By William PLEASANT
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| Will South African Pres. Joseph Zuma and the ANC put their money (literally diamonds) where their mouths are? |
The situation in Gaza Strip
10 July 2014
The African National Congress (ANC),condemns in the strongest terms, the barbaric attacks on the defenceless Palestinian people of Gaza. Israeli attacks on the besieged Gaza strip have resulted in the deaths of over 27 Palestinians, at least 6 of them children. The Israeli attacks have further resulted in injuring over 200 Palestinians and traumatising thousands of others.
As we move towards the month of August and are reminded of he atrocities of Nazi Germany, surely we must ask the people of Israel has the term "lest we forget" lost it meaning.
The state of Israel has turned the occupied territories of Palestine into permanent death camps. Of course the killing of any child irrespective of race color or creed must be condemned and the death of two Israeli young people is surely as senseless as any other death. But for the State of Israel, the notion of an eye for an eye has become perpetual massacre with merciless revenge which has lasted for more than 60 years. It is time to stop the killing now.
The recent attacks must cease as well as the ongoing and illegal Israeli occupation and collective Israeli punishment of the Palestinians. Gaza is the world`s largest open air prison with over 1,5 million Palestinians caged in and cut off from the rest of the world. The Gaza Strip is the world`s most densely populated piece of land on this earth making the Israeli bombing of the Palestinian Gaza Strip all the more horrendous. The collective punishment and illegal siege of the Palestinian people of Gaza must immediately end.
In line with our 2012 policy resolutions, that called on "all South Africans to support the programmes and campaigns of the Palestinian civil society which seek to put pressure on Israel", branches and structures of the ANC across the country will be joining the Palestine solidarity and boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement in organizing protests and pickets calling for the immediate end of Israeli violence against the Palestinian people. We call on all South Africans, Black, White, Jewish, Muslim, Christian and all others to join us in expressing our solidarity. Solidarity will brings us together as different South Africans just as how the international anti-apartheid movement brought people together.
The Israeli regime must realise that its acts of violence like these attacks on Gaza will only lead to its international isolation. After its 2009 attacks on Gaza which resulted in over 1400 Palestinians being killed, more than 400 of them children, the BDS and international isolation of Israel increased exponentially. Apartheid South Africa`s wanton killing of our people during the 1980s lead to its isolation, it would seem that Israel is taking a similar path of isolation by embarking on these attacks.
The ANC reiterates its 2012 policy position that as an organisation we are unequivocal in our support for the Palestinian people in their struggle for self-determination, and unapologetic in our view that the Palestinians are the victims and the oppressed in the conflict with Israel.
Issues by:
Jessie Duarte
Deputy Secretary General
Jessie Duarte
Deputy Secretary General
African National Congress
Chief Albert Luthuli House
54 Sauer street
Johannesburg
Oh so noble is this posturing on behalf of human rights and Third World Solidarity. But the policies of South Africa's ANC regime, in pursuit of its neo-colonial and neo-liberal agendas, tell a different story. Currently, South Africa supports zionism in Palestine to the hilt. It is as complicit in the racist atrocities perpetrated by the Israelis against the indigenous Palestinians as is Obama and his corrupt crew in Washington, DC.
The ANC's hands in Palestinian blood
In July 2000, the global diamond industry set up the World Diamond Council--WDC. (The US became a signatory in 2003.) The WDC was established as a response to public outrage about the use of diamonds to fund bloody conflicts in western African countries and it includes representatives from the World Federation of Diamond Bourses and the International Diamond Manufacturers Association. The council’s ultimate mandate is “the development, implementation and oversight of a tracking system for the export and import of rough diamonds to prevent the exploitation of diamonds for illicit purposes such as war and inhumane acts.” Significantly, the WDC limits its concern about human rights violations to those funded by rough diamonds only. In 2003, the WDC introduced a system of self-regulation called the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme to stem the flow of “conflict” or “blood diamonds.” In keeping with the limited concerns of the WDC, the UN-mandated Kimberly Process adopted a very narrow definition of what constitutes a conflict or blood diamond: “rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments.” Consequently and deliberately, the much more lucrative trade in cut and polished diamonds avoids the human rights strictures applying to rough diamonds, provided the industry uses only Kimberly Process-compliant rough diamonds. Regardless of the human rights violations and atrocities funded by revenue from the Israeli diamond industry, governments and other vested interests party to the Kimberly Process facilitate the unrestricted access of diamonds crafted in Israel to the multi-billion dollar global diamond market. In short, the Israeli diamond industry was exempted from the Kimberly scheme, and New York City's 47th Street Diamond Market continues to flourish unabated, despite the fact that its primary product is manufacture under the auspices of a ROGUE REGIME.
The WDC website is equally selective when it comes to providing information about which countries are most dependent on diamonds. It explains that Namibia, one of the minor diamond exporting countries in monetary terms, derives 40 percent (Trade PerformanceHS: Exports of Israel” accessed 25 March 2010) (See Figures 3 and 4). By comparison, the budget for Israel’s Ministry of Defense was $16 billion in 2008.
