BLOOD DIAMONDS: END IN DOUBT

PRESS RELEASE

Monday, March 18, 2002 11 .am. EST

Reaching an agreement to end the scourge of "conflict" or "blood" is the demand of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) participating at the Kimberley Process meeting currently taking place in Ottawa. Along with dozens of other NGOs in North America, Europe and Africa, they are demanding a diamond certification scheme that is effective and credible. Diamond-financed wars in Angola, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo have taken more than 500,000 lives.

Governments from diamond-producing, importing and exporting countries, representatives of the world's diamond industry and concerned NGOs have been meeting to create a global certification system for rough diamonds, through the "Kimberley Process". The Ottawa meeting of the Kimberley Process is expected to be the last one of a dozen meetings that have been held since May 2000. After almost two years of meetings, however, there has been far too little progress. The tentative plan approved in Botswana in November 2001 is seriously flawed, and is it stands, will do little to change the substantial traffic in illicit and conflict diamonds. The Kimberley Process meeting in Ottawa must solve the outstanding problems and approve a global certification system that is both effective and credible.

As stated in the attached petition, NGOs from around the world are asking for a Kimberley Process agreement which provides for:

• Open and comparable production and trade statistics;
• Credible, independent monitoring of national control mechanisms;
• A competent and professional coordination mechanism;
• Resolution of the debate on whether the Kimberley Process is, or is not, WTO-compatible.

The thirty-five governments and representatives of the world's diamond industry meeting this week in Ottawa must finalize an agreement that ends the scourge of conflict diamonds. Otherwise the legitimate diamond industry, which provides hundreds of thousands of jobs in many countries, will face the growing outrage of consumers who know that the life of a child in Angola, a mother in Sierra Leone or a father in the Congo, is worth more than any diamond.

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