significant portion of the new government’s economic recovery program, which would
benefit ordinary villagers like the residents of Marange.
Human Rights Watch calls on the power-sharing government of Zimbabwe to remove the
military from Marange, restore security responsibilities to the police, and ensure that the
police abide by internationally recognized standards of law enforcement and the use of
lethal force. The power-sharing government should appoint a local police oversight
committee consisting of all relevant stakeholders, launch an impartial and independent
investigation into the serious human rights abuses committed there, and hold accountable
all those found to be responsible for abuses. Members of the army and police who have
committed abuses should also face disciplinary action for their crimes. The new Zimbabwe
government should strengthen resource accountability by allowing greater transparency in
how mining revenues are derived, permitting public scrutiny of the allocation of that revenue,
and protecting the basic civil and political, as well as economic and social, rights of its
citizens.
As a formal participant in the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS)—an
international scheme governing the global diamond industry—Zimbabwe has a
responsibility to immediately end the smuggling, corruption, and abuses that are taking
place in Marange and ensure effective internal control over its diamond industry. Members
of the KPCS should demand that Zimbabwe comply with the scheme’s minimum standards,
which include stopping the smuggling of diamonds from Zimbabwe, bringing Marange
diamond fields under effective legal control, and ensuring that all diamonds from Marange
are lawfully mined, documented, and exported with relevant valid Kimberley Process (KP)
certificates. The KPCS should take urgent measures to audit the Zimbabwean mining sector,
ensure that individuals involved in smuggling return their ill-gotten gains, and act to prevent
any further abuse in both the extraction and onward sales of Marange diamonds.
The Kimberley Process emerged out of a concern that rebel groups in West Africa in the
1990s were engaged in the mining and trade of conflict diamonds, which provided the
groups with revenue and permitted them to commit abuses against civilians. Human rights
concerns are implicit in the KPCS mandate, but that mandate has been too narrowly
construed by its members. Human Rights Watch calls on the KPCS to broaden its remit to
include serious and systematic abuses, not only by rebel groups in conflict, but also by other
agencies, including governmental bodies. The abuses committed by Zimbabwe’s police and
army did not occur in armed conflict, but they are as serious as those the Kimberley Process
was designed to address; for that reason, KPCS members should classify Marange diamonds
as “conflict diamonds.”
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Human Rights Watch | June 2009