HARARE – Zimbabwe should be banned from the world diamond market because of human rights violations and other irregularities at the country’s notorious Marange diamond field, a Kimberley Process (KP) review mission has recommended in its final report.

The mission called for a temporary ban of six months or more to allow Zimbabwe time to comply with KP standards and said should the country opt to “self-suspend” the KP “should undertake necessary processes to implement the self-suspension” because Harare could not be trusted to implement recommendations without supervision.

The hard-hitting report -- which we publish in full on this site -- accused Zimbabwean authorities of knowingly permitting illicit diamond trading and said Harare attempted to mislead the probe team in a bid to conceal involvement of government entities in both extra-judicial violent attacks on illegal panners and diamond smuggling.

The mission that visited Zimbabwe last June had in an interim report urged Harare to withdraw the army and police from the Marange field that is also known as Chiadzwa, saying the security forces had committed right abuses there.

The mission’s final report is expected to be tabled at the KP meeting scheduled to begin on November 2 in Namibia.

“The Participation Committee should consider …. suspension of Zimbabwe for a period of at least six months, or until such a time as a KP team determines that minimum requirements have been met,” the mission said in its recommendations to the KP and the World Diamond Council.

It added: “If Zimbabwe opts to self-suspend, then the KP should undertake the necessary processes to implement the self suspension.”

Harare seized the Marange claim from British-based mining firm African Consolidated Resources Plc (ACR) in October 2006 and allocated the claim to state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation.

But thousands of illegal diamond miners and dealers soon descended on Marange to mine and sell the precious stones that at the height of the diamond rush were being sold to traders coming from all over the world including Israel, Lebanon and Guyana.

President Robert Mugabe’s government reacted in 2008 by sending soldiers and police to Marange to flush out the illegal miners, dealers and traders.

But human rights groups say police and soldiers used excessive and brutal force to take control of the diamond field and that the security forces later began forcing villagers to illegally mine the diamonds for sale on the black market for precious minerals.

It is a position supported by the KP mission that said it found evidence of evidence of gross human rights violations and other illegal activities allegedly committed by security forces at Marange.

The review team that was led by Liberian deputy planning and development minister Kpandel Fayia said in its report that illegal panners and community leaders they interviewed gave harrowing tales of abuse by the soldiers, including rape.

It said: “The victims included women who reported that, while under the custody of the security forces, they were raped repeatedly by military officers and that they have been forced to engage in sex with illegal diamond miners.

“One victim told the team that she tested HIV positive after she had been forced to have sex with two men and then raped by a military officer.”

Mines Minister Obert Mpofu was not immediately available for comment on the matter. But the government has in the past denied allegations of human rights abuses and said calls to ban diamonds from the controversial diamond field were unjustified because Zimbabwe was not involved in a war or armed conflict.

The army and police, with the support of the government, have refused to leave the diamond field whose ownership remains contested after a High Court judge ruled last September that the Marange claim belonged to ACR.

But the government has indicated it would appeal against the ruling recognising the British firm’s rights to the diamond claims.

By Zimonline