Botswana must take its leadership position in the 'clean' diamond campaign

* TISEKE KASAMBALA | Friday July 9, 2010 00:00

At their last meeting in Tel Aviv last month delegates to the 'Kimberley Process' were unable to agree on how to deal with Zimbabwe, where a highly repressive military elite is keeping itself in power by controlling the proceeds of the Marange diamond fields, in the eastern part of the country.

The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme was founded in 2003 after the civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia destroyed countless lives in the scramble for diamond wealth. Consumers in the United States and elsewhere grew increasingly uneasy at the idea of buying a diamond that had been produced in the context of extreme human rights abuse. Diamond producers and traders, worried that bad publicity might affect their bottom line, agreed to establish the Kimberley Process together with representatives from civil society, to monitor the international diamond trade.

If the Kimberley Process is meant to stop 'blood diamonds,' then stones from Marange surely qualify for that grave categorisation. According to extensive research conducted by Human Rights Watch in and around Marange last year, more than 200 people were killed when the military took over the diamond fields at the end of 2008. The lives of villagers in the surrounding territory are now a misery: they are constantly forced to work at gunpoint by soldiers who beat and even torture them if they refuse. Children are not spared. Schools have closed because soldiers are billeted in them, and even young kids are forced to dig at their behest.

However, the governments who initially formed the Kimberley Process agreed only to exclude diamonds that were financing rebel groups. They didn't include diamonds that were financing abusive governments - although obviously, as a practical matter, it hardly matters whether the soldier who is beating you is working for the government or a rebel group. But many members of the Kimberley Process have questionable human rights records of their own or are being used as conduits for smuggled Marange diamonds, and they don't want to suspend Zimbabwe from the group.

Botwana should not be among those nations who seek to give Zimbabwe a free pass. Batswana diplomats and political leaders have numbered among the few in southern Africa who are willing to call Mugabe's misrule for what it is.  Botswana's principled position has resonated with ordinary Zimbabweans, who view Mugabe's bullying rhetoric as cynical and hollow.

The Zimbabwean government is hardly united on the diamonds issue. The MDC's Finance Minister, Tendai Biti,  struggling daily to share real power with Mugabe's ZANU-PF, has said that not a single penny of the diamond profits have come into government coffers. For a government as strapped for cash as Zimbabwe's which complains about the reluctance of international financial bodies to provide loans, that is a problem indeed.

Predictably, the Zimbabwean officials at the Kimberley Process in Tel Aviv last month tried to cast the issue as one of imperialism. The Zimbabwean Minister of Mines, Obert Mpofu, even accused civil society organizations of asking him for bribes, and pro-government media have questioned why no Zimbabwean civil society groups were present in Tel Aviv.

The answer to that question is a tragic one: because the leader of the Zimbabwean civil society group that produced the lion's share of independent information about Marange, the Centre for Research and Development, was arrested several weeks ago and remains in prison today. He has repeatedly been denied bail in what has all the hallmarks of a politically-motivated prosecution. Many governments, including the Israeli chair of the Kimberley Process, have called for the immediate, unconditional release of Farai Maguwu. Botswana should do the same.

Maguwu should certainly be released. But his release should not mean the resumption of diamond exports from Marange. Any decision on Zimbabwe's diamonds must wait for a competent, genuinely independent review mission from the Kimberley Process that is preparing to visit Marange and assess the human rights conditions there.

Botswana can advance its own economic interests by also vigorously upholding the Kimberley Process's commitment to human rights. Its reputation as a 'clean' producer of diamonds may depend on the positions it takes on Zimbabwe and the Kimberley Process - and its keeping blood diamonds off the market.

Meanwhile, Botswana's neighbours in South Africa, Tanzania and Namibia are busy forfeiting international consumer confidence.

Their misguided political drive to protect Mugabe and his mines minister is a betrayal of the people of Marange. If Botswana genuinely believes in good governance, it would do well to take the more principled road in the Kimberley Process.* Kasambala is a senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.