Contested Diamond Certification: Reconfiguring Global and National Interests in Zimbabwe’s Marange Fields

Abstract

Abstract:This study examines the political uses of "conflict diamond" discourse in global debates about commodity certification and socially responsible mining in Zimbabwe. Engaging critical literature on "conflict-free" corporate branding initiatives, the study focuses on representations of conflict in Marange, in Zimbabwe's eastern highlands. In 2006, a diamond rush in Marange drew in tens of thousands of artisanal miners from across Zimbabwe as well as foreigners, and the government initiated military crackdowns in 2008. In a highly contested vote in 2009, the international government delegates who comprised the voting members in the Kimberley Process Certification System (KPCS) ruled that conflict in Marange did not meet the KPCS definitions of "conflict diamond." The study examines discourses of key stakeholders in the multinational diamond industry, human rights organizations, policymakers as well as artisanal miners in Zimbabwe between 2006 and 2014. The article argues that advocacies against diamond certification as well as advocacies favouring certification both tended to overlook the interests of artisanal miners, focusing narrowly on certain forms of conflict while associating artisanal mining with illicitness. The Marange case illustrates how conventional discourses on "conflict diamonds" not only obscure the complex nature of conflicts in contemporary capitalist accumulation processes; they also risk contributing to new forms of structural violence. This analysis highlights the need to pay careful attention to how global commodity certification discourses inter-relate with political agendas at multiple scales. The study draws attention to dilemmas for geographers when portraying the interests of marginalized groups in -and affected by -the diamond mining sector.

Borderland migration, mining and transfrontier conservation: questions of belonging along the Zimbabwe–Mozambique border

“…Following the infamous diamond rush in Marange in the eastern region of Zimbabwe, which brought global attention to diamond smuggling routes through the Chimanimani region (Saunders and Nyamunda 2016;Spiegel 2015a), new discoveries within the Chimanimani region drew migration for mineral extraction activity. Mainstream conservation discourse have projected both mobility of artisanal miners and panning operations in negative terms, associating these with ecosystem disruption particularly destruction of streams and watersheds (see also Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund-CEPF-Research Report by Timberlake et al 2016;Mawere 2011).…”

Cleaning mineral supply chains? Political economies of exploitation and hidden costs of technical fixes

“…A second hidden cost was the biased standard defining 'conflict diamonds', which allowed governments to commit human rights abuses with impunity; something that became increasingly apparent as some civil society organizations initially outside the KPCSsuch as Doctors Without Borders -documented abuses against artisanal miners and local communities by state security forces and corporations in Angola following the end of the war with UNITA in 2001 (Smillie, 2014). These initial criticisms were shared and amplified by NGOs that had pushed for the creation of the KPCS following a military crackdown ordered by the late President Robert Mugabe against artisanal miners in 2008 in Marange district, eastern Zimbabwe -rationalized in the name of complying with the KPCS (Spiegel, 2015). In the midst of the deep economic and political crisis affecting the country, the newly discovered alluvial diamond deposits had become a vital source of income for thousands of artisanal miners -and their families -who had migrated to Marange from across the country (Maguwu, 2013).…”

“…Two years later, Global Witness, which had spearheaded the conflict diamonds campaign and pushed for the KPCS, withdrew from an initiative decried for its limited scope and its protection of elite interests at the expense of the mining poor. Meanwhile, Zimbabwean state officials continued for several years to use the KPCS to justify military action, leading to sexualized violence, forceful exclusion of populations who had long ties to the land, and intensified food insecurity (Saunders & Nyamunda, 2016;Spiegel, 2015).…”

Towards Sustainable Pro-Poor Development? A Critical Assessment of Fair Trade Gold

“…It is beyond the scope of this paper to delve into the details about why this is the case but in most instances, it is -to elaborate on points raised in the previous section of this paper -due to a combination of bureaucratic registration processes and costly licensing fees, which confine most of the region's ASM operators to the informal economy. Examples include Ghana, where miners must pay thousands of US dollars in license and environmental permit fees (Hilson et al, 2016;Hilson and Maconachie, 2017); Liberia, where, in order to use machinery, individuals must obtain a Class B License, which requires payment of a US$5000 fee, renewable annually (Hinton et al, 2010;Van Bockstael, 2014); and Zimbabwe, where achieving compliance with technical specifications and bureaucratic processes associated with registration and licensing can take many years (Spiegel, 2012(Spiegel, , 2015. There is the added difficulty of securing viable plots in a rent-seeking 'space' controlled by host governments: in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and other areas of the developing world for that matter, vast sections of land have been demarcated to multinational mining and mineral exploration companies in exchange for royalties, taxes and other miscellaneous payments.…”