Rapaport bans Zimbabwe diamonds

The Rapaport Group and the RapNet Diamond Trading Network announced today in its Rapaport Tradewire® publication that it is “implementing an immediate trading ban on all diamonds from Zimbabwe due to severe human rights violations in Marange.

RapNet members should immediately remove all RapNet listings of diamonds originating from Zimbabwe. Firms and individuals that continue to trade in diamonds from Zimbabwe will be denied access to all Rapaport services.” This is significant because Rap generates the indexes from which diamond prices are derived.

For those of you not familiar with the term “blood diamonds” or “conflict diamonds,” it basically means diamonds mined in war zones that are then sold to finance bloody and often sadistic insurgencies, invasions and tyrannies.

The most widely known is the Sierra Leone conflict where the Republican United Front launched an insurgency wherein they conscripted and enslaved locals to mine diamonds illegally and any resistance was met with brutality, often the amputation of one or both arms at the elbow.

Despite the fact that this had been going on since 1991, it was not addressed until 1999 and studies estimate that over $125 million worth of rough diamonds were bought by the European diamond industry alone during that time.

In May 2000, the diamond producing countries of Africa met in Kimberly, South Africa to establish a process whereby the origin of African diamonds could be tracked and diamond retailers, as well as the general public, could be assured that their diamond purchases had not contributed to the financing of violence.

A resolution adopted on July 19, 2000 in Antwerp mandated an international certification system on the export and import of diamonds, for countries to impose criminal charges on anyone trafficking in blood diamonds, and for these entities to be banned from the diamond bourses (the exchange where rough diamonds are bought and sold).

In addition, the World Diamond Council was created in 2001 and set out to draft a process whereby diamond rough could be certified. On March 13, 2002, the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPC) was created. The Kimberly Process brings together governments, the diamond industry and concerned non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to police the conflict diamond trade.

It encompasses 49 members representing 75 countries and covers approximately 99.8% of the diamond rough produced globally.

Upon the KPC’s creation, consumers around the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. Now they could be certain that their diamonds had not funded any form of violence. While this writer has her own opinions about the effectiveness of the Kimberly Process, until recently it appeared to be doing its job.

However, over the last several years, it has become known that there are illegal mining and serious human rights abuses taking place in Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields with no punitive actions implemented by the KPC.

In July of this year, an 11-person KPC review team was sent to Zimbabwe. The resulting report cited horrific violence against civilians and recommended it be at least temporarily barred from the KPC until compliance was achieved.

To date, Zimbabwe is still a member of the KPC. The Kimberly Process defends this action, stating it will not vote on the matter but rather censure Zimbabwe only through a consensus of its members. Since no consensus on Zimbabwe’s status was achieved at the recent annual plenary session, the KPC failed to suspend Zimbabwe.

Despite this complete failure on the part of the KPC in the face of evidence of human rights abuses, many retailers and groups, such as Rapaport, are taking it upon themselves to do what the Kimberly Process will not – refuse to sell any diamonds coming out of the Marange fields.

Some retailers have turned exclusively to Australian and Canadian diamond sources in order to ensure that no conflict diamonds are introduced into their supply lines.

Though it is this writer’s hope that one day the Kimberly Process will actually do what it was created to do rather than create the illusion of validity, until then it will be up to individual retailers to do the right, ethical and moral thing. Examiner.com