Most people don’t realise the sheer size and potential of Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields. They cover a staggering 660 square  kilometres, and though there are no scientific estimates, are rumoured by industry buzz to be able to yield some 40 million carats a  year of diamonds that are on average of superior clarity and colour. In a world where the biggest diamond mines have peaked and  are now sliding into production decline while no new mines have been discovered in years, they hold the potential to completely  rewrite the future of some of the world’s biggest diamond and jewellery companies.

Unfortunately, for the past three years, Marange has also witnessed the kind of brutal human rights abuses – murder, rape, loot,  assault, arbitrary detention and forced labour – that triggered a horrific civil war in Sierra Leone that also engulfed Liberia and funded  an equally horrifying conflict in Angola between the government and UNITA rebels led by Jonas Savimbi. These brutal wars and their  funding by the mining of alluvial diamonds, also led to the coining of the term “blood diamonds”.

Trying to untangle the situation is a group of governments, non-governmental organisations and the global diamond industry, who are  all part of an international monitoring and audit system known as the Kimberley Process. The KP, as it is universally known as,  came into being as a result of campaigning by non-governmental organisations like Global Witness, Partnership Africa Canada and  others, that exposed the role of diamonds in funding the terrible conflicts in Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia. The system’s aim is to  exclude conflict diamonds from international markets and prevent diamond-fuelled wars.

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