The worldwide diamond and coloured gemstone industry is in danger of being broadsided by a whole new human rights abuse crisis along the lines of the ‘blood diamonds’ issue that hit it last year.

The diamond has been positioned to symbolise not only everything pure and good in the relationships between men and women, but also the fact that these attributes are enduring and transcend time. Which is why the whole ‘blood diamond’ thing was (and still is – it hasn’t really gone away) such a big issue for the global industry and why it immediately closed ranks to launch a worldwide public relations counter-offensive. With that sort of positioning, reputation is everything.

As Robert Gannicott, head of the Harry Winston Diamond Corporation said in a seminar on reputation last year in Hong Kong, the diamond industry runs the risk of suffering the fate of the fur and tobacco industries if it doesn’t keep a sharp eye on its reputation. Not just from the public but from the big brands that actually offer consumers the whole packaged illusion. The way he put it as I recall was to allude to the tobacco industry example – “The big brands will drop diamonds if they get even a whiff of something like cigarette smoke.” What he meant was that the brands are all extremely sensitive about the reputation they carry and wouldn’t hesitate to purge something that might sully it.

While the collective campaign scotched the worst of the fires kindled by the blood diamond issue, it hasn’t completely removed public unease over it. Death, destruction and human rights abuses are not what a consumer wants along with that something special.

It is clear that just isolating or shunning areas or regimes considered rotten and holding up clean hands is not enough. The industry has to be seen to care and seen to take action to put things right. Which is why it needs to pay close attention to political developments in Africa.

China suddenly generated headlines last year when it announced it was giving the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) a $5 billion infrastructure development loan in return for toll fees and mining concessions. It now turns out that the loan is more like $9 billion and gives China control of the DRC’s copper and cobalt mines. Many other countries and institutions like the IMF have warned that the DRC has entered into a dangerous pact that might actually be detrimental in the long run. The deal has, however, gone ahead.

Now China has begun making overtures to Zimbabwe, making it clear it wants access to mineral wealth from that country too. Zimbabwe’s human rights abuse issues are well known and the country is now suffering inflation running at higher than 100,000%.

China has also been in the spotlight over the issue of human rights violations in Sudan’s Darfur region. Movie mogul Steven Spielberg recently quit as one of the artistic directors of the Beijing Olympics because he said China wasn’t doing enough about the issue, prompting attacks on him in the Chinese media. His resignation, however, the latest in a string of protests by governments and celebrities, seems to have finally prodded China into putting pressure on the Sudanese government which, as this report makes clear, has counted on the silence of China, its largest trading partner to counter the outrage being expressed in other parts of the world.

So what has all this got to do with the gem and jewellery industry? Nothing direct, except the fact that the DRC is major alluvial diamond source and Zimbabwe, apart from alluvial sources, has its famous Murowa diamond mine (owned by Rio Tinto). If mining rights in these countries are handed out without regard to human rights issues, there is going to be a public outcry. That outcry could be against China, but the diamond industry is in the way (don’t forget China has a large and growing diamond cutting industry). It could find a lot of blamed heaped on it for no fault of its own.

The diamond industry has to be seen publicly to stand up for not only human rights, but also the commercial and cultural rights of indigenous people. It can’t sit silently by. You can get tainted just by being too close.