Zimbabwe Continues to Be Associated with Conflict Diamonds

The Kimberly Process, an international effort to put a stop in the trade of what are known as conflict diamonds, has pushed a strong rebuke against Zimbabwe for its refusal to comply with international diamond industry standards.  Zimbabwe has been under tremendous amounts of international pressure for its direct involvement in illegal mining activities and violence against civilians as a result of diamond trade sales fueling conflict in the area.

The World Federation of Diamond Bourses has strongly recommended that its members in twenty countries refrain from the illegal diamond trades operated by the Marange deposits in Eastern Zimbabwe.  These mining deposits have been the subject of numerous violations and reports of civilian abuses by the military.

Of course, governement officials have notoriously denied state-sponsored violence reports.  The state-owned newspaper has reported the Zimbabwe government’s willingness to comply with all the Kimberly Process suggestions, before they even issued their final reports.  The Zimbabwe government’s deputy mining minister has also agreed to gradually remove its soldiers from diamond mining fields as proper security forces are set in place.  There is, however, some contention that the proper security forces will simply be unofficial military forces.

Furthermore, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is hostile towards the tactics of Western nations and anyone who attempts to interfere with his rule, in spite of the numerous reports of human rights violations.