KP Civil Society Coalition Standing by Boycott

Dubai, United Arab Emirates--The Kimberley Process’ Civil Society Coalition will not be attending the upcoming plenary meeting, despite the United Arab Emirates’ recent overtures and media reports to the contrary.

The KP’s Civil Society Coalition, which is made up of 11 organizations, announced in November 2015 that it wouldn’t be attending any KP meetings held in Dubai this year to underscore its objections to the UAE’s election as chair, effectively boycotting the process for 2016.

Chief among the coalition’s concerns about a UAE chairmanship were the number of companies there that allegedly engage in transfer pricing. Transfer pricing is the practice of undervaluing a resource, such as diamonds from Africa, in order to increase profitability and decrease tax liability.

It is a practice, the CSC has said, that robs local governments of the true value of their resources.

On Oct. 13, Ahmed Bin Sulayem, who represents the UAE in the KP, sent a letter and a 31-page proposal inviting the coalition to attend the plenary and outlining what the UAE has done over the past nine months to allay the coalition’s concerns.

In regards to transfer pricing specifically, the letter states that the UAE has initiated a series of workshops on developing a system for rough diamond valuation that could be applied in all diamond-importing centers.

Addressing another one of the coalition’s concerns--that the UAE is too lax in letting diamonds from conflict-ridden areas of the world, like the Central African Republic, cross its borders--the letter pointed out that four areas of the Central African Republic have been deemed KP compliant and allowed to resume rough diamond exports since it took over as KP chair.

The letter also noted that the issues of establishing a permanent secretariat for the KP under the mandate of the United Nations and lab-grown diamonds would be discussed at the plenary.

Despite the UAE’s invitation, the coalition said it is sticking by its boycott, with the latest media kerfuffle certainly not helping to change its collective mind.

On Sunday, an article appeared in The National, a government-owned English-language newspaper published in the UAE, stating that the National Support Centre for Development and Popular Participation, which is better known by its French acronym, CENADEP, had become the first member of the coalition to “break ranks” with the boycott and opt to attend the plenary.

The article quoted CENADEP’s Albert Kabuya Muyeba as saying that the organization, “accepts the invitation of the KP