By IRNA,
London : The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) is seeking to expose the “contamination of the global diamond market with Israeli blood diamonds” ahead of the annual meeting of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KP) in Beit ul-Moqaddas.
“The Kimberley Process is a charade designed to convince the public that the trade in blood diamonds has ended when in fact the process facilitates the trade in Israeli blood diamonds and embellishes them with the title ‘conflict free’,” said IPSC national committee member Sean Clinton.
Clinton said it was imperative for the EU to challenge the narrow focus of the certification scheme, adopted in 2003, which is “insufficient to guard against serious Israeli violations of human rights.”
The KP process is designed to certify the origin of rough diamonds from sources which are free of conflict fuelled by diamond production and aims to assure consumers that they were not financing war and human rights abuses when purchasing diamond products.
Clinton, a Limerick-based researcher, has published several articles, highlighting the deception of the process, which only tracks the trading of rough diamonds for illicit purposes, while ignoring the war crimes of Israel being the world’s largest exporter of cut and polished diamonds.
“The process also only applies to rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments and does not apply to human rights abuse carried out by countries,” he told IRNA.
On Saturday, the eve of Israel chairing the annual meeting, IPSC is holding a national day of street activities and petitioning across Ireland as part of its campaign calling for a review of the UN-based system of regulation intended to prevent trade in diamonds that fund human rights abuses.
“Diamonds account for over 30% of Israel’s total manufacturing exports and was worth nearly $20 billion in 2008,” he said in emphasising the importance of the market in the boycott campaign against Israel.
The IPSC has been lobbying members of the EU parliament to support the campaign to extend the certification scheme and has also been urging the Retail Jewellers of Ireland (RJI) organization to take up the cause.
Several NGOs have also called for a redefinition of blood diamonds that are largely on focused only on preventing the financing of conflicts in Africa.
Although welcoming the KP, Amnesty International has warned that “until the diamond trade is subject to mandatory, impartial monitoring, there is still no effective guarantee that all conflict diamonds will be identified and removed from the market.'
“This narrow definition of what constitutes a ‘conflict diamond’ lets states, such as Israel, that export polished diamonds and regularly commit war crimes completely off the hook and gives an utterly false impression to consumers that all KP certified diamonds are ‘bloodless’,” Clinton said.
“Revenue generated from the Israeli diamond industry is used to fund crimes against humanity that have been documented by a number of reports, including the Goldstone Report endorsed by the UN General Assembly with the backing of the Irish government,” he said.
Clinton said that diamonds are also not normally hallmarked and prevent consumers to distinguish an Israeli diamond from one crafted elsewhere so that at least customers would be given a choice when shopping at jewellers.
In a letter to the RJI, IPSC calls for Irish jewellers to be at the forefront in the campaign for reform of the KP and the introduction of a system to hallmark all diamonds.
“Consumers should have the right to know where a diamond is crafted and we are calling on the industry to laser inscribe or hallmark all diamonds to facilitate this,” it said.
Clinton said that there had been some success in challenging leading jewellers with ethical questions about the source of their diamonds with some avoiding to reply or removing any reference from their websites.
He said the campaign to expose global market of Israeli ‘blood diamonds’ was also growing and being pursued in such countries such as France and Belgium and with interest being shown in the UK, US and Australia.
Related articles about the Topic
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11170.shtml
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/85581
http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/israels-blood-diamonds/
http://www.israel-palestinenews.org/2010/04/israels-blood-diamonds.html
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