Revenue from the diamond industry helps fund Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories, its brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people and its international network of saboteurs, spies and assassins. None of this is alluded to in the WDC’s “Diamond Facts.”
The diamond industry is a major pillar of the Israeli economy (see Figure 5 above). No other developed country is so heavily dependent on a single luxury commodity.
In service to the Palestinian struggle for liberation, South Africa could shatter the spine of the settler regime's economy. Everybody knows this, especially the more radical elements of the ANC-led coalition government. More than two years ago, the South African left called on the ANC to shut down diamond trade gangsterism in the country.
Chief Albert Luthuli House
54 Sauer street
Johannesburg
Oh so noble is this posturing on behalf of human rights and Third World Solidarity. But the policies of South Africa's ANC regime, in pursuit of its neo-colonial and neo-liberal agendas, tell a different story. Currently, South Africa supports zionism in Palestine to the hilt. It is as complicit in the racist atrocities perpetrated by the Israelis against the indigenous Palestinians as is Obama and his corrupt crew in Washington, DC.
The ANC's hands in Palestinian blood
In July 2000, the global diamond industry set up the World Diamond Council--WDC. (The US became a signatory in 2003.) The WDC was established as a response to public outrage about the use of diamonds to fund bloody conflicts in western African countries and it includes representatives from the World Federation of Diamond Bourses and the International Diamond Manufacturers Association. The council’s ultimate mandate is “the development, implementation and oversight of a tracking system for the export and import of rough diamonds to prevent the exploitation of diamonds for illicit purposes such as war and inhumane acts.” Significantly, the WDC limits its concern about human rights violations to those funded by rough diamonds only. In 2003, the WDC introduced a system of self-regulation called the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme to stem the flow of “conflict” or “blood diamonds.” In keeping with the limited concerns of the WDC, the UN-mandated Kimberly Process adopted a very narrow definition of what constitutes a conflict or blood diamond: “rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments.” Consequently and deliberately, the much more lucrative trade in cut and polished diamonds avoids the human rights strictures applying to rough diamonds, provided the industry uses only Kimberly Process-compliant rough diamonds. Regardless of the human rights violations and atrocities funded by revenue from the Israeli diamond industry, governments and other vested interests party to the Kimberly Process facilitate the unrestricted access of diamonds crafted in Israel to the multi-billion dollar global diamond market. In short, the Israeli diamond industry was exempted from the Kimberly scheme, and New York City's 47th Street Diamond Market continues to flourish unabated, despite the fact that its primary product is manufacture under the auspices of a ROGUE REGIME.
The WDC created a web site called Diamondfacts.org to promote the virtues of the industry. It lists 24 facts extolling the benefits of the diamond industry — primarily to India and countries in Africa. Some of the benefits include that an estimated 5 million people have access to appropriate healthcare globally thanks to revenues from diamonds; diamond revenues enable every child in Botswana to receive free education up to the age of 13; the revenue from diamonds is instrumental in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Despite the WDC's self-serving hype, the African diamond industry actually only benefits the native comprador bourgeois class and its assorted parasites (police, customs officials, local bankers and outright gangsters) who feed on the graft derived from skirting the Kimberly Process altogether. In fact, most diamonds entering the cutting and polishing houses in Tel Aviv and NYC are non-compliant gems. In the case of NYC, these illegal diamonds enter via JFK Airport in the trouser pockets of American diamond merchants who are overwhelmingly members of various hyper-zionistic, Jewish religious cults scattered throughout the Borough of Brooklyn. These smugglers are capable of introducing $2 to $5 million dollars worth of rough diamonds (approximately the weight of a SNICKERS BAR) to the US market in a single trip between NYC and Tel Aviv. Conveniently for them, there are NO US customs taxes on rough diamonds entering the country. Moreover, due to the obscene pro-zionist corruption of the federal government, these criminals are rarely challenged by customs agents at the JFK border.
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| NYC's 47th St. Diamond District is the epicenter of the Africa-Israel diamond industry in the US. |
Excluding Namibia and Angola, which have sought to add industrial value to their diamond resources, the vast majority of African nations export raw materials to Europe, the US and, most importantly, Israel. Put simply, cash-starved, native African diamond miners sell their stones to Israeli versions of Jungle Jim at what is widely described as BUSH PRICE. That means that large and exquisite diamonds are very often purchased at well below wholesale prices. For example: a rough diamond that sells for $300 per carat (0.20 grams) is snatched from Africans for $50 or less! This is hardly a benefit to the African working and peasant classes. A tour of present-day slums in South Africa, in particular, speak volumes to the daily rip-of off the nation's natural resources to the benefit the Israelis and other colonial rapists, as well as their facilitators in the ANC regime.
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| 667 carats (133.5 grams) of rough South African diamonds (8/30/2014), New York City value $1.0 million US Dollars. (Courtesy of Ascent Industrial Research) |
Israel's diamond industry helps fund atrocities and human rights abuses such as the killing, maiming and terrorizing of thousands of innocent men, women and children in Palestine and Lebanon — the sort of atrocities the Kimberly Process was supposed to prevent being funded by revenue from diamonds.
