We all agree that nobody should violate human rights in any place in the world, but the job can't be placed on the shoulders of the Kimberley Process. We must tell the truth, loudly and clearly: We have neither the tools nor the ability to handle this very important issue. The Kimberley Process cannot resolve all the world's problems or achieve goals that extend far beyond its definition as an effective barrier to trade in conflict diamonds. This was the message of Israel Diamond Institute chairman and Israel Diamond Manufacturers Association president, Moti Ganz, who explained his personal involvement in the struggle to release rough export from Zimbabwe in his article posted on http://www.israelidiamond.co.il.
As the chairman of the Israel Diamond Institute and as the president of the Israel Diamond Manufacturers Association, I have found myself in an odd position this year – being personally involved in the negotiations around solving the Zimbabwe situation. I was heavily involved in the dialogue in Tel Aviv, thereafter in Moscow and in St. Petersburg, and then again in Jerusalem. I have devoted weeks if not months to trying to move the process forward with some limited success.
As is well known, the Kimberley Process is a governmental system. The plenary decisions are made solely by the participating governments on the so-called consensus basis. Consensus does not mean unanimity. It means that no single country gets up and opposes a certain proposal. In the various committees, however, the industry (through the World Diamond Council) and the civil society (NGOs) also have a vote and can also block any decision.
Regretfully, but understandably, NGOs, governments and the industry serve different constituencies and therefore also have different agendas. The current agenda of the NGOs is clearly to force a change within the Kimberley Process system. They want a different definition of conflict diamonds and, in a general way, want to link the Kimberley Process to human rights and human rights violations in the producing and cutting centers. In that desire, they are strongly backed by the United States, Canada and Australia.
The position of the World Diamond Council in the Kimberley Process has been, for many years, one of near total and almost automatic support for the NGOs. This was based on the perception that the NGOs can affect consumer confidence in diamonds by demonstrating in the street, by boycotting, by disseminating nasty articles, or in other ways. It was also always perceived that the industry should go the extra mile to constantly be with the NGOs and not to antagonize them.
It is in the best interest of the diamond industry to make sure that rough diamonds are always channeled through official channels and that producing governments can export officially rather than needing to resort to all kinds of smuggling channels. In any producing country, diamonds that come out of the ground will end up in the cutting centers, one way or another.
By the Kimberley Process’s definition of conflict diamonds, Zimbabwe’s diamonds from Marange don’t fall into that category. But since certain NGOs and countries don’t want the government to get any financial benefits from its own diamonds for political reasons, they choose to block exports. Actually, the weirdest excuses are used just to keep the rough from the market. That is not good for the industry.
At the end of the day, we manufacturers will be processing Zimbabwe rough, and all of us, as sellers of polished, will be selling the resultant output. It is here that the agenda of the industry and cutting centers are entirely different than those of the NGOs. This friction and tension was very much prevalent among the Review Mission team members that prepared the last report on Zimbabwe.
The Review Mission team could not reach any consensus recommendation regarding rough exports from Marange. The team did, however, acknowledge that the situation today in Marange has enormously improved compared to just a year ago, and the mining companies there meet all the required standards of the Kimberley Process. Nevertheless, even at the time of writing, official exports are being blocked.
Here is where I was sucked into the world of international negotiations. It is my opinion that because of the total alignment of the WDC with the NGOs, the Zimbabwe minister of mines and mining development and his ministry’s legal advisors have increasingly turned to industry leaders like me to act as mediators or as counterparts in negotiations. It is not a role I seek.
The KP is Not UNICEF
Case in point is the human rights issue. I don’t need to argue that none of us wants to see human rights violations anywhere in the world. We don’t want that – not as Israelis, not as Jews and not as diamantaires. But we cannot turn the Kimberley Process into an NGO, into some kind of UNESCO, or some kind of human rights enforcement or monitoring organization. We don’t have the capacity for that; we don’t have the skills for that; and we don’t have the expertise to do so.
The Kimberley Process, at the end of the day, is a kind of customs union enabling the smooth flow of clean rough diamonds certified by legitimate and sovereign governments. The Kimberley Process is not the right body to identify, quantify or remedy human rights violations.
