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Abstract: The Examples from the Ground are concrete illustrations of ways in which a gender perspective has been integrated in different security sector institutions around the world. They range from measures to counter human trafficking in Kosovo, to women’s organisations’ involvement with security institutions in Nepal, to female parliamentarians’ contribution to post-conflict reconstruction in Rwanda. These examples can help policymakers, trainers and educators better understand and demonstrate the linkages between gender and SSR.
The examples are organised around the following nine themes, for which a short introduction is provided:
• Police Reform and Gender
• Defence Reform and Gender
• Justice Reform and Gender
• Penal Reform and Gender
• Border Management and Gender
• Parliamentary Oversight of the Security Sector and Gender
• National Security Policy-Making and Gender
• Civil Society Oversight of the Security Sector and Gender
• SSR Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation and Gender
Individual examples can also be downloaded individually, in English or in French, at: http://gssrtraining.ch/index.php?option=com_content&view;=article&id;=4&Itemid;=131⟨=en
Abstract: Russia and Mexico, two of the world’s most murderous countries for the press, are heading in different directions in combating deadly anti-press violence, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in its newly updated Impunity Index. The index, which calculates unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population, found improvement in Russia as journalist murders ebbed and prosecutors obtained two high-profile convictions. But deadly anti-press violence continued to climb in Mexico, where authorities appear powerless in bringing killers to justice.
Colombia continued a years-long pattern of improvement, CPJ’s index found, while conditions in Bangladesh reflected a slight upturn. But the countries at the top of the index—Iraq, Somalia, and the Philippines—showed either no improvement or even worsening records. Iraq, with an impunity rating three times worse than that of any other nation, is ranked first for the fourth straight year. Although crossfire and other conflict-related deaths have dropped in Iraq in recent years, the targeted killings of journalists spiked in 2010.
“The findings of the 2011 Impunity Index lay bare the stark choices that governments face: Either address the issue of violence against journalists head-on or see murders continue and self-censorship spread,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “Convictions in Russia are a hopeful sign after years of indifference and denial. But Mexico’s situation is deeply troubling, with violence spiking as the government promises action but fails to deliver.”
CPJ’s annual Impunity Index, first published in 2008, identifies countries where journalists are murdered regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes. For this latest index, CPJ examined journalist murders that occurred between January 1, 2001 through December 31, 2010, and that remain unsolved. Only the 13 nations with five or more unsolved cases are included on the index. Cases are considered unsolved when no convictions have been obtained.
Impunity is a key indicator in assessing levels of press freedom and free expression in nations worldwide. CPJ research shows that deadly, unpunished violence against journalists often leads to vast self-censorship in the rest of the press corps. From Somalia to Mexico, CPJ has found that journalists avoid sensitive topics, leave the profession, or flee their homeland to escape violent retribution.
Abstract: The author examines the city as a site in which the provision of public goods and services for citizens is demanded and provided through the transfer of central state revenues. The relationship between state and citizens is not conceived simply in the relatively passive and limiting terms of welfare delivery, but rather within the broader arena of social rights, understood as a core component of substantive citizenship – an important characteristic of developmental states. The focus of the paper is derived from the recognition that social rights, notably access to land and housing, are of particular importance in cities. Conflicts over the appropriate use of land are more likely to arise in urban areas, and the high value of land combined with its potential to contribute to economic development mean that the state almost inevitably becomes involved in these conflicts. This paper's examination of the spatial aspects of social rights in urban areas gives rise to a discussion of the 'right to the city', and how the denial of this right can create increased tension and destabilisation in the cities of fragile states. The author outlines the theoretical basis for the paper with an examination of social rights and substantive citizenship, illustrated through the case of a housing movement of the urban poor in São Paulo, Brazil. The paper then develops the discussion of the link between social rights and state stability through a reading of a selection of CSRC case studies of cities in fragile states.
Abstract: This Security Policy Brief looks at the vote
on the UNSC resolution on Libya and tries
to see in it some signs of the new
international order in the making. Why did
the BRIC countries abstain? Why was the
US so shy? What does it all mean for the
EU?
