Members of the Kimberley Process (KP) diamond certification scheme failed on Thursday to reach consensus on whether to allow Zimbabwe to resume trade in gems from its controversial Marange fields.
Delegates at a KP conference in Tel Aviv failed during an all-night session to agree over whether to resume certification of the fields, which was withdrawn in November over claims of brutal abuse of workers by the army.
The discussions finally hit a “dead end” on Thursday, a statement said, adding that talks were due “to resume July 14 and 15 in St Petersburg in order to reach a resolution based on consensus”.
“The discussions failed to reach any decision and will resume in July during a mini-summit in St Petersburg,” Sharon Geffen, spokesperson for the Israeli Diamond Industry, which is hosting the conference, told Agence France-Presse.
Earlier, Geffen said the Zimbabweans “are asking for an immediate reinstatement of certification”.
The conference had been scheduled to formally end on Wednesday but discussions resumed on Thursday.
A report by KP investigator Abbey Chikane, which was presented at the conference, argued that President Robert Mugabe’s government had met the global diamond regulator’s criteria in respect of the Marange diamond fields.
“While the majority of countries participating in the Kimberley Process expressed support for Chikane’s submission, a number of countries and civil society participants objected to the concept that Zimbabwe would immediately commence exporting diamonds from Marange,” a conference statement said.
Beatings and other abuses
Human rights groups have called for Zimbabwe to be suspended from the Kimberley Process, saying it reneged on a promise made last year to improve conditions at its Marange fields.
Such a move would bar all the country’s exports of the gems.
Accreditation of Marange’s production was suspended in November after Kimberley investigators documented forced labour, beatings and other abuses by the military against civilians working in the diamond fields.
Human Rights Watch claims that the harassment is continuing and that workers, some as young as 11, are forced to hand their finds to military guards, who then sell them on the black market.
Several rights groups say members of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party are implicated in siphoning off the country’s diamond revenues.
The Kimberley Process is a joint initiative by governments, industry and civil society to stem the flow of “blood diamonds” — rough diamonds used by rebel movements to finance wars against legitimate governments. — Sapa-AFP