Five months after the release, in March 2009, of Partnership Africa Canada’s (PAC) report Zimbabwe’s diamond trade, Zimbabwe, Diamonds and the Wrong Side of History, PAC welcomes the recommendation from the Kimberley Process (KP) Zimbabwe Review Mission team to suspend Zimbabwe from the KP, the world diamond regulatory body.

According to PAC, the recently publicised report of the Mission team confirmed the findings of PAC’s report, including massive diamond smuggling and the murder of scores of artisanal diamond miners by the Zimbabwe military in October 2008 to gain control of the Marange Diamond Fields in eastern Zimbabwe. Revenues from Zimbabwe’s diamonds are helping to prop up Robert Mugabe’s repressive and violent regime and the military seem bent on keeping control of the Marange diamonds for their own personal needs, regardless of the needs of the local population.

PAC believes that diamonds will not be the linchpin of any economic revival in Zimbabwe. “Total diamond exports from Zimbabwe for the whole of 2008 were a mere $33 million, and therefore the necessary embargo by the KP on Zimbabwe’s diamonds will not undermine any future economic recovery,” says Bernard Taylor, Executive Director of PAC. “Arguments to the contrary by Zimbabwe’s political leaders that diamonds are key to Zimbabwe’s economic revival, are based on deliberately inflated diamond production levels and are simply smoke and mirrors,” he says.

PAC has been calling for the suspension of Zimbabwe from the KP since December 2008, following the first reports of human right abuses, together with other indications that Zimbabwe had lost control of its diamond industry. “Without aiming to harm the country, suspension is one of the only tools the KP has to encourage member countries to undertake the necessary reforms to meet the KP Certification Scheme minimum requirements and thereby rejoin the world diamond regulatory body,” argues Susanne Emond, of PAC.

PAC also repeats its call for the KP to develop a clear and actionable protocol on gross human rights abuse in the management of a member’s diamond industry. “The onus is on the members of the KP to take vigorous action to prevent tainted diamonds from entering the world’s clean diamond stream,” says Taylor. “Zimbabwe is the test for the KP to show the world it cares about human rights and is working to keep consumer confidence in the purity of diamonds.”