Windhoek - The world's diamond industry Thursday urged countries to tighten their controls over measures meant to prevent trade in the gems from fuelling armed conflicts.
The call for action to prevent smuggling was made by the World Diamond Council (WDC) on the final day of a conference reviewing the Kimberley Process (KP), which aims to curb the flow of "blood diamonds".
"We require participants to the KP to improve internal controls and increase collaboration and enforcement efforts to eliminate the scourge of conflict diamonds from the global diamond trade," the council's director Andrew Bone told 200 delegates.
Namibia, which currently heads the process, hosted the three-day meeting to deliberate on efforts to further curb the illegal diamond trade blamed for financing wars in developing countries.
A conference communique will be released on Friday.
On Thursday, Bone called on governments "to work together to take swift action when faced with cases of non-compliance and to agree on interim suspension mechanisms with clear criteria."
He also urged diamond cutting and polishing businesses to adhere to the WDC's system of warranties for guaranteeing that gems are actually diamonds.
Bone said the council would join a mission led by civic groups to Zimbabwe to assess Harare's compliance with the Kimberley Process, after reports of severe rights abuses and killings of small-scale miners in the eastern Marange diamond fields.
Zimbabwe on Wednesday denied claims of killings in Marange, but said security forces had conducted a "special operation" to clear out thousands of illegal miners earlier this year.
Rights groups have already sounded the alarm over possible violations of the pact in Zimbabwe, while Venezuela recently withdrew for two years to address concerns about its compliance with the regime.
Kimberley officials visited Zimbabwe in March to express concern to authorities over the allegations.
The World Federation of Diamond Bourses in April banned the sale of diamonds from the eastern Zimbabwean region of Marange, after authorities sealed off the area to allow a state-run firm to gather the gems amid reports that small-scale miners were forcibly evicted.
Venezuela agreed in September 2008 to suspend its diamond trade until new control systems could be established, after it stopped reporting its production and exports in 2005.
The rights group Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) sent a mission to Venezuela in May and found that diamonds are still being mined and smuggled into legitimate markets with the knowledge of authorities, despite the suspension.
"In condoning the status quo, the Kimberley Process has become an active party in an overt diamond smuggling enterprise," PAC said in its report.
Global outrage
Global Witness, a Britain-based group that monitors the exploitation of natural resources, has also pointed to worries over smuggling, money laundering and human rights abuses in the world's diamond fields.
Other countries of concern were Lebanon and Guinea, which were exporting significantly more gem-quality rough diamonds than they import, Global Witness said.
The Kimberley Process emerged from global outrage over conflicts in countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Now the Kimberley Process covers about 99.8% of the world's production of rough diamonds, with 49 members representing 75 countries working within the scheme.
Under the scheme, rough diamonds are sealed in tamper-resistant containers and required to have forgery-resistant, conflict-free certificates with unique serial numbers each time they cross an international border.