Dictators, Diamonds and the “International Consensus”

An international campaign and blockbuster movie brought world attention to "blood diamonds." These precious stones - compact and untraceable - helped fuel wars in West Africa and elsewhere. The diamond industry, civil society and diamond-producing countries responded by installing a certification and tracking system, the Kimberley Process (KP).

At the time, I chaired hearings on the problem and helped push legislation to implement the KP through Congress.

The KP has helped put diamond revenue back into government coffers and out of the hands of rag-tag rebels. But what happens when the pillagers are from the government? Thanks to Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, this "consensus-based" process is struggling.

Huge diamond fields were discovered in Zimbabwe in 2006. Last year, human rights groups blew the whistle on its soldiers and police (Mugabe thugs) for raping and killing hundreds of mine workers. Guess who kept the gems?

The KP gave Zimbabwe time to clean up its act. This spring, a special monitor (selected by consensus, which means Mugabe had significant say) recommended clearing Zimbabwe. But after a Zimbabwean civil society leader watching the diamond fields was jailed and the KP monitor harassed, KP governments balked at certifying Zimbabwe's diamonds. Sanity prevailed - briefly.

Then the diplomats got weak-kneed, and a "compromise" was found. Zimbabwe will be allowed to export a limited number of diamonds in return for "increased monitoring" in the future. State Department officials admit that they bent in hopes of greater transparency down the road. With Mugabe, that's a laughable proposition.

This debate is over the KP’s definition of bad diamonds as those used to finance rebel groups. Human rights groups howl that this ignores governments that commit or tolerate human rights abuses in diamond mining. Of course, if blood is spilled, it's a blood diamond. But such simple logic escapes an "international consensus."