- Joined
- Aug 15, 2000
- Messages
- 18,745
coatimundi|1319150866|3044471 said:From Rob Bates:
The Kimberley Process, the Industry, and the NGOs
http://www.jckonline.com/blogs/cutting-remarks/2011/10/20/kimberley-process-industry-and-ngos
A remarkable fight broke out last week between veteran journalist Chaim Even-Zohar and Partnership Africa Canada over a PAC staffer’s comment that some found objectionable. Why this particular rhetorical fireball attracted such ire, I’m not sure; I’ve certainly heard worse. But what is noteworthy is the group involved.
Thx for the links Coati,
unfortunately we can not read Chaim's blog without a subscription.
But Rob's story and opinion is compelling for me.
It does seem that the NGO's are loosing any chance of effective change by opting out like little children spitting out their dummies. (US equivalent of rubber things you put in baby's mouths to stop them crying?).
Diplomacy and politics are based on merging diff points of view for a better common good.
One of our local radio talkback guys, John Faine, asked this question this morning.
How can climate sceptics (or believers) not accept (or accept) science based evidence when they views they hold are almost always opposite to those they hold on genetically modified crops and food?
An aside - Being in the middle of an attempt to get KP authorisation to send 4 rough diamonds to India from Australia to be polished on behalf of the man who initiated the search for the Argyle mine (and the other 2 commercial diamond mines in Australia) - let me tell you - KP documentATION is a very hard thing to achieve.
I hope these people can start working together. There is a common goal. No one in the diamond industry wants to cause or support conflict or aid and abet those perpetrating human rights violations. but imposing a single point of view on Africans and people from polishing nations who earn a 10th of the salaries of Western nations incomes simply does not work.
KP was an amazing achievement and was set up to stop diamonds fueling civil wars. Human rights is althogether another issue and one nations view of minimum standards is quite different to anothers - just as one nations view of laws and justice differe from anothers. e.g. the US Govt has never signed on for the international court of justice (or whatever it is called) because it knows it would be found in breach of its laws (in the past or future).
People in glass houses should never throw stones.