Mixed Reaction to India’s push to Lift Export-Ban on Zimbabwean ‘Blood Diamonds’.

Despite a slew of bad public relations that comes with doing business with what has been termed a “pariah regime,” Indian diamond merchants are eager to extend a warm welcome to Zimbabwe’s vast stores of rough stones. Any ethical considerations, if any, are consigned to the dustbin.

The Kimberly Process is a certification scheme designed to ensure trade in diamonds do not fund violence. And India is on a collision course with the Kimberly Process as it wants resumption of exports from Zimbabwe. The Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe are regarded as the world’s biggest diamond find in more than a century. They are also the source of blood diamonds.

At a Kimberly Process meeting in Jerusalem last week, India advocated the lifting of a suspension on the export of rough diamonds from the Marange diamond field, according to diamond industry players and human rights observers who were present at the meet. Their take: economic considerations outweigh ethical ones.

“India supported the resumption of diamond exports from Zimbabwe,” said Rona Peligal, acting director, Africa division, Human Rights Watch, whose representatives attended the meeting. “It seems India is not very willing to take a moral stand because the financial benefits are so great.”

Last month, the Surat Rough Diamond Sourcing India Ltd (SRDSIL), a 1,500-member-strong consortium of diamond cutters and polishers, sealed a $1.2 billion deal with Zimbabwe’s government to train Zimbabweans as diamond cutters and polishers, in exchange for a direct supply of rough diamonds. Included is a guaranteed purchase of $100 million a month in rough diamonds from the Marange fields, which have been plagued by allegations of rampant human rights violations.

SRDSIL has drawn flak for its efforts to lobby with the Indian government to endorse the import of diamonds from Zimbabwe. It may be recalled that exports from Zimbabwe were suspended last year for noncompliance with the Kimberley Process human rights standards, pending a vote at its annual plenary.

The meeting, incidentally, ended on November 7 without reaching a consensus on diamonds from Zimbabwe. In the wake of the stalemate, Zimbabwe said it would look to resume diamond exports immediately.

SRDSIL spokesperson and legal advisor Nirav Jogani said that the consortium will await the Kimberley approval before importing Zimbabwe diamonds but added, “India backs the entry of Zimbabwe into the Kimberley Process, because to keep such a large source of diamonds outside the legitimate loop has its own problems.”

“There are many countries that are outside the Kimberley Process and if diamonds don’t enter the mainstream, they will flood the market at low prices and destabilise the market,” Jogani said.

Asked to comment on the ethical issues about importing diamonds from Zimbabwe, Rajiv Jain, chairman of the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council, said, “The council has no authority to decide on ethical issues. They are decided by the governments of the world. But if Zimbabwe diamonds come to India, it will be an added bonus because there are in a large quantity and we have the ability to cut and polish them.”

India is a major diamond manufacturing centre, where 11 out of 12 diamonds in the world are cut, polished and processed. “The wishful thinking among the trade is that everything will be fine and that we will have a decision within a month’s time,” Jain said.

Cecilia Gardner, chief executive officer and general counsel of the Jeweler’s Vigilance Committee, a diamond industry monitor, who was at the Jerusalem plenary, said, “The debate in Jerusalem on Zimbabwe centred on whether that country’s government had made significant strides in issues such as stopping the smuggling of Marange diamonds, withdrawing the army from the diamond fields, and improving living and working conditions of the miners.”

Human Rights Watch’s Peligal said that representatives from Zimbabwe accused their detractors of blocking Zimbabwe’s ascension on fears that “Zimbabwe will flood that market with cheap diamonds.”

Sangeeta Dewan, head of design studio for jewellery retailer Tanishq, said that the issue of conflict diamonds or blood diamonds doesn’t resonate in India like it does in the West. “This is not a concept that is widespread in India, to the extent that everybody knows about it,” she said.

Dewan said that awareness of the troubled history of certain diamonds diverges on age and class lines. “The young, educated, upper-middle class and elite women, many of whom are in the workforce, who buy more frequently and buy bigger stones, are the people who ask where the diamonds originate from.”

She added, “There is a large part of the market that is not aware of the concept of conflict diamonds. These are older women, maybe wives of businessmen who are not as educated.”

The issue of conflict diamonds, though, is more on the radar of the bigger diamond brands in India, which might not want to get involved with Zimbabwe diamonds, regardless of what the Kimberley Process decides, Dewan said.

“Companies like Tanishq will stay clear of the Zimbabwe situation. It’s best not to wade into that controversy,” she said.

Source : tehelka.com