"Kimberley Process must progress reform talks on diamond violence or risk irrelevance and diamond revenue losses"

As India prepares to host the last intersessional of the Kimberley Process (KP) reform cycle in Mumbai (17-21 June), the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition (KPCSC) urges states to progress discussions to mandate the Kimberley Process (KP) to address the issue of blood diamonds. Continued violence in diamond production, it warns, threatens both KP relevance and long-term African diamond revenues by fuelling ethics concerns about the sector.

Despite two and a half years of the KP’s reform process, there has not yet been any substantive discussion on proposals regarding the KP’s scope, nor on mechanisms to enable it to address diamond related violence impartially. The scheme’s relevance has long been challenged by NGOs, journalists and key industry players in only addressing diamonds mined by rebels fighting governments to the exclusion of other conflict-related issues affecting the sector. Last November, civil society and industry observers to the Kimberley Process expressed strong support for discussions around a new conflict diamond definition following a proposal submitted by Canada. The definition, intended to spark discussions on KP scope, includes reference to “public security forces or private (including criminal or mercenary) armed groups”, as well as to “systemic and widespread violence, forced labour, the worst forms of child labour and violations of international humanitarian law”.

Whilst diamonds are a potential development driver for African producers, in some contexts their production has continued to be mired by systemic violence or exploitation. In Angola and Zimbabwe, for example, state security forces have committed atrocities to clear land for largescale mining. As recently as September 2018, artisanal miners were targeted for widespread killings and beatings by Angolan security forces, triggering a regional security crisis. The killing and assault of miners desperate to support their families in and around large-scale diamond concessions by private security actors also remains an issue in a number of producer states. “To some, this may all sound like old news”, says Farai Maguwu of the Centre for Natural Resource Governance, a KPCSC member organisation based close to Zimbabwe’s controversial Marange diamond fields. “But for affected communities, it remains today’s tragedy.”