Civil society members of the international diamond trade watchdog, the Kimberley Process (KP), are set to boycott the group’s next plenary session over its failure to end diamond fuelled human rights abuses.

The KP, which was created in 2003 to curb the trade in ‘blood diamonds’, has faced serious criticism over its inability to end diamond related human rights abuses.

 

This has been particularly evident in Zimbabwe’s controversial Chiadzwa diamond fields, where violence and rampant smuggling have continued with no decisive action from the KP.

Zimbabwe was suspended from international trade in 2009 over human rights concerns, but the KP has fallen short of ensuring that these concerns are fully addressed. Instead the group, now led by the DRC’s Mathieu Yamba, has been trying to bring Zimbabwe back into international trade circles, despite the local industry still not meeting international standards.

Yamba has said twice this year that Zimbabwe has the green light to resume trade, despite a lack on consensus from the rest of the KP. These unilateral decisions have been slammed as an attempt to whitewash the issues at Chiadzwa, said to be the richest alluvial deposit of diamonds to be found in recent history.

The KP’s civil society wing, which includes Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) and Global Witness, is now making steps to distance itself from the main group. In June the civil society groups walked out of a meeting on Zimbabwe’s trade future, which ended with no decision. The groups have now indicated that they will boycott the KP’s next plenary in November.

In a note emailed last week to KP Chairman Yamba and other KP members, the NGO coalition said the decision to boycott the meeting was based on several factors.

"We have grave concerns about the ability of the Kimberley Process to respond effectively to situations where diamonds are fuelling armed violence and gross human rights violations,” said the email, signed by the PAC’s Alan Martin. “We remain particularly concerned that this plenary will likely end all meaningful oversight of (Chiadzwa) Marange, despite ongoing and credible concerns about its compliance and cooperation with the KP in meeting minimum standards.”

Martin told SW Radio Africa on Thursday that he hopes their refusal to take part in this “sham” meeting will force the KP membership to revaluate its role.

"The entire diamond supply chain is infected by stones from Chiadzwa. But the KP has displayed an inability to effectively deal with this,” Martin said.

He added: “We don’t want to be part of a plenary where these issues are thrown aside as part of some expedient attempt to ignore the issues and make face-saving attempts to get Zimbabwe back onto the market.”

The decision comes as another death has been reported at the controversial diamond fields. According to NewsDay 39 year old Tsorosai Kusena died last week after being assaulted by police. Kusena, of Betera village in the diamond-rich Chiadzwa area, died last Friday allegedly in police custody. His two brothers are reportedly still in hospital after they were also assaulted.