Consequently, the support Zimbabwe has enjoyed from non-Western countries stems from its just cause and also the common identification of not only the other’s justness
but also the common denominator of fighting the evil West.
The Herald
By Tichaona Zindoga
ON paper, the recent sale of Zimbabwe’s stockpiled Chiadzwa diamonds through the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme can be said to have lacked the drama and heroism or pseudo-heroism that characterised the countrys protracted battle to get the nod from the Eurocentric-compromised watchdog, .
Zimbabwe has been constantly under siege from Western countries who have been barring the legitimate exploitation and sale of diamonds from the eastern part of the country since Government moved to stem illegal activities and regularise mining in the area following the discovery of the mineral in 2006.
What generally followed the August 11 certification and sale of 900 000 carats, worth US$72 million, was something between a sense of vindication on Zimbabwe’s part and the grudging announcements by the Western and affiliated media of the development and futile attempts to ratchet up the discredited "blood diamonds" tag on Zimbabwe’s gems.
Interestingly, only recently, the person of one Farai Maguwu, being described as a "diamond" or "human rights" activist had been celebrated in Western capitals for his role in criminalising and bloodying Zimbabwe’s gems, a supposedly meritorious role in the context of the KP’s principles.
(The KP is a group of governments, human rights organisations and diamond industry formed in 2003 to stem the flow of "conflict" or "blood" diamonds financing rebel wars.)
After Maguwu was arrested for allegedly peddling prejudicial information to KP monitor Mr Abbey Chikane, groups and countries in the US, Canada, Australia and the Euorpean Union and groups they sponsor, went overdrive and attempted to make a martyr of him.
His was the coup of a KP meeting in Tel Aviv, Israel, in June at which the anti-Zimbabwe members of the consensus-seeking body led to an inconclusive ending to the meeting on top of seeking to redefine "blood" diamonds to include those from Zimbabwe.
But then came the World Diamond Council July meeting in St Petersburg, in Russia, which granted Zimbabwe the right to export its Chiadzwa diamonds.
The meeting set conditions for the sale of the gems, which was followed by the recent certification and sale, to be followed by another in September.
If there is a compelling need to make heroes, in the fashion of the villainous Maguwu (or Newman Chiadzwa, that villainous "diamond chief") and the foreign legion then there is generally to be a strong recognition of the efforts of Abbey Chikane and the African diamond producers.
This might also include the other progressive world forces that make the majority of 75-member KP and the Zimbabwe Government’s commitment to the process, which led Mines Minister Obert Mpofu to declare that "we have nothing to hide".
The one urge to point to the person of South African Chikane is a strong one.
After two monitoring and fact-finding missions to Zimbabwe, Chikane bravely gave the country’s gems a clean bill of health, and in the process playing a huge part in the unprecedented split in the KP as seen in Tel Aviv as he contradicted the demands of the powerful Western lobby.
For a moment, the West and their civil society lobbyists forgot his distinguished standing as a professional, businessman and founding chair of the KP — and how his involvement in Zimbabwe came about, which is subject for discussion below.
Interestingly, his actions have also not been without question in Zimbabwe, especially when he was seen to have been influenced by Zimbabwe’s detractors during one of his itineraries.
But on August 11 Chikane said he had striven to ensure that Zimbabwe qualified for certification, which of course entailed him pointing out both the strenths and weaknesses of the Zimbabwean system until the country attained the "minimum" requirements.
"Throughout my visits," he related, "I have spent a lot of time on how Zimbabwe can qualify for certification."
Chikane is none other than the product of the November 2009 Swakopmund (Namibia) KP Plenary in which he was appointed monitor to Zimbabwe under the Joint Work Plan.
He was tasked with addressing "the indications of serious non-compliance with KP’s minimum requirements" identified in July 2009 when Zimbabwe’s diamonds exports had been suspended.
A middle-ground product of mainly African parties that wanted to see progress in Zimbabwe and a Western lobby that wanted Zimbabwe booted out altogether he was to see to it that Zimbabwe honoured its commitments to ensure diamond mining in the Marange area in full compliance with the KP.
His role involved liaising with the government in assessing implementation of the Joint Work Plan and report the same to the Kimberley Process.
He would also be involved in the process of supervising exports of Marange diamonds in compliance with KP minimum requirements.
Unfortunately, it was within the discharge of this mandate, including on August 11, that he faced severe challenges, including the ignominy of having his professional integrity being questioned some motley opposition bands who are mere observers at the KP.
It was within this mandate that he also witnessed, undoubtedly with utmost disgust, puerile efforts to bend the rules and change working definitions at intersessionary meetings and apply non-existent rules against Zimbabwe.
But KP’s fiasco cannot also be delineated from the geopolitics that has characterised Zimbabwe and the world over the past decade.
In which case, the hounding of Zimbabwe at KP by Western countries in the EU, America, Canada, and Australia is but an extension of the destructive engagement they have wrought since Zimbabwe decided to empower her people through the land reform programme.
Historically, the same forces have in the past centuries visited appalling economic, social and political abuses upon the "lesser peoples" of the African and Asian worlds.
The current unipolar world dominated by the West has sought to entrench the same abuses.
Consequently, the support Zimbabwe has enjoyed from non-Western countries stems from its just cause and also the common identification of not only the other’s justness but also the common denominator of fighting the evil West.
The particular support of African nations has been invaluable. The drafting of the decisive Swakopmund Joint Work Plan in the revolutionary country of Namibia and the subsequent appointment of Chikane is one major point.
The second is the support at both Tel Aviv and St Petersburg.
It was at St Petersburg that African countries, led by diamond rich Namibia, threatened to leave the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme if Zimbabwe was not allowed to market its diamonds freely.
This forced the KP into the two-batch sale decision on Zimbabwe.
As expected, Western countries in the KP had wanted to block Zimbabwe’s certification despite Chikane’s favourable report on Zimbabwe.
The fact that African countries are in fact the largest diamond producers in the world, accounting for some 61 percent, makes their solidarity with Zimbabwe which is said to be able to contribute about a quarter of the world’s gems a matter of course and virtue.
The African Diamond Council’s recent assurance of the organisation’s support of Zimbabwe in spite of Western attempts ty bloody the country's gems is in order.
ADC has said that Zimbabwe’s membership in the African Diamond Council "is incessant and was never in jeopardy despite interminable demands from the Kimberley Process, the World Diamond Council, the World Federation of Diamond Bourses and the US Department of State".
The ADC had previously advised Zimbabwe to preclude any intercession coming from Western-based diamond establishments and organisations interested in preventing the sale of Zimbabwean diamonds on the world market.
The organisation had also designated members of its intergovernmental branch, the African Diamond Producers’ Association to travel Marange mining area on a fact-finding mission recently.
The delegation in question comprised of representatives from South Africa, DRC, Angola, Sierra Leone and Mauritania and copincided with certificatiuon of Zimbabwe diamonds.
It coincided with another comprising of Liberia, Australia, Brazil, Ghana, India and Namibia.
The dominance of African players no doubt led to the strongly African motif at the certification ceremony on August 11.
It was a due honour to African heroes of Zimbabwe’s diamond struggle
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