Marques Reuters IT was hailed as a way to make it possible to buy a diamond ring for your sweetheart free from worry that you were funding civil wars and rights abuses. But the efficacy of the Kimberley Process (KP) has been thrown into doubt by a diamond field operating under a recognized government, not a rebel army, that is widely criticized for abuses of its own. The scheme signed in January 2003 was aimed at cutting off “blood diamond” financing for rebel groups fighting a UN-recognized government. But allowing exports from Zimbabawe's Marange mine has exposed a loophole: it has no mechanism to hold either the industry or producer countries to account. Campaign group Global Witness, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for its work on conflict diamonds, said the process it helped found had failed several tests. “The Kimberley Process is essentially giving its stamp of approval to blood diamonds,” said Annie Dunnebacke, a senior campaigner at Global Witness. “Marange was the catalyst. Zimbabwe is the most blatant case of conflict diamonds getting on the international market.” Human rights groups estimate at least 200 artisanal, or small-scale, miners were killed in 2008 when Zimbabwe's security forces seized the fields at Marange — one of the largest diamond finds of recent decades — adding to years of human rights abuses attributed to President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party. All diamond exports from the country were suspended in 2009 but resumed last month after the United States and other leading Kimberley members dropped their opposition.The dispute over Marange had brought the Kimberley Process which aims to regulate the $30 billion rough diamond industry to a virtual halt. But now that exports have resumed business is thriving: Chinese-owned Anjin, one of three companies mining diamonds in Marange, this week started to sell 2 million carats of diamonds stockpiled during the export ban. Experts, campaigners and the industry say the evaluation of Kimberley's success or failure will come down to whether misbehaving countries — not just rebel groups — can and should be held to account. “The problem lies with KP's definition. It outlaws diamonds where rebel groups are fighting legitimate governments. Zimbabwe's human rights record notwithstanding, under KP rules, Mugabe's is the legitimate government,” said Salil Tripathi, policy director at the Institute for Human Rights and Business. “There is no option within KP but to permit Zimbabwe to export — unless you change the definition of conflict diamonds. But to keep the definition narrow was the original compromise ... without which an agreement wouldn't have been possible.” __
