The World Federation of Diamond Bourses(WFDB) publicly approved the Kimberley Process (KP) decision to allow Zimbabwe to recommence exporting a limited number of rough diamonds from the controversial Marange mines. Avi Paz, the president of the WFDO, called the decision “a convincing victory for the KP.”
About six months ago, the KP began investigating diamond mining operations in Zimbabwe when numerous incidents of human abuse and diamond smuggling in the Marange mining fields came to light. After sending an investigative team to the Marange mining fields in question, the KP temporarily suspended Zimbabwe from world diamond trade.
Numerous human rights groups have since reported countless cases of human rights abuses including child labor, physical violence, unsanitary work conditions and government sanctioned diamond smuggling in the Marange mining fields located in east Zimbabwe.
Months of meetings and deliberations about how to react to these reports caused rifts to form within the international diamond trading community. Many well known figures in the diamond trading world, including Martin Rapaport, the founder of the Rapaport Diamond Report, spoke out against the KP arguing that the organization was not doing enough to uphold the ethics of international diamond trade and is, in fact, enabling the trade of blood diamonds.
Last week in St. Petersburg, the KP met with representatives from Zimbabwe and the World Diamond Council and decided to rescind Zimbabwe’s suspension. The African state will be allowed, under international supervision, to resume their exports of rough diamonds from the Marange mines. A KP auditing mission will visit the country in September to review their methods before Zimbabwe is approved to return to full diamond mining and diamond production operations.
The WFDB President has praised this decision, saying that “…for nine months, the KP blocked Marange exports, until such time that the country could demonstrate that it was in compliance with KP demands. The KP showed that it has real muscle and that it is able to achieve results.” Mr. Paz added that "there is no other industry in the world that has taken regulatory measures upon itself similar to that of the KP."