The list of WDC “Diamond Facts” paints a farcical image of the industry. It asserts that the greatest benefits are being felt in some of the poorest nations of the world. But Israel, one of the wealthiest nations, towers over all other countries in terms of the net benefit derived from the diamond industry. The added value to the Israeli economy from the export of diamonds was nearly $10 billion in 2008 (see Figure 2 below).
Contrary to claims by the diamond industry and jewelers that all diamonds are now conflict free, they are not. Israel’s dominant position in the industry means that diamonds crafted in Israel are interspersed globally with diamonds crafted in other countries. Consumers who purchase diamonds that are not laser-inscribed to identify where they were crafted run a significant risk of purchasing a diamond crafted in Israel, thereby helping to fund gross human rights violations. The Kimberly Process Certification Scheme strictures only apply to rough diamonds, thus allowing diamonds crafted in Israel to freely enter the market regardless of the criminal actions of the Israeli government and armed forces. The Kimberly Process is a joke when it comes to sanctioning the zionist regime for its genocidal policies in Palestine. When it comes to policing the diamond industry, arrogantly ruled by the Israelis and their US-based junior partners in NYC, the wolves have been left to guard the sheep. Likewise, the US government is the ringmaster of this bloodstained circus by refusing to enforce its own treaty obligations to the Kimberly Process, especially when it comes to sanctioning Jewish-American smugglers..
Given the failure of Western governments to hold Israel to account for numerous breaches of international law including international humanitarian law, breaches of the UN Charter, its failure to abide by more than 30 binding UN Security Council Resolutions, breaches of EU Agreements and disregard for the 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, they are unlikely to insist that the diamond industry broaden the definition of a conflict diamond to include cut and polished diamonds that directly fund Israel's human rights abuses against the indigenous peoples of Palestine.
The chart below demonstrates the extent to which the zionist regime relies on diamonds to fuel its economy.
In service to the Palestinian struggle for liberation, South Africa could shatter the spine of the settler regime's economy. Everybody knows this, especially the more radical elements of the ANC-led coalition government. More than two years ago, the South African left called on the ANC to shut down diamond trade gangsterism in the country.
Organisations including South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers (NUM); the country's largest trade union federation, COSATU; the SA Communist Party; Young Communist League; South African Students Congress (SASCO); Congress of South African Students (COSAS), the Coalition for a Free Palestine and BDS South Africa have demanded the end to the pimp-whore relationship between the ANC and the Israeli diamond mongerers.
In a statement issued at a press conference (June 13, 2012) held at COSATU's Head Office in Johannesburg pointed out that the KPCS presents an opportunity for South African officials to show "moral vision and political leadership" by excluding Israel. "The billions of dollars' worth of diamonds exported via Israel are," said the pro-Palestinian coalition, "a major source of revenue for the Israeli military, which stands accused of war crimes." Such a move would have local benefits too, it added, by "bringing home" many lucrative diamond processing jobs to South Africa. Income from diamond processing carried out in Israel also, charged the coalition, helps to develop military hardware such as pilotless drones.
Speaking to Business Day newspaper, Southern Africa Resource Watch director Claude Kabemba explained that the old Kimberly Process scheme is an anachronism, since most diamond-linked conflicts have been resolved, He asserted that the Kimberley Process now has to expand its mandate and monitor the entire diamond chain:
Continued Kabemba, "The Kimberley Process has played an important role over the past decade in resolving conflicts linked to the diamond trade but there is no doubt that it has to be reformed... [by] expanding the definition of conflict to include human rights abuses linked to diamond extraction perpetrated by governments and companies; and expanding downstream monitoring so that the process covers not just the rough diamond trade but also the international movement and polishing of diamonds."
The statement from South Africa's pro-Palestinian coalition called
on the Kimberley Process to:
on the Kimberley Process to:
- Exclude Israel from the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) due to Israel's human rights abuses against the indigenous Palestinians;
- Expand the Kimberley Process to include cut and polished diamonds in addition to rough diamonds; and
- End all exports of rough diamonds to Israel immediately.
A member of South Africa's Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign said that a boycott of Israeli "blood diamonds", and specifically the banning of diamond-polishing in the country, is a win-win solution for all. "Consumers will have a clear conscience that their diamonds are not funding, assisting or in any way involved with the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine," insisted Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, "and more jobs will be created locally for our people by bringing this diamond processing back home instead of it being done in Israel." While opponents of the Israel boycott often try to claim that the boycott will harm South Africans, added Ndlozi, this is a case where it only benefits them.
If the ANC regime wants to concretely address the oppression of the Palestinian people, then the writing is on the wall: EXPEL THE ISRAELI DIAMOND MACHINE FROM SOUTH AFRICA. It's expression of Third World Solidarity with the Palestinians will amount to little more than neo-colonial BULLSHIT otherwise.
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