The Kimberly Process and Zimbabwe

Abstract

The Kimberly Process and Zimbabwe By Rebecca Schonauer This paper focuses on the Kimberley Process and its faults. In doing this, I am drawing evidence from the country of Zimbabwe and its president Robert Mugabe, and demonstrating how corruption, mismanagement, and smuggling has led to the loss of millions of US dollars for the country. I am also delving into the atrocities committed by Zimbabwe’s leaders, specifically that in the Marange diamond fields. Here, extreme human rights abuses have been committed, and are still being committed by the military that now controls the area. Because of these atrocities, I pose the question of “why is Zimbabwe still a Kimberley Certified country, even when the same men in power who commanded these acts are still in power?” I will also address the serious problems within the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme itself, and use Zimbabwe and similar countries in Africa to prove its faults. Some of these include: an insufficiency of regulation, ease of smuggling across borders, a lack of infrastructure within participating countries, and the deficiency of transparency. However, there is also a lack of willpower amongst diamond companies to halt these atrocities, and the power of these companies can be documented within the process. Because of these faults, I argue that the Kimberley Process has failed to regulate and stem the flow of blood diamonds from the market, and has allowed human rights abuses to go unchecked and unpunished.