he illicit operation emerged as the 171-member Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) relaxed its regulations in Geneva last week allowing four African countries, including Zimbabwe, to put their ivory stocks on the market in a one-time sale.
The sale, which will be done in Japan, has allayed fears by wildlife organizations that the secretive trade here in ivory would escalate.
The ban was lifted after an 18-year moratorium in ivory trade. After this sale, future sales will be frozen for nine years. Zimbabwe’s tourist literature makes great play of a supposedly rising elephant population, but experts believe the figures have been distorted as part of an attempt by Mugabe’s cash-strapped regime to make CITES relax its ivory trading rules.
Zimbabwe’s department of Parks and Wildlife, appealed to CITES earlier last year for clearance to sell 10 tons of ivory, but failed in a complicated negotiation involving Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.
At about the same time substantial quantities of high-calibre ammunition allegedly went missing from the Wildlife department’s armoury near State House in Harare, coinciding with an upsurge in poaching in the Zambezi Valley bordering Zambia, where experts claim up to 200 elephants have been killed over the past year alone.
The Zimbabwean government blamed much of the carnage on foreign animal rights groups, which it claimed were trying to thwart Mugabe’s bid to have the CITES rules relaxed.
The Zimbabwean learnt that a cargo of ivory was recently flown to Beijing via Libya and was thought to have been part payment for thousands of rifles, bullets, anti-riot equipment and other military hardware flown into the Zimbabwean capital around the same time.
The aircraft used to fly the ivory to China was said to be an Angolan-owned Ilyushin, routed via Libya. Mugabe has close ties with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, and was in that country on an official state visit last week
Worth almost US$1m, the sale was a serious breach of rules covering the ivory trade, and is being investigated by Interpol and CITES, according to our wildlife sources.
Ivory commands a black market price of more than US$100 a kilogram. Demand is greatest in Japan and China. The Beijing government is officially opposed to the trade, but wildlife experts in Harare say that unofficially, Chinese demand is high.
Mugabe was reportedly approached by the Chinese shortly after he started vigorously pursuing his Look East policy. Worried that his grip on power was slipping after 27 years, he knew he might need arms to contain a rising tide of opposition to his rule. CITES has previously investigated rumours of the shipments, but was assured by Zimbabwe’s Wildlife department that just over 23 tons of ivory were stored at its Harare headquarters, one ton less than when CITES inquired a year earlier. Officials said the missing ton had been legitimately sold on the local market to craftsmen.
But former Wildlife department employees say the official statistics are almost meaningless, given that up to 50 elephants can be killed by poachers in a typical raid lasting between two and three weeks, bringing anything up to two tons of ivory onto the illegal market.
If Zimbabwe’s claims to have an elephant population of 70,000 are anywhere near accurate, then scientists say natural rates of attrition would also yield several tons of ivory each year.
Other former officials said Mugabe would like to sell off the country’s entire ivory stock because he sees it as an opportunity to raise desperately needed hard currency to bankroll fuel and food imports. The cost of maintaining ivory at a constant humidity and temperature is also steep.
Only a handful of trusted officials – all loyal to the ruling Zanu (PF) party – have access to the stores.
Post published in: News