Jerusalem - Representatives from more than 40 countries gathered in Jerusalem Monday as the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) plenary session kicked off its four-day conference.
The session, which aims to eliminate illicit trade in rough diamonds, is expected to focus mainly on Zimbabwe, and in particular on the review mission to the Maranage diamond fields, which the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) said was a focus of abuse and smuggling.
The meeting will discuss reports on the implementation of a Joint Work Programme (JWP) agreed with Zimbabwe last November, and will also consider a report of a mission in June to review progress on the implementation of the JWP.
According to HRW, Zimbabwean police and army 'have used brutal force' to control access to the (Marange) diamond fields and to take over unlicensed diamond mining and trading.'
The organization also charges that some of the income generated by the fields is being channeled to top members of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.
The KPCS session is scheduled to end on November 4.
The Process was set up in 2003, as a forum of countries which produce and trade in rough diamonds, in order to provide a global system to supervise the trade.
The UN Security Council charged the process with preventing the trade in rough diamonds which originate in areas controlled by resistance groups, and preventing profits from the sale of these diamonds from being used by the resistance groups.
According to the Israel Diamond Institute, in the past 7 years, the Process has succeeded in reducing the trade in conflict diamonds to about 1 per cent of all rough diamonds traded.
