14 comply with KP regulations and in August the first public auction took place during which 900,000 carats of Marange diamonds were sold, worth US$46 million. “US-based Rapaport Diamond Trading Network advised its more than 10,000 international diamond buyer and supplier members to boycott … and threatened to expel and blacklist anyone taking part in the auction.” 55 [Zimbabwe Reporter claims that the first auction yielded US$30 million.] 56 The Telegraph (UK) noted that the auction went ahead after the gems had been certified as conflictfree by KP monitor Abbey Chikane, attracting buyers from Belgium, Russia, India, Israel, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. Human rights groups said the deal helped to avert a crisis in the international diamond market since President Mugabe was threatening to sell the diamonds without certification. 57 Finance Minister Tendai Biti told Parliament in his budget statement in January 2011 that US$2 million had disappeared from the second auction, which took place in September 2010 and that the money had disappeared at the MMCZ. He told Zimbabwe Reporter that he “only had financial detail on the two ‘limited’ auctions of gems from Marange held in August and September” but that there had been “three subsequent sales which they (MMCZ) have not remitted.” 58 Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a press release on November 1, 2010, stating that “the KP should not allow the export of further shipments until there was meaningful progress to end smuggling and abuses by the army.” HRW said they “had learned that the KP team sent in to review conditions in the fields in August [2010]” had been “routinely obstructed by government officials from conducting its activities and had been unable to gather crucial information about conditions in the majority of the diamond fields.” 59 On March 21, 2011, Mathieu Yamba of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who took over the revolving position of KP chairman from Boaz Hirsch of Israel, “unilaterally authorised Zimbabwe to resume exports of Marange diamonds …. ‘from the compliant mining operations of Mbada and 55 International Crisis Group, ‘Time to rethink the Kimberley Process: The Zimbabwean case’, 4 November 2010, pg 5: http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/africa/southern-africa/zimbabwe/op-eds/time-to-rethink-thekimberley-process-the-zimbabwe-case.aspx 56 nd Zimbabwe Reporter, ‘US$2m vanishes from 2 Marange diamond auction’, 25 January 2011: http://zimbabwereporter.com/business/2473.html 57 The Telegraph (UK), ‘Zim auctions 900,000 carats of diamonds’ 11 August, 2010: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/7940142/Zimbabweauctions-900000-carats-of-diamonds.html 58 nd Zimbabwe Reporter, ‘US$2m vanishes from 2 Marange diamond auction’, 25 January 2011: http://zimbabwereporter.com/business/2473.html 59 Human Rights Watch, ‘Kimberley Process: Demand end to abuses in diamond trade’, media release, 1 November 2010: http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/10/29/kimberley-process-demand-end-abuses-diamond-trade