Already considered a basket case by most economists, Zimbabwe is now on the verge of total collapse. Inflation is said to hit an unbelievable 1,500,000% by year’s end and the local population has already taken to barter or using the South African rand. What’s worse, it has diamond mines like Rio Tinto’s Murowa, more alluvial diamond deposits – that desperately poor artisanal diggers are risking arrest and incarceration to exploit, lot’s of coloured gemstones and precious metal deposits.

That the country has been reduced to stone-age barter despite such an array of resources is a testament to bad governance and exploitation. When the sham of a UN-member nation finally crumbles and Robert Mugabe either goes or is removed, the warlords will move in. That’s when the horror story of countries like Sierra Leone will be repeated.

That’s when we, the outside world, become directly responsible for what happens. As long as we are willing buyers of the resources, the horror and brutality will rampage unchecked. The United Nations has just released a report that calls for efforts to break the connection between natural resources and armed conflict. The report has specifically praised the Kimberley Process and called for similar initiatives to end the seemingly endless cycle of greed and violence from consuming entire countries. As I pointed out in my post on conflict being fuelled by coco exports, almost any economic activity can trigger the brutality. And while innocent people, including children, suffer unimaginably, the warlords get unbelievably rich.

But here again, what does one do? Stop buying diamonds when they might be the only thing keeping people alive? I want to repeat what I said in that post. We need to focus more on programs that build up civil society and foster good governance. Only sticking to fire-fighting after the conflagration has been lit is pretty much a guarantee that it will happen again somewhere else – and pretty soon.