Abstract: Rio de Janeiro's new Police Pacification Units, designed to take back the city's favelas from drug dealers, represent a doctrinal and operational revolution away from police business as usual. The widely praised program, however, is not without its critics, who worry that it will turn each newly pacified neighborhood into a quasi-police state.
Abstract: How does violence affect the everyday lives of citizens in countries, regions
and cities of the global South? This has been the central theme of five years’
work in the Violence, Participation and Citizenship (VPC) group of the
Development Research Centre (DRC) on Citizenship, Participation and
Accountability, an international research partnership coordinated by IDS from
2000–2010. While other DRC researchers studied new forms of citizenship that
could help make rights real, the VPC group undertook projects in four countries
to examine how violence affects the exercise of meaningful citizenship and how
efforts to open space for citizenship in such contexts affect the use of violence.
VPC set out to explore these dynamics in partnership with organisations and
community members in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), Jamaica (Kingston), Mexico
(Chiapas and Guerrero States) and Nigeria (Kaduna, Kano and Plateau
States). Our investigative frame, developed as a group, was a set of questions
about the scope for participatory social action, the exercise of citizenship, and
processes of peaceful social transformation in contexts of violence.
Abstract: Most studies of truth commissions assert their positive role in improving human rights. A
firstwave of researchmade these claims based on qualitative analysis of a single truth commission
or a small number of cases. Thirty years of experience with truth commissions and
dozens of examples allow cross-national statistical studies to assess these findings. Two
recent studies undertake that project. Their findings, which are summarized in this article,
challenge the prevailing view that truth commissions foster human rights, showing
instead that commissions, when used alone, tend to have a negative impact on human
rights. Truth commissions have a positive impact, however, when used in combination
with trials and amnesties. This article extends the question of whether truth commissions
improve human rights to how, when and why they succeed or fail in doing so. It presents a
‘justice balance’ explanation, whereby commissions, incapable of promoting stability and
accountability on their own, contribute to human rights improvements when they complement
and enhance amnesties and prosecutions. The article draws on experiences in
Brazil, Chile, Nepal, South Korea and South Africa to illustrate the central argument.
Abstract: It is not difficult to find evidence of Brazil’s high levels of armed violence. The proof is in the grim statistics of the country’s hospitals, morgues, and prisons. This Special Report looks at two aspects of this problem. First, it explores the thriving Brazilian small arms industry, which, together with international trafficking networks, contributes to control failures and fuels small arms violence. Second, it maps out weapons holdings—by weapon type, holder, and location. This volume is a companion to the Special Report entitled Small Arms in Rio de Janeiro: The Guns, the Buyback, and the Victims (published December 2008), which focuses on the Brazilian city where the expression of the issues outlined here is at its most extreme. Brazil is the second-largest producer of small arms in the western hemisphere. The firearms used in the country’s crime are mainly these domestically produced weapons, particularly handguns, not the imported small arms as has been argued by Brazil’s gun lobby and firearms industry. In fact, domestic
small arms production boomed during the very same decade that witnessed a rise in violence.
Abstract: Do voluntary small arms collections reduce violence? Do they work in isolation,
or do they have to be combined with other control measures? The first
chapter of this publication attempts to answer these questions by analysing
the impact in the state of Rio de Janeiro of a national small arms buyback
campaign that took place from July 2004 to October 2005. The study, by Dreyfus,
De Sousa Nascimento, and Guedes, concludes that in Rio de Janeiro, small
arms voluntary collection campaigns do indeed reduce armed violence, as long
as they are not implemented in isolation; they must be combined with other
preventative measures. These conclusions are controversial in many countries,
but are no longer disputed in Brazil, a country where approximately 100 people
die each day as a result of small arms.
