Diamanten en mensenrechten
Article reproduced in full from Greg Valerio’s blog and published in The National Association of Goldsmiths (UK) maandblad De juwelier.
If diamonds were potatoes we would all have burnt our fingers to a crisp long ago. I confess this article will not read well if you are invested into diamonds purely as a dealer. Diamonds are a human rights issue in their own right and given the rapid decline in the credibility of the Kimberley Process (KPC) in de laatste 12 months they will undoubtedly continue to be one. Laat het me uitleggen.
Firstly lets start at source. Het is al vele malen gezegd door de jaren heen, small-scale miners make up the overwhelming majority of people employed in the mining sector.
More than a million African artisanal diamond diggers and their families live and work in absolute poverty, buiten de formele economie, in countries struggling to recover from the ravages of war. Diamond Development Initiative.
I have witnessed this truth in recent months as I have begun a new phase of my journey in jewellery through establishing in partnership with Fairtrade Africa a cooperative movement amongst artisan miners. 
A elderly man with a prosthetic limb came up to me on a recent trip to Sierra Leone, shook my hand and asked if I would educate his grandchildren in the way of peace so that war never returned to his country. De historische conflicten in Sierra Leone, Angola, Cote D'Viore of momenteel DR Congo en Zimbabwe zijn echt en nog steeds een verwoestende invloed op het leven van de armen,, hun gemeenschappen en de infrastructuur van die landen.. Diamonds zoals we allemaal weten hebben een zeer reële bestuurder geweest verlenging van die conflicten.. De tragedie van de oorlog is de erfenis van geruïneerde generaties en 10 jaar van een KPC betekent niet dat alles is nu in orde..
Historically these conflict stones have enriched us all and not a penny has ever been paid in reparations by the traders who greedily enriched themselves on the backs of these conflicts. This is why certain sections of the diamond industry who now so proudly boast about their founding support for the Kimberley Process face such a moral dilemma. To call for the reinstatement of Zimbabwe diamond exports under the auspices of the KPC is to deny the very founding principles of KPC and is clear hypocrisy. One senior member of the diamond fraternal is on record as saying at the 34th World Diamond Congress in 2010
These very same miners and citizens have been imprisoned, gun shipped off the diamond fields, illegaal vastgehouden en gemarteld in geheime kampen. As a jeweller the question I have to ask myself is; “Do I want such a diamond in my shop?” Uiteraard is het antwoord op die vraag is NO.
Het Kimberley-proces en Zimbabwe.
“Mijnwerkers, retailers, and consumers have relied on the Kimberley Process to stop blood diamonds from being sold, maar met de beslissing van de voorzitter Yamba's, the KP has betrayed their trust,” said Arvind Ganesan, business and human rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Governments and companies should ignore his decision unless they want to make blood diamonds available to consumers and ruin the credibility of the Kimberley Process as well.” Human Rights Watch
Deze bloeddiamanten als de augustus BBC Panorama programma uitgezonden en Human Rights Watch hebben aangetoond, continue to be stones that enrich elites, vervolgen de armen, suppress and censor the voice of truth and systemically abuse human rights. It would seem therefore that there is a clash of values at the very core of the diamond story that manifests itself in the question; ‘What is more important, Rechten van de Mens of het maken van geld tegen elke prijs?’ I am the first to admit that these two ideas are not mutually exclusive, yet in the heavily politicised diamond world, agreement is hard come by and confusion abounds.
And it is here that I am critical of The World Diamond Council, the body established to act as the Governance framework for the KPC. Ten eerste welkom zij de juridische export van stenen uit Marange in 2010. Then in less than 6 months cautiously re-welcomes the introduction of exports from Marange, but asks members to apply due diligence on all stones coming from Marange. Yet the fact remains that the human rights abuses in the diamond fields of Zimbabwe have led the KPC into utter confusion and division. The International Diamond Manufacturers Association alongside The Responsible Jewellery Council have all shown a distinct lack of principled leadership in their vacillation over whether Zimbabwe should be included or excluded from KPC. It would appear as if all their press releases were written by lawyers. I have to be honest, given the huge body of evidence of bloody abuses and blood split in the Marange region, het moet niet een moeilijke beslissing worden. Zimbabwe uit!
We need a Kimberley Process that has international credibility and the tragedy is that Kimberley has become a discredited system and everyone in the industry knows it is not working. Equally this vacuum of strategic leadership means the civil society and campaign groups are rightly becoming more vocal about the veracity of the claims about ethics and conflict being spun by the industry. Here are some of my suggestions on how the KPC can begin to restore it credibility;
1. Noodzaak van een voltijds secretariaat voor KPC die representatief is voor alle belanghebbenden.
2. Het moet goed worden gefinancierd door de diamantindustrie.
3. Schendingen van de mensenrechten moeten worden opgenomen in de taakomschrijving als reden van het proces moeten worden uitgesloten.
4. De KPC-monitor (onafhankelijk van het secretariaat) moet worden 100% fully independent and have no political or financial interests in Diamond Companies.
5. Cutting and Polishing should be included in the process, zodat er een volledige, accountable and transparent supply chain from mine to retail.
6. Representatives of alluvial diamond diggers should have a permanent seat on the secretariat to ensure the voice of the majority.
7. Het proces moet rechtstreeks verantwoording af aan de Verenigde Naties.
This may well lead to a smaller, slankere, fit for purpose Kimberley-proces, but I believe it would mean a process that the international community can have greater faith in. Also it will mean the industry would know which countries it can do business with and those it cannot.
The diamond brand as sold to the consumer is the icon of luxury, aspiration and purity. We talk of flawless perfection being forged in the ancient fires of volcanic activity and we seek to immortalise our commitments of love in this rock of compressed carbon. Yet its public image is like all things in the world of politics not its reality and substance. We have allowed for commercial reasons only the intentional divorce between product and ethics and as such are now paying the price in the slow erosion of the diamond brand. For my part I would have the diamond become the new symbol of the upholding of international human rights and the promotion of peace. It may just be the redemptive angle the diamond industry has been looking for.
Greg Valerio
