Angus Shaw, Associated Press Writer
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- In what's being hailed as an unprecedented move that will boost buyer awareness of blood diamonds, a global diamond trading network vowed Monday to expel any member who knowingly trades gems from two Zimbabwe mines where laborers have been killed and children enslaved.
The announcement by the U.S.-based Rapaport Diamond Trading Network, an industry diamond price and information provider, comes after international regulators declared the stones from the Zimbabwe mines conflict-free, backing off a ban they imposed in November and allowing 900,000 carats of diamonds to be auctioned last week.
"This is the first time that we've heard of a large group like the Rapaport group actually taking such a strong stand," said Tiseke Kasambala, a Zimbabwe specialist with Human Rights Watch.
"Consumers will certainly ask questions" about the stones they are buying, she added.
The international regulators, whose group is known as the Kimberley Process, said the two mines are operating at "minimum" international standards. The Rapaport group, though, said that does not guarantee the stones "free of human rights violations" and vowed to publish the names of members knowingly trading in diamonds from the diamond fields near the eastern city of Mutare....
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