The conclusions have since been confirmed in a nationwide study by the
Brazilian Ministries of Health and Justice. According to these ministries, the
number of gun-related deaths decreased by 12 per cent over three years, from
39,325 deaths in 2003 to 34,648 in 2006. The rate of deaths caused by small
arms decreased from 22.4 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2003 to 18 in 2006, equal
to a fall of 18 per cent in relative numbers (MS and SVS, 2007). The government
study finds that the reduction was higher in those states where a higher
quantity of small arms was handed in during the buyback campaign. A ban
on civilians carrying guns introduced in 2003 also contributed by lowering
the number of deaths in interpersonal conflicts such as bar brawls and traffic
altercations.
Abstract: Hezbollah, Lebanon‘s Iran-sponsored Shi‘i Muslim terrorist organization, has established global networks in at least 40 countries. Its growing presence in South America is increasingly troublesome to U.S. policymakers, yet there are few experts on Hezbollah and fewer still on Hezbollah Latino America. Hezbollah‘s operatives have infiltrated the Western Hemisphere from Canada to Argentina, and its activity is increasing, particularly in the lawless Tri-Border Area (TBA) of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. This research was conducted to expose the actions and objectives of Hezbollah in the TBA. The majority of US officials and operators believe that Hezbollah‘s terrorist wing is separate from its political wing, but these are misconceptions from people who "mirror-image" the American experience when assessing Hezbollah. Unfamiliarity with the organization makes these assessors vulnerable to its propaganda, which is a severe problem that permeates the US government and its operatives. People who think Hezbollah is or could be compartmentalized or disunited are not familiar with the organization and perceive Hezbollah through the lens of the organization‘s extensive propaganda effort. Hezbollah has a large operational network in the TBA, which generates funds for the party, but its primary mission is to plan attacks and lie dormant, awaiting instructions to execute operations against Western targets. The following is a look at Hezbollah‘s modus operandi, an analysis of how operational its networks in the Tri-Border Area are, as well as some possible solutions to this threat. First, is an examination of how Hezbollah traditionally operates to establish the context.
Abstract: During the completion of this study, researchers established that the
manifestations of the illicit retail drug market in Rio de Janeiro involve
levels of armed violence, firearm-related mortality rates, local paramilitary
organisation, geographical territorialisation, quasi-political domination of
poor communities and the participation of state authorities (principally the
Military and Civil Police forces) at a level previously undocumented anywhere
else in the world. Researchers also found that understanding these
factors was key to understanding the participation of children and adolescents
in the territorial disputes of drug factions within the city. Furthermore,
that correctly defining this situation —which appears to be insufficiently
defined by traditional definitions for either ‘war’ or ‘organised crime’— was fundamental to fully comprehending its reality, charting its
occurrence elsewhere, and developing the correct strategies to deal with it
successfully.
This study therefore aims to:
1) Correctly define the armed territorial disputes of drug factions in
Rio de Janeiro;
2) Correctly define children working in an armed capacity for drug
factions in Rio de Janeiro;
3) Raise awareness of this situation at both the national and international
levels;
4) Propose some local solutions for successfully preventing the participation
of children in drug faction disputes and for the rehabilitation
of those already involved;
5) Propose some necessary steps for the international community to
recognise and address the problem;
6) Open the international debate regarding similar situations elsewhere
in the world, so that a cross-cultural criterion may be established and
the problem identified, and subsequently addressed, wherever else it is
occurring.
Abstract: This report updates the topic of Iran’s Growing Relations with Latin America [page 5]. Over the past several years, U.S. officials and other observers have expressed concerns about
Iran’s increasing activities in Latin America, particularly under the government of President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. For example, in January 2009 congressional testimony, Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates maintained that he was concerned about the level of “subversive activity
that the Iranians are carrying on in a number of places in Latin America, particularly South
America and Central America.” There has been some contention, however, over the level and significance of Iran’s linkages with
the region. One view emphasizes that Iran’s relations with several Latin American leaders who
have employed strong anti-U.S. rhetoric and its past support for terrorist activities in the region
are reasons why its presence should be considered a potential destabilizing threat to the region.
