Botswana officials leave for key KP meeting

MBONGENI MGUNI
Staff Writer | Monday June 21, 2010 00:00

The Acting Deputy Director of Mineral Affairs, a Senior Minerals Officer and a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, will join representatives from 75 other Kimberley Process countries at the meeting.

A founding and integral member of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), Botswana sits on the Statistics, Diamond Experts, Participation Committee, the Rules and Procedure Committee and the Selection Committee's working groups. The Zimbabwe agenda item, while largely a matter for the Monitoring working group, is expected to involve all other working groups due to the myriad of issues involved.

At the June 21 to 23 meeting, Special KP monitor, Abbey Chikane, is expected to deliver a much-anticipated report on the situation prevailing in Zimbabwe's diamond fields.

Chikane has already come under heavy criticism from some KP participants who accuse him of pandering to the wishes of the Zimbabwean government. Amidst denials, the Zimbabwean government maintains that diamonds from the Marange site are neither conflict nor blood in nature.

In a statement released on Thursday, Kimberley Process Chairman, Boaz Hirsch, said top of the agenda is progress of the Joint Work Plan for the implementation of KP minimum standards in Zimbabwe's diamond fields.

KP participant and civil society organisation Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) have released a scathing report on Zimbabwe's progress in regularising its diamond activities to KP standards.

'Zimbabwe is not the only country failing to meet some or all of the basic requirements asked of diamond-producing nations by the Kimberley Process (KP),' PAC's statement says.

'But Zimbabwe sets itself apart from the others because of the government's brazen defiance of universally-agreed principles of humanity and good governance expected of adherents to the KP.

'As such, Zimbabwe poses a serious crisis of credibility for the KP whose impotence in the face of thuggery and illegality in Zimbabwe underscores a worrisome inability or unwillingness to enforce either the letter or the spirit of its founding mandate.'

Other issues on the Israel meeting's agenda include updates on the drafting of a workplan between the KP and the World Customs Union as well as a seminar on the enforcement of border controls. Some of the agenda items are more administrative and designed to improve the KP's efficiency.

Established in 2003, the KPCS aims to prevent the production and trade in conflict diamonds.