Zimbabwe's vast resource wealth holds the key to its economic recovery but the ongoing debate over whether its diamonds are tainted threatens to hold the country back.
Likely to unlock the door to immediate riches, the cleaning up of Zimbabwe's image in the international diamond industry could set it up to become another Botswana, which has built its economy on diamond mining.
"The maximum exploitation of Zimbabwe's natural resources will turn the Zimbabwean economy around and, as a nation, we should not wait for Western benevolence," Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe said on Friday.
Addressing Zanu-PF's central committee at the party's headquarters in Harare, Mugabe said Zimbabwe would recover by her "wits and resources".
"It is our mineral resources - all these helped by the ingenuity and entrepreneurship of our people which will turn this economy and country around," he said.
But Zimbabwe has imposed onerous currency rules on foreign mining companies and threatened to implement its new indigenisation laws - which aim to transfer up to 51% of foreign-owned firms to Zimababweans.
From the awarding and withdrawal of prospecting rights and sending in the military, there is little to suggest that the government is an innocent party in the debacle.
Zimbabwe stands accused of failing to meet minimum human rights standards in the diamond fields and of illegally exporting thousands of carats of diamonds.
And human rights groups say abuses continue. They cite the massacre of hundreds of illegal panners and say soldiers are still engaging in forced labour and harassment.
The World Federation of Diamond Bourses on Thursday said Zimbabwe and the Marange field continue to be a concern.WFDB president Avi Paz called on all stakeholders - governments, NGOs and members of the diamond industry - to work towards a solution over diamonds from the Marange region that would be acceptable to all sides.
Paz warned the industry that diamonds originating from Marange should not be purchased until approved by the Kimberley Process Working Group on Monitoring.
He said any member trading in such merchandise would be subject to disciplinary procedures.
To date the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme has allowed the diamond industry to play an exemplary role in advancing complete transparency in the rough diamond supply pipeline.
Ironically, it is the integrity of the process that is now under threat.
Zimbabwe has been banned from selling its diamonds in the international market - something that it has threatened to ignore.
If the Kimberley Process does not act to stop the sale of diamonds from Marange, it has been warned that the market may soon be flooded with blood diamonds.
The founder of the Kimberley Process, Willie Nagel, said that Harare must be brought back into international fold to avoid destabilising global trade. Nagel said that Zimbabwe's "continued refusal to conform will undermine the Kimberley Process and destabilise the whole market".
He warned that this could lead to the US - the largest diamond market in the world - banning all imported stones, with European Union countries following suit.
* Times Live