Another school of thought emphasizes that Iran’s domestic politics and strategic orientation
toward the Middle East and Persian Gulf region will preclude the country from sustaining a focus
on Latin America. Adherents of this view assert that Iran’s promised aid and investment to Latin
America have not materialized. Some observers holding both of these views contend that while Iran’s activities in Latin America do not currently constitute a major threat to U.S. national
security, there is enough to be concerned about to keep a watchful eye on developments in case it
becomes a more serious threat. On October 27, 2009, the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on
the Western Hemisphere held a hearing on “Iran in the Western Hemisphere” that reflected these
range of views.
Abstract: We face nation states, terrorist networks, organized criminal groups, individuals, and other
cyber actors with varying combinations of access, technical sophistication and intent. Many
have the capabilities to target elements of the US information infrastructure for intelligence
collection, intellectual property theft, or disruption. Terrorist groups and their sympathizers have
expressed interest in using cyber means to target the United States and its citizens. Criminal
elements continue to show growing sophistication in their technical capability and targeting.
Today, cyber criminals operate a pervasive, mature on-line service economy in illicit cyber
capabilities and services, which are available to anyone willing to pay. Globally, widespread
cyber-facilitated bank and credit card fraud has serious implications for economic and financial systems and the national security, intelligence, and law enforcement communities charged with
protecting them.
Abstract: At least 71 journalists were killed across the globe in 2009, the Committee to Protect Journalists announced Tuesday, the largest annual toll in the 30 years the group has been keeping track.
Twenty-nine of those deaths came in a single, politically motivated massacre of reporters and others in the Philippines last November, the worst known episode for journalists, the committee said.
But there were other worrisome trends. The two nations with the highest number of journalists incarcerated — China had 24 journalists imprisoned at the end of 2009 and Iran had 23 — were particularly harsh in taking aim at bloggers and others using the Internet. The number jailed in Iran has since jumped to 47, the committee said. Of the 71 confirmed deaths, 51 were murders, the committee said. The report noted that 24 additional deaths of journalists remained under investigation to determine if they were related to the journalists’ work. Previously, the highest number of journalists killed in a single year was 67, in 2007, when violence in Iraq was raging.
Abstract: The Brazilian states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have been plagued for years by violent
crime, much of it carried out by illegal drug-trafficking gangs. In Rio, these heavily-armed
gangs effectively control hundreds of neighborhoods and are largely responsible for the
metropolitan region having one of the highest homicide rates in the hemisphere. In São
Paulo, despite an encouraging drop in the homicide rate over the past decade, gang violence
also continues to pose a major threat to public security. Reducing violent crime and containing these gangs represents a daunting and at times
dangerous challenge for the police forces. Too often, however, rather than curbing the
violence, police officers in both states have contributed to it through the unwarranted use of
lethal force.
In nearly all cases in Rio and São Paulo in which police have killed people while on duty, the
officers involved have reported the shootings as legitimate acts of self-defense, claiming
they shot only in response to gunfire from criminal suspects. In Brazil, these cases are
referred to as “resistance” killings. Given that police officers in both states do often face real
threats of violence from gang members, many of these “resistance” killings are likely the
result of the use of legitimate force by the police. Many others, however, are clearly not.
Abstract: Border zones are incubators of criminal instability and violence. Weak state presence and the lucrative drugs trade is combining to challenge state sovereignty in acute ways. Consider Mexico, where the northern frontier with the US and southern border with Guatemala are contested zones. The bloody center of gravity of Mexico’s drug cartels is the ‘plazas’, the drug smuggling corridors that link the borders. When most think of conflict and border zones, they imagine territorial disputes such as India and Pakistan’s recurring battles over Kashmir or less serious tug-of-wars such as Japan and South Korea’s contestation of the Liancourt Rocks. To be sure, there have been territorial disputes, such as Nicaragua’s dispute with Colombia over several islands, or Colombia’s conflicts with Venezuela and Ecuador over narco-guerrillas operating from their territory. Yet, as former FRIDE researcher Ivan Briscoe argues, the biggest sources of violent conflict has been the erosion of government control over border zones and the rise of criminal groups, gangs, and cartels in loosely governed zones. As Briscoe argues, "violence and institutional corrosion have plagued as never before the frontier between Mexico and the United States, while Guatemala’s eastern border region and Colombia’s frontiers with Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil witness these countries’ highest murder rates, as well as territorial capture by armed groups and narco-trafficking networks."