This is one of the problems with Zimbabwe. They have made enormous progress on that subject, and now we are divided within the KP on whether it is sufficient or not. Where do we draw the line? Who will define what a human rights violation is? Who will monitor it? Who will suggest effective ways to deal with them and bring them to a stop? These are serious questions but the KP is neither capable nor equipped with the professional means to deal with human rights violations. There are special international bodies that have the world mandate to deal with any case of human rights violations and it is precisely these organizations that need to act and take steps to identify, stop and monitor human rights violations anywhere on this planet. It is not the role of the KP.
The representatives of the World Diamond Council at the Kimberley Process Plenary in Jerusalem declared as policy that “while the KP is not a court of law, and was never provided the capacity to identify nor investigate allegations of human rights violations, we [the WDC] support the incorporation of a statement pertaining to compliance with international human rights law into the [Kimberley documents]. We suggest that … KP participants should ensure that all diamond sector activity is conducted in a manner consistent with international human rights law. Furthermore, … when KP participants become aware of alleged violations of international human rights law, they should bring these to the attention of the appropriate international law enforcement authorities or to international human rights institutions.”
There is nothing in these lines that any decent human being would disagree with. However, I don’t think that we, as an industry, should even go down that road. We should not even open a door to go in that direction, as it is not our task nor is it the task of the Kimberley Process. We are all committed to good governance, best practice principles and a whole range of things, but we don’t want the Kimberley Process to become a policeman, as the only sanction it can exercise is blocking the trade.
Actually, in a meeting in Jerusalem with NGOs, we asked what they would suggest should be done if we see a human rights violation, such as Angola forcefully removing illegal diggers from the country in a quite brutal way. Their answer was unequivocal: All exports of rough from Angola should stop immediately. We then asked for how long. We didn’t get an answer.
And there's another question I'd like to ask the NGOs: In many of the African producer countries, such as Angola, the DRC, South Africa, Guinea and others, the share of diamond exports is only a few percentage points of their respective economies. When looking at Africa as a whole, then diamonds constitute, at best, a few percentage points of total commodity exports. However, we get almost 100 percent of the attention and focus on human rights issues.
Our industry, along with uranium, has become the most regulated and self-regulated commodity in the world. The diamond industry can be proud of its human rights and social responsibility record. But somehow, nobody makes an issue in any comparable way of human rights violations in the gold, silver, copper, platinum or other commodity sectors of the very same countries. There are reasons for this. Our product enjoys an emotional content, which women will find difficult to share with their cars’ gas tanks or cell phones.
We are just an easy target, and we have been able to demonstrate to the world that it is in our self-interest to be sensitive and conduct ourselves in the right manner. Therefore, our record is far better than any of the other products. Maybe we should start promoting a Kimberley Processes for gold, silver, oil or platinum, just for starters. The world will not really care.
We don’t elect the governments in the producer countries. What we do see is that cutting centers such as India are doing everything to organize direct supply from producer countries, taking out any middleman. We at the Israel Diamond Institute are exploring similar initiatives. As diamond manufacturers and dealers, it is our best interest to be together with producers as they supply the rough material. Without rough, we have no industry.
Producers realize that we are their natural allies. Let me be clear, I do not see another option for any producer but to fully implement the KPCS rules and regulations. It would bring a catastrophe to our diamond industry if even one producer worked outside the KP system. That’s why I became so deeply involved, on your behalf, in the Zimbabwe imbroglio. An agreement on Zimbabwe diamonds would be good for the industry, for the KP member countries, for the NGOs and, especially, for the citizens of Zimbabwe. All parties must go that extra mile, even if it means further concessions, to protect the interests of the diamond industry, which provides a livelihood for so many families in the world. This is what has guided my involvement in the Kimberley Process for the past year.
We should draw the appropriate lessons from this experience – as Israel, as a cutting center and as members of the World Diamond Council, as well as individuals running diamond businesses. In this respect, we still have many challenges ahead. However, we are determined to meet them head on and succeed.
Moti Ganz
