HOT SEAT: human rights campaigner Elly Harrowell
BROADCAST: – 25 JUNE 2010
VIOLET GONDA: Member states and partners of the Kimberley Process, an organization set up eight years ago to eradicate the trade in blood diamonds, failed to reach agreement on whether to allow Zimbabwe to resume its trade in diamonds from the controversial Chiadzwa fields. To get the details on the outcome of the KP meeting in Israel, I spoke to human rights campaigner Elly Harrowell from Global Witness – an organisation that is a member of the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition. I first asked her to tell us what happened at the meeting.
ELLY HARROWELL: Well as you know, the meeting in Israel was a long meeting, quite a difficult meeting. We spent a lot of time discussing the situation in Zimbabwe and whether or not exports of rough diamonds from Marange could go ahead. We were at the negotiating table for a very, very long time. These talks went on through the night up to 5.30 in the morning and were even reconvened after the conference had officially closed. So there were a lot of people trying very hard to find a way through this crisis but unfortunately as it stands, we weren’t able to find consensus on a way forward. We’ve come out of this meeting still with a few questions hanging in the air but I would say that I think that the negotiations aren’t over and I think there is a lot of will on the part of all members of the Kimberley Process to try and work together over the next few weeks to find a solution to this problem.
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