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The US wanted the definition to encompass any “diamond-related violence” — a definition that the Western nations can abuse to further their interests.
This was a clear attempt by Western countries to tar and feather diamonds from the Chiadzwa diamond fields that they have been trying to bar from the international market without success.
The admission by the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme chairperson, Ambassador Gillian Milovanovic that our diamonds are not blood diamonds should put to rest Western interference in the trade of our gems.
We have always argued that our diamonds are not conflict diamonds and have co-operated with the KPCS to put in place the necessary security in the diamond fields.
We have opened ourselves to the KPCS monitor and followed his recommendations.
Yet we continued to have some so-called civic bodies persisting in their campaign to have the diamonds classified as blood diamonds.
The intention has always been to stop our economy from performing, in the mistaken belief that this would abet the illegal regime change agenda.
We once again hail the KPCS member countries for seeing through the Anglo-Saxon designs at the just-ended 9th KPCS intercessional meeting in Washington DC, the United States.
As we report elsewhere in this issue, the Anglo-Saxon moves were strongly resisted by more than 90 percent of KPCS members, among them China, Russia, India and the United Arab Emirates.
We salute the KPCS Working Group on Monitoring for reiterating our compliance with the KPCS requirements.
To this end, we urge the United States to lift its ruinous sanctions regime on our economy in general and Mbada Diamonds and Marange Resources in particular.
By continuing to engage the KPCS, we have shown that we have nothing to hide. Which explains why we got the greenlight to sell our diamonds through the Kinshasa agreement.
We also urge the Western-funded non-governmental organisations, such as Partnership Africa Canada and Human Rights Watch to expend their energies in real trouble spots as their bluff has been called on numerous occasions.
The KPCS fully understands the true situation obtaining in Chiadzwa.
We deserve to be treated fairly and with respect as we have emerged as one of the biggest diamond producers in the world.
Our gems cannot be ignored anymore and they are already shaking the world market.
In the end, we should be able to benefit from this finite, critical resource.
Without the sanctions regime it would be easy to account for every cent from diamond sales as there would be no need for sanction-busting measures, which tend to bring opaqueness in the trade and transfer of the diamond money.