Statement made on 02 December 2010 by Senator Roméo Dallaire
Hon. Roméo Antonius Dallaire:
Honourable senators, the world's attempt to control blood diamonds is teetering on the brink of collapse as nations squabble over how to regulate the lucrative trade from Zimbabwe's violence-plagued diamond fields.
The sensational Zimbabwe diamond discovery, which could represent up to 25 per cent of the world's supply of rough diamonds within two years, has massive implications for the world's diamond industry, in which Canada is now one of the top producers.
If no agreement is reached, it will further damage the credibility of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme for Rough Diamonds that aims to eliminate blood diamonds. Canada was one of the main architects of the Kimberley Process.
This could be a final chance for the seven-year-old Kimberley Process. If its 75 member countries fail to settle the Zimbabwe question and fail to deal with the growing list of producers that smuggle diamonds to avoid the certification scheme, the process could be doomed.
The term "blood diamond" comes from the use of illegal diamonds by illicit trade or by certain countries in continuing war, internal conflict and massive abuses of human rights. The term "blood" also comes from the fact that children who are used to mine those diamonds mine in open holes, holes that resemble the battlefield holes we saw of World War I. Many of the children digging up those diamonds drown in the water at the bottom of those holes. Blood diamonds are exactly what the name implies. They are from the blood of children and from massive abuses of human rights of an enormous population by people who are neither being held accountable in front of the International Criminal Court nor being pursued to be held accountable by nations like Canada, a founding member of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme.
Honourable senators, if you wish to buy a diamond, buy a Canadian diamond.