The Kimberley Process against “blood diamonds” said Friday it would send a team to Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields to assess alleged human rights violations.
“We had frank and open discussions about Zimbabwe and this compliance with the Kimberley Process, Zimbabwe is still high on our agenda,” Bernard Esau, who chairs the scheme, told reporters in the Namibian capital.

The announcement came as Human Rights Watch Friday accused Zimbabwe’s armed forces, under the control of veteran President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF, of torture and forced labour to control the eastern Marange diamond fields.

“We have no proof of alleged human rights violations at the Marange diamond fields, but we took note of a report by the international organization Human Rights Watch,” Esau said after a three-day meeting of the Kimberley Process, the global scheme to prevent diamonds from financing armed conflicts.

The team will meet government ministers, central bank officials, top police officers and travel to Marange and the nearby town of Mutare.