Civil society note on the Kimberley Process meeting in India, June 17-19.

Fatal Transactions was present at the Intersessional meeting of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. In the running up to this meeting, Fatal Transactions published a short paper on the diamond situation in Côte d’Ivoir, a country still under UN embargo. The paper will be online soon.

The following press release was issued by the KP Civil Society Coalition, of which Fatal Transactions is member:

‘The withdrawal of Venezuela from the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) on Tuesday solves a longstanding problem in terms of Venezuelan non-compliance with KPCS minimum standards.

It does not solve the problem of where Venezuelan diamonds are going when they leave the country. This issue – the continued flow of illicit diamonds, whether from Venezuela, Côte d’Ivoire or anywhere else – remains a concern, and greater vigilance is still required. In the future, the Kimberley Process will have to pay greater attention, inter alia, to artisanal alluvial diamond mining and to rough diamonds that are supplied to cutting and polishing processes. These diamonds, to a large extent, remain beyond the purview of the KPCS and so diamond statistics at this level escape serious scrutiny and oversight.

The Intersessional meeting made progress on interim measures for dealing with issues of non-compliance and better analysis of data that might lead to early detection of conflict diamonds. The KP has put a positive emphasis on specific issues related to conflict diamonds emanating from Côte d’Ivoire – both in understanding the nature and size of the issue and in attempting to halt the flow through neighbouring countries.

We thank the Government of India for its effective and efficient management of the KP Intersessional meeting and for its warm hospitality, and we look forward to further positive developments between now and the KP plenary in November.’