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Article

24 Apr 2013

Author:
Rafael Marques de Morais [Angola]

Angolan Blood Diamonds: The Role of the European Union and the Kimberley Process [Angola]

[Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited Teleservice, Endiama and Sociedade Mineira do Cuango to respond. None of the companies responded] The text below is...Mr. Rafael Marques' presentation delivered at the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights...on April 24...I start by showing you a series of images of the latest victim of violence in Cuango, which is one of the main centres of the mining industry within the Lundas region. Private security guards of Bicuar, at the service of diamond company Sociedade Mineira do Cuango, shot dead…Kazumiri Wanga, on April 20…This murderous act is part of a routine of systematic human rights abuses in Angola's diamond fields. In 2011, I wrote a report that detailed the abuses committed by the military and a private security company Teleservice, previously employed by Sociedade Mineira do Cuango, involving the torture of more than 500 victims and the killing of more than 100 people…the presidential family, generals and the current CEO of the national diamond company Endiama, António Carlos Sumbula, have been enriching themselves by buying diamonds from such illegal miners…The instrument available for protection of the local communities in the Lundas, and which European diplomacy could bring to bear upon the Angolan authorities is the Kimberley certification scheme…No KP [Kimberley certification] inspection team ever has set foot in Cuango…The EU must demand that an investigative team including European experts, unattached to the diamond industry, be sent to the Lundas, and conduct an extensive enquiry, including one-on-one interviews with the surviving victims, local NGO's and activists…The Kimberley Process appears to have lost touch with its mission to ensure that blood diamonds don't make their way to consumers…[Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited Teleservice, Endiama and Sociedade Mineira do Cuango to respond. None of the companies responded]

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