UN watchdog ventures past ‘blood diamonds’
9 Jun 2012 9:53 AM GMT
A UN-sponsored watchdog which works to halt the sale of ‘blood diamonds’ by rebel groups is aiming to broaden its scope and ban gems linked to other forms of violence, officials have said.
Currently, the 50-member Kimberley Process (KP) seeks to staunch the flow of rough diamonds used by rebel movements to fund wars against legitimate governments, by certifying the gems have been legally mined and sold.
Billions of dollars from diamond sales helped finance brutal civil wars in many parts of Africa, particularly in the 1990s, allowing rebel movements to stockpile weapons and perpetrate drawn-out conflicts.
Now the grouping, set up in 2003 to tackle the sales of such tainted gems, is seeking to broaden its definition of what constitutes a ‘conflict diamond’ to encompass other forms of violence.
After a four-day meeting in Washington of the Kimberley Process, which also brings together the diamond industry and NGOs, chairwoman Gillian Milovanovic said on Thursday the United States was proposing a new definition of a conflict diamond.
If agreed, the organisation's certification scheme would be modified to cover ‘rough diamonds used to finance, or otherwise directly related to, armed conflict or other situations of violence.’
The issue came to a head in December, when one of KP's founders, the activist group Global Witness, quit, saying it was not preventing the torture and abuse of miners in Ivory Coast, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
At issue was also the continued and controversial sale of diamonds from the Marange mines in Zimbabwe, where human rights groups maintain some 200 miners were killed in a 2008 army operation to clear small-scale miners from the area. ‘The KP can no longer shut its eyes to the way in which the world and the diamond-related violence has changed over the last decade,’ said Bernard Taylor, from the non-government organization Partnership Africa-Canada.
‘If the KP is to remain the first word on conflict diamonds it has to accept a definition that addresses modern realities,’ he said. Milovanovic told the press conference the new language ‘would expand the definition of conflict beyond something which involves rebel groups seeking to overthrow a legitimate government.’
Currently, the 50-member Kimberley Process (KP) seeks to staunch the flow of rough diamonds used by rebel movements to fund wars against legitimate governments, by certifying the gems have been legally mined and sold.
Billions of dollars from diamond sales helped finance brutal civil wars in many parts of Africa, particularly in the 1990s, allowing rebel movements to stockpile weapons and perpetrate drawn-out conflicts.
Now the grouping, set up in 2003 to tackle the sales of such tainted gems, is seeking to broaden its definition of what constitutes a ‘conflict diamond’ to encompass other forms of violence.
After a four-day meeting in Washington of the Kimberley Process, which also brings together the diamond industry and NGOs, chairwoman Gillian Milovanovic said on Thursday the United States was proposing a new definition of a conflict diamond.
If agreed, the organisation's certification scheme would be modified to cover ‘rough diamonds used to finance, or otherwise directly related to, armed conflict or other situations of violence.’
The issue came to a head in December, when one of KP's founders, the activist group Global Witness, quit, saying it was not preventing the torture and abuse of miners in Ivory Coast, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
At issue was also the continued and controversial sale of diamonds from the Marange mines in Zimbabwe, where human rights groups maintain some 200 miners were killed in a 2008 army operation to clear small-scale miners from the area. ‘The KP can no longer shut its eyes to the way in which the world and the diamond-related violence has changed over the last decade,’ said Bernard Taylor, from the non-government organization Partnership Africa-Canada.
‘If the KP is to remain the first word on conflict diamonds it has to accept a definition that addresses modern realities,’ he said. Milovanovic told the press conference the new language ‘would expand the definition of conflict beyond something which involves rebel groups seeking to overthrow a legitimate government.’
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