As Americans
flock to stores for holiday shopping, some will buy diamonds for loved
ones. But that gift could have a bloody past. If the diamonds are from
Zimbabwe, the stones could have been mined under the control of
Zimbabwe’s army, which Human Rights Watch found has killed more than
200 people, engaged in torture and used forced labor, including
children, in the nation’s Marange diamond fields.
The good news
is that U.S. consumers can help expose and shut down the illegal trade
in these diamonds. All they need do is ask their retailers about the
source of the diamonds and request the seller to ensure that the gems
are not from Zimbabwe. If the retailer can’t, then make it “no sale.”
During
several visits this year to the Marange fields for Human Rights Watch,
I spoke with more than 100 people who had witnessed killings and
beatings or suffered torture, forced labor, rape and the looting of
their property by military officials who control informal mining
syndicates. The army pilfers and smuggles out the area’s rough gems,
keeping the substantial profits for itself and the political party of
Zimbabwe’s authoritarian president, Robert Mugabe.
If mined
legally, these diamonds could materially benefit a population that has
been brutalized by oppressive rule and a man-made humanitarian
disaster. Instead, people near the diamond fields live in abject
poverty and constant fear.
A woman who had been forced to dig for
diamonds told me: “The soldiers were armed and guarded us every day
while we worked in the fields. Each day we worked for 11 hours without
a break. The children worked the same hours.” Those who resisted faced
torture, beatings or even death.
“At the diamond fields, the
soldiers forced us into a cage and beat us throughout the night,” a boy
from Mutare told me. “We were forced to fill the holes and gullies made
by local miners using bare hands. We were given no food or water.”
It
was not supposed to be this way. Seven years ago, in the aftermath of
horrific abuses committed by West African rebel groups enriched by
diamond wealth, an international body backed by the United Nations —
the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme — was founded to ensure that
traders and consumers could identify these so-called blood diamonds and
prevent their trade. The group now represents 75 countries, including
Zimbabwe and the United States, and claims to cover 99 percent of the
global rough-diamond industry.
But the Kimberley Process has
proved to be ineffective in stamping out the smuggling and sale of
blood diamonds from Zimbabwe and other countries. These gems continue
to find their way into jewelry stores worldwide.
In Zimbabwe’s
case, blood diamonds often get smuggled onto world markets via
unregistered traders in neighboring countries such as Mozambique or
South Africa. These countries either don’t or can’t certify the origin
and flow of the stones, which then become intermingled with legitimate
gems.
Earlier this year, a Kimberley Process review mission found
that diamonds in eastern Zimbabwe are mined under conditions of serious
human rights abuses and in breach of the organization’s standards,
which require members to ensure that diamonds are lawfully mined,
documented and exported. But the Kimberley Process works by consensus.
Its members include Namibia, Russia and South Africa, which support
Mugabe and which also export diamonds to the United States.
As a
result of their objections, the Kimberley Process decided in November
not to suspend Zimbabwe or ban the sale of its stones. Its weak excuse
was a technicality in its mandate that defines blood diamonds as those
mined by abusive rebel groups, not abusive governments.
It
shouldn’t matter who does the abusing. The Kimberley Process, by
failing to do its job, leaves Americans and others in the uncomfortable
position of potentially buying blood diamonds. Consumers can no longer
be sure that diamonds with a Kimberley Process certificate are clean.
Our
latest information is that the situation in Marange remains largely
unchanged. Despite assertions that the army was withdrawing, most of
the diamond fields remain under military control, with smuggling, human
rights abuses and corruption unchecked.
American consumers can
send a strong message to the diamond industry, the smugglers and those
running these abusive mining operations: It is not acceptable to trade
in stones mined by children whose labor was coerced, by women who’ve
been raped or by men who’ve been tortured.
So, press your jeweler
about the origin of the gems you want to buy. If they’re from Zimbabwe,
don’t buy them. Diamond mining in Zimbabwe has inflicted great harm.
U.S. consumers need to ask themselves whether that’s a moral price
they’re willing to pay for a stone.
The Providence Journal