Abstract: The data in this report is derived from country submissions when possible,
and estimates when necessary. Estimates are extrapolated from each country’s
identified procurement, highest modern personnel totals, and strategic doctrine.
Except where noted, the military small arms and light weapons data
presented here is not official, comprehensive, or conclusive; it is for general
evaluation and comparison only. The complete methodology used here is described
in Chapter 2 of the Small Arms Survey 2006.
Small arms are state-owned handguns, submachine guns, rifles, shotguns,
and light and medium machine guns. Firearms are civilian-owned handguns,
submachine guns, rifles, and shotguns. Long at the forefront of international small arms issues, public debate and
activism in South America have largely focused on matters surrounding civilian
firearms, estimated here to total between 21.7 and 26.8 million. The reasons
for this civilian preoccupation are principally linked to chronic gun violence.
South America has 14 per cent of the global population, and roughly 3.5 to 4 per
cent of the world’s civilian firearms, but it suffers from roughly 40 per cent of
all homicides committed with firearms.
Military small arms are rarely part of public debate, largely because of a
strong culture of national security secrecy in South America. But military
small arms policy has attracted much closer scrutiny in recent years, especially
as military small arms and light weapons are diverted to criminals and
guerrillas, fuelling insurgencies and civil violence. This report focuses primarily
on issues surrounding surplus military small arms and light weapons in
the region. Law enforcement and civilian firearms inventories and issues are
recognized here as well, to ensure a balanced overall perspective.
The region’s military establishments do not have a strong record of identifying
or eliminating their surplus small arms, light weapons, or ammunition.
South America holds some of the world’s largest military small arms and
light weapons surpluses. Military inventories are not exceptionally large in
absolute terms, but they are a major element in global surplus problems. Among
the 12 independent countries of South America, there are an estimated 3.6
million military small arms as of 2007, 1.5 per cent of the global total. Of these,
approximately 1.3 million, more than one-third, are surplus.
Abstract: Should food be genetically modified or grown from heirloom seeds? Produced on large industrial farms or organic community-owned lots? These questions lie at the heart of many, sometimes fierce, debates -- in political committees, on university campuses, and in cafes and homes. But I have never heard of anyone being killed during these disputes in the U.S.
In Brazil, matters are different. When I first learned about a double homicide on a farm in Santa Teresa in Southern Brazil in October 2007 in a dispute over land use, I wanted to understand how conflicts like these could lead to violence and deaths. In Brazil, 1 percent of the population owns about 45 percent of the land; reforms have been promised by many, including President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, but progress has been slow.
Inequalities persist and clashes between those who want land and those who have land seem unavoidable. To find out why two men lost their lives, I traveled to the state of Parana, a hot spot for land conflicts, in Southern Brazil, about 600 miles southwest of Sao Paulo.
Abstract: The failure of the state to protect the citizen has allowed the security services to be subordinated by urban bandits, cemented by the corrupt transition of heavier arms from police to gang. As the state continues to recede, the police become the favela's enemy and competing militia now displace the rule of law. Since the 1970s gangs have become increasingly pervasive in Rio's shanty-towns - home today to around 2 million people or 20 per cent of Greater Rio. They provide "quick money" and social status for some of the city's poorest inhabitants and lock the communities in which they operate in a cycle of dependence and violence. Because of the confrontational attitude favoured by successive governments to deal with the city's chronic public security problem, 13 years after Maicão's death Rio's communities continue to be caught in the crossfire between gangs and police.
