(Rapaport…October 25, 2002) Several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are going to next week’s World Diamond Congress to demand the trade in illicit conflict diamonds be ended immediately. Leading diamantaires say that’s exactly what they’re doing — both at the Congress and at the November 5 Kimberley Process summit in Switzerland.
“Twenty percent of the diamonds sold worldwide are illicitly traded. Some of these diamonds are used to buy weapons for rebel groups in Africa, as well as financing conflicts. And yet diamond traders have failed to act,” said Alex Yearsley of Global Witness, who called Kimberley a “public relations sham.”
Eli Izhakoff, chairman of the World Diamond Council, said in response that the NGOs do not recognize the gravity of the decisions about to be made.
“This kind of rhetoric is unhelpful and unjustified,” Izhakoff said. “I believe that we have done everything we needed to do. We are on the eve of approving the industry’s voluntary chain of warranties at the World Diamond Congress in London. And, in partnership with the governments and the NGOs, we are on the verge of launching the Kimberley Process certification system in Interlaken, Switzerland.”
The NGOs are also calling on the industry to publish the details of its warranty chain, implement credible and independent monitoring, develop penalties for those who continue to trade in conflict diamonds and educate the entire industry about the new conflict-free paradigm.
At least one of the NGOs’ demands was explicitly met today when Jim Keegan, the former head of KPMG Certification Services, announced the formation of International Diamond Certification, Ltd., a private firm which will audit diamond dealers and certify their stones under Kimberley. Various countries are working out their own penalties for non-compliance — in the United States, false certification would be a violation of a company’s Customs declaration.