The diamond monitor appointed to oversee Zimbabwe’s exports of its controversial stones is expected back in the country this weekend, to rubber stamp an agreement allowing the sales.

The Mines Ministry last month thrashed out the agreement with the international diamond trade watchdog, the Kimberley Process, tasked with ending the trade in ‘blood diamonds’. The agreement will let Zimbabwe export the stones from the Chiadzwa diamond fields, while agreeing to a strict regime of monitoring and supervision. Under the terms of the agreement, Zimbabwe will be allowed to export a limited number of diamonds produced since May, from two mining sites at Chiadzwa.

 
Zimbabwe will be able to export one more batch of diamonds at the start of September, but any exports after that will be dependent on measurable improvements at the diamond fields. In the meantime a Kimberley Process Review Mission, including monitor Abbey Chikane, will visit the country this weekend to assess conditions in Chiadzwa and compliance with minimum trade standards.
Observers have expressed concern that Chikane is still the Kimberley Process appointed monitor to Zimbabwe, after he was implicated in the arrest of diamond researcher Farai Maguwu. Maguwu has said that Chikane ‘shopped’ him to the police after the pair met to discuss ongoing abuses in Chiadzwa. Maguwu was arrested shortly after that meeting and was detained for more than five weeks. His eventual release was widely believed to be the result of a trade off between the government and international diamond authorities, who set Maguwu’s release as a precondition for the approval of Zimbabwe diamond sales.

The expected arrival of the Kimberley Process team this weekend has reportedly prompted an emergency cleanup operation in Chiadzwa, where reports of human rights abuses and rampant smuggling have still been surfacing. According to villagers in the area, there has been a significant increase in the number of military and police officials in the area in the last few days. A News Day report quotes villagers speaking of a clean up operation that has seen illegal diamond panners being chased away by police.

“People are in the mountains. They were chased by soldiers and the police,” said Admire Tumburwa, a villager at Hotsprings. “They were chased away. It was a serious operation,” said another villager.

By SW radio