The total number of people shot dead nationwide fell by 12 per cent from around 39,400 in 2003 to 34,648 in 2006 as a result of a gun amnesty, stricter controls on the possession of arms and improved police intelligence. But guns are still responsible for massive numbers of deaths in Rio - Brazil's former capital and its second largest city. The Legal Medical Institute (IML), whose duty it is to perform autopsies on all murder victims, estimates that its branch in downtown Rio examined 9,000 corpses in 2007 - the majority of them being gunshot victims.
Abstract: Brazil has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, with over 48,000 people killed
each year. Murders by gangs, inmates, the police, death squads and hired killers regularly make
headlines in Brazil and around the world. Extrajudicial executions and vigilante justice are
supported by a sizable proportion of the population, who fear high crime rates and who perceive
that the criminal justice system is too slow to prosecute criminals effectively. Many politicians,
keen to curry favour with a fearful electorate, have failed to demonstrate the political will
necessary to curb executions by the police.
This attitude must change. States have an obligation to protect their citizens by preventing
and punishing criminal violence. This obligation, however, goes together with the State’s duty to
ensure respect for the right to life of all citizens, including that of criminal suspects. There is no
conflict between the right of all Brazilians to security and freedom from criminal violence and
the right not to be arbitrarily shot by the police. Murder is not an acceptable or effective
crime-control technique.
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary
executions argues for a new approach and recommends reforms directed at the civil police, the
military police, police internal affairs, forensics, ombudsmen, public prosecutors, the judiciary
and the prison administration. The scope of the reforms required is daunting, but reform is both
possible and necessary.
The people of Brazil did not struggle valiantly against 20 years of dictatorship or adopt a
federal Constitution dedicated to restoring respect for human rights to make Brazil free for police
officers to kill with impunity in the name of security.
Abstract: The international terrorist presence in Latin America is concentrated in several "hotspots" where terrorist organizations have found financial and logistic support, as well as a supporting base. Among these areas are Venezuela and its Margarita Island, Trinidad and Tobago, the Iquique area in Chile, and the Tri-Border Area (TBA, or Triple Frontera) in South America. The TBA, which includes the Brazilian city of Foz de Iguazú, the Argentinean Puerto Iguazú, and Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, has served in the past twenty years as an operational and logistic center for international terrorist groups, such as the Lebanese Hezbollah, as well as transnational criminal organizations. This area has a population of approximately 700,000 people; including roughly 30,000 inhabitants of Arab descent. The Arab community, which constitutes one of the largest immigrant groups in the region, is predominantly Lebanese, especially in Ciudad del Este and Foz de Iguazú. The local Lebanese population is largely Shia. The Triple Frontera is one of the most important commercial centers of South America, with approximately 20 thousand people transiting on a daily basis from the neighboring states to the free-trade area of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay. The intense volume of people and goods entering the TBA, together with its porous borders, are two important factors that originally attracted criminal and armed groups to this area. Additionally, the relative ease with which money is locally laundered and transferred to and from regions overseas constitutes a very powerful incentive to maintain a base of operations in the TBA. Therefore, transnational criminal groups such as the Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, Chinese and Russian mafias, and the Japanese Yakuza all appear to have a strongly rooted presence in this South American region. Within the TBA, the epicenter of organized crime is Ciudad del Este - an important hub of drug and human trafficking, and the smuggling of goods, weapons, contraband and counterfeit products.
Abstract: This table is part of the larger "U.S. Weapons at War 2008" report. For the full document, please see http://www.humansecuritygateway.info/showRecord.php?RecordId=27517
Abstract: Iraq has now spent five years under military
occupation, and the suffering of the Iraqi
people continues.
With growing pressure to withdraw US and UK
troops from Iraq, mercenary forces have been given
an ever greater role in the conflict, making hundreds
of millions of pounds for the corporations that
supply them. The companies grow richer while
whole communities are condemned to the longterm
poverty which comes with war.
Despite hundreds of cases of human rights
abuse by mercenary forces over the past five years,
private armies have been immune from prosecution.
War on Want is leading the campaign for UK
legislation to ban the use of mercenaries
in war and to regulate their activities closely
in all other arenas.
