Zimbabwe To Get Diamond Boost

Opponents slammed the decision by the Kimberley Process (KP) to let the country resume sales of diamonds from Marange, saying it risked making the watchdog’s seal of approval meaningless, and would fund rights abuses by President Robert Mugabe’s party ahead of elections.

“It’s really a travesty, and calls into question the future of the Kimberley Pro-cess and its credentials as a scheme which provides consumers with any kind of guarantee that their diamo-nds are blood-free,” Mike Davis of rights group Global Witness told AFP.

“The prime beneficiaries may well be particularly dubious and in some cases violent figures within the political establishment in Zimbabwe who are looking for ways to pay for the kind of intimidatory tactics which they typically use in the run-up to elections.”

The decision allows two firms, state-owned Marange Resources and state joint venture Mbada Diamonds, to sell gems from the Mara-nge region, one of Africa’s biggest diamond finds.

Human Rights Watch says Mugabe’s army killed more than 200 people in late 2008 in an operation to clear small-scale miners from the area, and Kimberley investigators confirmed abuses that resulted in a ban on the region’s diamonds.

Tuesday’s deal came after negotiations involving Zimbabwe, the EU, South Africa, the US and the World Diamond Council.