HARARE, Zimbabwe, July 16 (UPI) -- The Kimberley Process, the group regulating international trade in conflict diamonds, has allowed Zimbabwe to resume limited export of the stones.
The agreement came after Zimbabwe freed an activist arrested in June for giving false information on conditions in the country's diamond fields to investigators, the BBC reported. The deal, which allows Zimbabwe to sell some of the stones from the Marange fields, was reached in negotiations in Russia.
The Zimbabwean army seized the Marange fields in 2008, and some reports have said Marange diamonds are funding the Zanu-PF Party headed by President Robert Mugabe. Mugabe threatened in February to leave the Kimberley Process, but Obert Mpofu, the minister of mines, said this week Zimbabwe is "ready and willing" to work with the organization.
"The ball is now in Zimbabwe's court to make good on its promises and act to end one of the most egregious cases of diamond-related violence for many years," Annie Dunnebacke of Global Witness said. "We fervently hope that the governments in the Kimberley Process will, for their part, hold Zimbabwe to its commitments in order to begin to restore the battered integrity of the scheme."
The Kimberley Process was created in 2002 to deal with allegations that "blood diamonds" were funding human rights violators, especially in Africa.