Abstract: The illicit trade in rough diamonds is one of the greatest
threats facing the Kimberley Process (KP) certification
scheme. The KP was created to halt and prevent the
trade in conflict diamonds that cost so many lives
during the last two decades. At the end of the scheme’s
fifth year, the trafficking of conflict and illicit stones is
looking more like a dangerous rule than an exception.
Partnership Africa Canada and Global Witness have long
argued that the Kimberley Process should be more
proactive in monitoring infringements, and tougher in
curtailing this illicit trade. The situation today is getting
worse. In Venezuela, rampant diamond smuggling
continues while the government flouts the certification
scheme. Despite a UN embargo on Ivorian conflict
diamonds, stones are still mined in northern Côte
d’Ivoire, smuggled into international trading centres and
sold on to consumers. Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
governor Gideon Gono recently stated that over 10,000
people were visiting the border town of Mutare every
month for illegal activities involving diamonds. Gono
said that over 2,000 local syndicates were smuggling
diamonds out of the country.
This paper reviews the issues around illicit flows of
rough diamonds, particularly in countries facing serious
challenges in controlling the artisanal mining sector.
We present the results of a survey assessing how
participant countries are enforcing KP controls and
monitoring the diamond industry, and we put forward
specific recommendations for changing the way the KP
is managed and implemented. We hope that the
procrastination and denial that have gripped the
Kimberley Process on these issues in recent years can be
replaced at the forthcoming Plenary Meeting in New Delhi
with a proactive and dedicated response to the problems.
Abstract: Just as peace is not simply the absence of war,
an end to conflict diamonds does not necessarily
mean that diamonds will create prosperity
or that human security will prevail in the
areas where they are mined. The campaign to
halt conflict diamonds has largely succeeded,
although the phenomenon continues in Côte
d’Ivoire, seemingly beyond the ingenuity and
the powers of the 75 governments represented
in the Kimberley Process (KP) and the
world’s entire diamond industry. But the KP
challenge today is not just Côte d’Ivoire; the
larger challenge is to ensure that diamonds are
controlled and tracked in ways that prevent a
return of the much more deadly diamondfuelled
wars of the past.
Diamonds are not just symbols of love, fidelity
and purity, they are the most concentrated
form of wealth on earth, and because of that,
they attract problems. A raid on a Damiani
showroom in Milan netted thieves as much as
$30 million in diamond jewellery in February.
That was just one of many diamond heists. If
you Google “diamond theft 2008” you will
find more than five million articles. It stands to
reason, therefore, that conflict diamonds could
return to countries where development is
stunted and governance weak. That is why
organizations like the Diamond Development
Initiative (DDI) are so important, and why
efforts to bring greater transparency to the
extractive sector need all the support they can
get. The intergovernmental Extractive
Industries Transparency Initiative and the NGOled
Publish What You Pay Campaign are key
elements in this.
Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) has been a
leader in the campaign against conflict diamonds
since 1999. It has been, and remains an
active member of all Kimberley Process meetings
and working groups. We have produced
several background studies on diamond-related
issues, 17 occasional papers and a quarterly newsletter, "Other Facets". All are available on
the PAC website (www.pacweb.org).
Starting in 2003, we began to publish standalone
Annual Reviews of the Diamond Industry
on Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of
the Congo and Angola. The Annual Reviews,
published in English (all), French (DRC) and
Portuguese (Angola) aimed to provide governments,
civil society and investors with information
that would be helpful in the promotion of
greater transparency and more positive developmental
outcomes. The Annual Reviews have
been widely quoted and have become documents
of record on the diamond industries in
those countries.
For 2008 we have taken a different approach,
expanding the project to cover more countries,
but producing one report rather than three.
This report — Diamonds and Human Security
Annual Review 2008 — concentrates on the
three countries most seriously affected by diamond-
fuelled conflict – Angola, DRC and
Sierra Leone – but we have also included articles
on countries touched by those conflicts, or
where internal controls over diamonds, and
where development considerations, remain
problematic.
