ADC Chairman’s observations of the Kimberley Process Inter-sessional Meeting

Yesterday was the first day of the Kimberley Process (KP) Intersessional Meetings in Washington and what has become most apparent are the essentials that each participant was previously conscious of.

Many of us are fully aware that the Kimberley Process Diamond Certification Scheme (KPCS) was set up specifically to prevent rebel movements from using the trade to fund civil wars.

The scheme has summarized this specific guiding principle in its original decree and can take much-deserved credit for assisting to efficiently hinder this type of heinous activity.

The scheme has developed a set of “minimum” requirements that each member must meet and these provisions do not have a direct bearing on how rough diamonds are presently being mined and traded on the African continent.

The existing structure imparts an elevated level of influence to those who may not have direct access to all that is currently ravaging the front-end of the African diamond industry.

Keep in mind that the KP is not an international ‘organization’ and has no permanent offices or staff, which leaves the course wide open for unjustifiable permeation and exploitation by those presently administering it.

The KP administration relies on the offerings of its participants, which means that it is more often than not financed by the rear or back-end of the industry, together with several civil society observers who tend to benefit from the trade rather significantly.

Since this intersessional meeting is heaving with jewelers as well as those who represent the back-end and their interests, it has become quite mandatory and necessary for the KP Chair to set off on an insistent campaign and search for external allies.

State Department officials may not toil with the complexities of getting entry visas to African nations, but many are losing their capacity to coerce Heads of State and African Ministers who at present, choose to independently lead.

Since the African Diamond Council (ADC) consists of African diamond-producing Heads of State, Mining Ministers as well as the controllers of each state-owned diamond company, our foremost mission is to assertively encourage each member to repudiate and disallow the initial premise that a “so-called” superpower is a more effective resource of turning out leaders that are more powerful, more competent, more in control than they are.

U.S. officials are now beginning to become more conscious that African nations now possess a fated quantity of international credence and deference.

At the same time, KP administrators have finally recognized that it must continue to obscure its nation’s monopolistic approach by giving way to Zimbabwean Minister Obert Mpofu’s presence yet again.

Minister Mpofu’s attendance at the meetings may have initially been planned as a premeditated crucifixion gathering, but it will undeniably be converted into a much-welcomed mark of respect for each and every ADC and corresponding ADPA member.

The KP Chair’s latest visit to Angola last week in addition to her considerable and most recent enthrallment with South African Mining Minister Susan Shabangu and Endiama’s Carlos Sumbula proves that the KP is not only desperate to regain its contaminated footing, credibility and effectiveness, but it is also an unambiguous indication and admission that the U.S. State Department has lost its impetus on the African continent.

The current scheme never was (and is not considered to be) an international agreement, especially from a legal point of view, because the lobbying system is fundamentally carried out through the national legislations of its “not so obliging and tolerant” participants.

The scheme suddenly became antiquated and is unsuccessful at this point, because it was not able to address Human Rights issues, does not forestall smuggling and is unquestionably not a provision for protecting the African environment.

In addition, the existing system has never achieved any bona fide victory in tracking stones from mine to consumer, it does not prevent ‘diamonds being mined as a result of human suffering’ and the diamond success that Angola has achieved in recent times, should not be attributed to overseas leadership, supervision or control.

The Kimberley Process Diamond Certification scheme has proved to be more successful at undermining itself as well as everything that it had hoped to effectively stand since its existence.

Washington DC is a long way from the African diamond fields it has hopes to exclusively administer in the future and while many KP supporters continue to lose time fantasizing about establishing a permanent base of operations that they can have full command over, the ADC will continue to offer defense, guidance and clarity for its members in anticipation of the Plenary Meetings in November.

‎”The eyes have become useless because the mind is sightless” is the message I am sending to participating KP nations, interconnected groups/organizations, African Heads of State, their Mining Ministers as well as potential diamond consumers all over the world.

– Dr. André A. Jackson, Chairman

African Diamond Council (ADC) and its African Diamond Producers Association (ADPA)

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