange for a 1% cut of the profits. The allegation surfaced towards the end of the Kimberley Process intersessional meeting in Tel Aviv, where Zimbabwe's compliance with the scheme's minimum requirements was hotly debated.

"We reject outright this malicious and unsubstantiated allegation. At no point did any of the non-governmental organizations at the meeting make any kind of offer of conditional support for exports. The violence that continues to plague Zimbabwe's Marange diamond fields - and the government's blatant disregard for KP rules - indisputably signify that no exports should take place now," said Annie Dunnebacke, campaigner at Global Witness.

Zimbabwean newspaper The Sunday Mail, quoted the Minister of Mines, Obert Mpofu, who led Zimbabwe's delegation at the meeting, as saying that Global Witness and PAC approached him with the "money-for-support" proposal, which he rejected as "extortion". He said that the groups "wanted 1 percent of our sales from Chiadzwa for their operations" and that in return they "would lobby for the endorsement of our diamonds".

"This is a cynical and amoral attempt by Minister Mpofu to distract from the organized smuggling and human rights abuses being carried out by state institutions, in direct contravention of KP minimum requirements, and from his efforts and those of his Zanu-PF cronies to capture the country's diamond wealth for their own personal benefit," said Alan Martin from Partnership Africa Canada. "The Kimberley Process managed to salvage some of its credibility last week by refusing to endorse a resumption of exports from Marange. Zimbabwe seems intent upon damaging the scheme further with this latest slur."

The campaigners said that the source of the rumor was likely to be a late-night brainstorming session at which the idea was floated of using 1% of any future diamond sales to create a protection fund for Zimbabwean civil society. There was never any suggestion that this money would be as a reward for allowing exports to resume before the situation on the ground had improved.

"The idea was never formally put on the negotiation table by civil society groups, or anyone else, and at no point in the informal discussions was it posited as a condition for the resumption of diamond exports," said Martin from PAC. "During his time in Tel Aviv Minister Mpofu repeatedly showed a troubling disregard for the truth. The latest example appears to be his suggestion that civil society directly proposed this unethical exchange to him.”