Pressure to stop Zimbabwe from selling its diamonds on the open market is on again as the Kimberley Process prepares to meet in Israel on Monday. Civic organisations are piling up the pressure and are being backed by the media. Britain’s Channel 4 will air a video tomorrow in which it claims that the military still runs diamond operations at Chiadzwa in Marange. Diamond panners are used as virtual slave labour, while the proceeds of smuggled diamonds go to the Zimbabwean military and middlemen, it claims. It is President Robert Mugabe’s associates that benefit, while the people of Zimbabwe get little or no return. But reports say in or out, Zimbabwe is now such a major player in the industry that it is better to allow it to trade its precious stones within the Kimberley Process system because its diamonds will get into the market one way or the other.
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