A Plea to suspend Zimbabwe from the Kimberley Process

Farai Maguwu, director of the Centre for Research and Development (CRD) from Zimbabwe, is in Europe. He is here to lobby, together with other civil society organisations, for a suspension of Zimbabwe from the Kimberley Process.

The CRD is currently the only human rights organisation in Zimbabwe reporting on the atrocities going on in the country’s diamond fields. Farai Maguwu has shown in many occasions that in the diamond fields innocent people are being raped and murdered. Therefore, he visited policymakers and politicians in The Hague, Geneva, Brussels and Berlin to convince them to condemn the human rights abuses and to take action.

Farai Maguwu makes three demands:

1. To demilitarise the Maranga diamond fields;
2. To invest the ongoing human rights abuses; and
3. To suspend Zimbabwe from the Kimberley Process until the situation has been dealt with and improved

In November, the members of the Kimberley Process will decide whether or not Zimbabwe will be suspended.

Download the recently published briefing note ‘Conflict Diamonds from Zimbabwe’ here >

For more information on the Kimberley Process click here >

For two earlier news items on conflict diamonds from Zimbabwe click here and here >