The Sunday Mail
Western countries have launched a fresh bid to vilify Zimbabwe’s diamond sector and label the precious stones from Marange as “conflict gems” ahead of the Kimberly Process Intercessional meeting in Angola next month.
Brian Chitemba and Kuda Bwititi
The Sunday Mail understands that the plot is geared at suspending Zimbabwe from KP member states at next month’s meeting.
Zimbabwe has been a target of Western demonisation for backing the United Arab Emirates to assume the vice-chairmanship of the KP Certification Scheme at next month’s meeting.
Australia is bidding to upstage the UAE for the post.
It has become the norm in recent years for NGOs financed by hostile governments such as the United States, Britain, Australia and Canada to release damaging “reports” on Marange diamonds whenever there is a KP meeting.
The ultimate aim is to place Zimbabwe on the KP agenda and ban trading of the diamonds as these countries seek to choke the economy.
The plot is hinged on a regime change template that tries to trigger revolts from economic malaise.
Recently, the World Policy Journal published a paper which effectively concluded that Zimbabwe’s minerals were conflict diamonds that were traded in corporate tax havens like Dubai, which is the UAE’s commercial hub.
The World Policy Journal says statistics released by the Dubai Multi-Commodity Centre shows that the Dubai diamond industry swelled from US$5 million per year to US$35 billion within a decade despite there being no production, cutting or polishing in the UAE.
They then linked Zimbabwe’s diamonds to Dubai after the latter’s imports increased from 26 million carats in 2005 to 42 million in 2006, saying the jump in the figures coincided with mining in Marange.
Speaking to The Sunday Mail last week, Resource Exploitation Watch chair Mr Tafadzwa Musarara said: “The forthcoming KP meeting is going to see serious attempts by Canada and the USA to have Zimbabwe put on the agenda with an intention to suspend its membership. “There are forces in the KP that want to push for so-called reforms which in reality are aimed at rendering Zimbabwe’s membership suspended.”
Mr Musarara said the West was seeking to perpetuate a hegemony in the world diamond industry by backing Australia to take over the leadership of the KP.
“The contest for the vice-chair in KP between Dubai and Australia is much bigger than what it appears. This is a fight between the West, who for several decades had established and perpetuated a hegemony on the world diamond industry on the one hand, and on the other a group of fast developing countries that seek to liberate their municipal diamond mining activities from the yoke of resource imperialism.
“Presenting its bid last year, Australia intimated that they had just secured a parliamentary budget vote (to fund their vice chair and ultimately chairmanship activities), which was only available up to December 31, 2014. Since they did not get elected, it is amazing to note that their bid remains alive in 2015.”
He added that NGOs like National Resource Governance, which has been issuing damaging “reports” on Zimbabwe, are part of the plot. Sources also told The Sunday Mail that workers unions have been roped into the plot.
Recently, workers at diamond miners in Marange have been making noise with a view of capturing media attention and portraying an adverse image of the industry.
The sources said: “All efforts are being made to give a damaging image of the diamond mining sector. Now it is the workers that have been in the news and they are making baseless complaints of being abused and harassed.
“All this is aimed at painting the situation in Marange in a bad light so that Western forces can find justification to suspend the country from the KP. The recently formed Zimbabwe Diamond Miners Workers Union has been at the centre of issuing damaging statements on the plight of workers in Marange and it is testimony of the Western hand that is being used to damage Zimbabwe’s reputation at all costs.” The World Policy Journal makes sensational allegations that Zimbabwe could have lost about US$5 billion through underhand dealings at the Dubai Diamond Exchange, where the country traded its gems last year.
The journal further claimed bloody clashes between the military and civilians in Marange in 2005/2006 although no evidence was cited to back up the assertion.
Further, the DMCC statistics indicate that Dubai diamonds imports hit US$5 billion for 67 million carats in 2013. The rise in that country’s imports was also linked to Zimbabwe, which by 2013 was enjoying full KP certification.
However, after re-exporting the US$5 billion diamonds, Dubai earned US$7,2 billion — fetching US$2,2 billion higher.
In 2010, Zimbabwe is said to have exported 50 million carats valued at US$3,2 billion which were later re-exported by Dubai for US$3,8 billion.
This was attributed to over valuation of the gems in European markets, largely by Belgian based company Omega through its subsidiary Tulip FZE which was fined US$195 million on March 14, 2013 after US$3,5 billion diamonds profits vanished due to corporate tax evasion and systematic under-invoicing.
Omega is said to have bought diamonds from Zimbabwe, the DRC and Angola before accessing a “mixed origin” KP certificate that in turn, conflated the origin of the diamonds — ironically an allegation that the KP Certification Scheme precludes.
While Government has admitted to shortcomings in the way the nascent diamond industry in Marange has been run, the State has stepped up efforts streamline operations to ensure greater value is derived from the resource.
This includes merging all diamond operations in the country under a single company that will operate as a joint venture with State participation by year-end.
Mining of diamonds in Marange started in 2005/2006 but Zimbabwe was only given full KP certification in 2010, as Western governments tried to kill the industry in its infancy. Even then, it is understood that miners like Mbada Diamonds have contributed more in that short space of time to Treasury than other firms have for all the years they have been exploiting the country’s diamond resource.
