Zim Fin minister says US sanctions on diamond firms self-defeating, retrogressive

Zimbabwe said the recent United States sanctions against firms mining in the country’s Marange diamond fields is counter-productive as it will encourage more opaqueness and underwriting of the diamond industry.
Finance Minister Tendai Biti had hoped to raise $600 million from increased diamond sales -after KP approved exports of Marange - to help finance the country’s 2012 budget.
He said in a letter to the US Treasury that the sanctions would hurt efforts to ensure transparency and end siphoning of revenue from the sale of gems from the controversial mines.
Biti noted that mining firms would be forced to carry out trade underground where smuggling and other illegalities thrive.
"It [sanctions] will not stop the sale of diamonds. All it does is to encourage more opaqueness and underwriting of the diamond industry... this is a self-defeating and retrogressive position,” the finance minister said.  Biti also accused Washington of undermining the KP because its decision to ban Marange diamonds sought to unilaterally reverse the regulator’s position allowing trade in the Zimbabwean gems.
The US and some Western countries accused Zimbabwe’s security forces guarding the mines of smuggling diamonds and of committing abuses against villagers living near the mines.
They also accused President Robert Mugabe of using proceeds from the diamonds to bankroll his patronage network and to fund violence against political opponents.
Mugabe denied the charges.

Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished