The troubled international body charged with handling the prevention of sales of blood diamonds has a new chairman. The United States has appointed career diplomat Gillian Milovanovic to take the chair of the Kimberly Process.
The appointment comes just over a month after the human rights watchdog Global Witness quit the Kimberly Process. The group said it quit that the Kimberly Process as it was refusing to address the links between the diamonds and the violence and tyranny that produced them.
Global Witness cited specifically that the Kimberly Process had failed in Ivory Coast, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Blood diamonds from Zimbabwe were allowed to be sold by the monitoring group under an agreement made in November with the government of Zimbabwe.
The departure of the human rights watchdog had given the image of the Kimberly Process a severe beating with the credibility of the process brought into question.
The Obama administration responded to concerns by saying that the U.S. would stay in the process to address the challenges and to demonstrate the capacity to implement reforms and restore its credibility.
The appointment of Milovanovic seems to be a step in that direction. Gillian Milovanovic has been the U.S. ambassador to Mali and Macedonia with experience in South Africa and Botswana. She will be the first woman to lead the Kimberly Process since its inception in 2003.