History
The United Nations imposed sanctions against UNITA in 1998 through United Nations Security Council Resolution 1173, however investigators led by Robert Fowler presented the Fowler Report to the UN in March 2000, which detailed how the movement was able to continue financing its war efforts through the sale of diamonds on the international market. The UN wished to clamp down on this sanctions-breaking trade, but had limited powers of enforcement; the Fowler report therefore set out to name the countries, companies, government and individuals involved. This led to a meeting of Southern African diamond-producing states in Kimberley, Northern Cape in May 2000. A culminating ministerial meeting followed during September in Pretoria, from which the KPCS originated.
In December 2000, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution A/RES/55/56, supporting the creation of an international certification scheme for rough diamonds, and this was followed by support from the United Nations Security Council in its Resolution 1459 passed in January 2003. Every year since, the General Assembly has renewed its support for the KP - most recently in December 2009.
In order for a country to be a participant, it must ensure that any diamond originating from the country does not finance a rebel group or other entity seeking to overthrow a UN-recognized government, that every diamond export be accompanied by a Kimberley Process certificate and that no diamond is imported from, or exported to, a non-member of the scheme. This three-step plan is a simple description of the steps taken to ensure a chain of countries that deal exclusively with non-conflict diamonds. By restricting diamond revenues to government-approved sources, the Kimberley Process is neutral towards different governments.
Read more about this topic: Kimberley Process Certification Scheme
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“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
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“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)