Real Martyrs

–It took the lives of many diamond diggers to refocus attention on the lax human rights enforcement, making those lives those of real martyrs–A few years ago the movie “Blood Diamonds” publicized the relationship between diamond and human rights. Since 2003 a human rights group, Global Witness, set up the Kimberley Process, whereby the mining and sale of diamonds is to meet human rights standards. Whether or not the certification the Kimberley Process entails is working, is now moot. One of the reasons is the alleged massacre last year of diamond diggers by the Zimbabwe military. The diamond trade has long been suspected of providing funds for the regime or at least to those who benefit from it. There have also been other infringements leading Annie Dunnebcke, a spokeswoman for Global Witness, to say “the clock is running out on Kimberley Process credibility. As a result officials are now meeting in Namibia to discuss how the certification process can mean something again.
It took the lives of many including those 150 diggers in Zimbabwe to bring the issue to the table once again. If that’s true, then those lives belong to real martyrs.