New diamond mining projects in Zimbabwe - Mining of blood diamond?

Conflict diamonds are still common in Zimbabwe. The country refuses to join the Kimberly Process and hence every reputable diamond mining company refuses to establish projects within the country. What you read about is probably the new project launched by "New Reclamation", a private South African diamond mining company, which doesn't seem to be in accord with the diamond industry. This new project is managed with the corporation of the Zimbabwe government and is suppose to be held in east Zimbabwe. As you can expect, there's a lot of criticism against this project, claiming it promotes conflict diamonds and the violation of human rights. New Reclamation is supposed to start mining by no time. Although Zimbabwe isn't a member of the Kimberly Process, New Reclamation claims that it will thoroughly inspect the work in the mining site and would avoid any human rights' violations. Still, even the company's chairman until recently, David Kassel, didn't like the idea of collaborating with the Zimbabwe government and resigned from his position.

More specifically, mining will take place in the Marange area in east Zimbabwe, which was given to the government by the British diamond mining company Africa Consolidated Resources in 2006. In the past many illegal diamond miners came to this area, which caused the government to get involved, resulting in riots which led to the death of hundreds of people.

Whether we can conclude that any diamond mined in Zimbabwe is indeed a blood diamond or not is a good question that I can't really answer. Marking Zimbabwe as a "blood diamond" country while all the Kimberly Process members are 100% legit is a rather innocent attitude, but on the other hand there's no doubt that severe violations do take place in Zimbabwe. Let's hope that the new project will end with no casualties...

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