Chiadzwa diamond fields near Marange village
At the Chiadzwa diamond fields near Marange village, southwest of the
town of Mutare, forced or conscripted labourers are compelled to dig
diamonds for Robert Mugabe's family and military henchmen, who grabbed
the property after killing or driving off the artisanal miners.
A diamond discovery in 2006 had led to a rush of would-be miners, but
by 2007 the regime had partially succeeded in gaining control of the
workings by bringing in the police. And it insisted that the diamonds
be sold through the Zimbabwe Mining and Development Company only,
ostensibly a state-owned operation but in reality yet another of the
Mugabe clique's devices for stripping the country and shifting the
proceeds abroad.
At that point, Kimberley Process observers made a superficial
examination of the area, flying over it and seeing very few people.
Though policemen had been brought in, many defected and took up mining,
which offered far better returns than a constable's salary. It couldn't
go on.
By mid-2008, Air Marshall Perence Shiri was there, putting troops on
the ground and using helicopter gunships to kill or disperse hundreds
of artisanal miners. Shiri, the head of the air force, is Mugabe's
cousin who, back in 1983 and 1984, headed the Fifth Brigade responsible
for the mass murder of opposition voters in Matabeleland.
These days, locals are forced to work on the diggings, and the rough
gems are spirited out of the country by dubious diamond buyers and put
up for sale surreptitiously in cutting centres such as Mumbai. They do
not figure in any official Zimbabwean export figures. And though their
exploitation does not strictly fall within the Kimberley Process's
terms of reference they do not fund a civil war, unless one believes
that military attacks on unarmed civilians is a form of civil war the
fact remains that the forced labourers are working as little better
than slaves. Chiadzwa looks like an enormous prison camp or military
garrison and offers no benefits to local people.
Should anyone care? Is this not an internal affair of a sovereign
country? Does anyone care about another example of a rotten regime
pillaging the country?
Partnership Africa Canada does, and its latest report on the bloody
situation in Zimbabwe is causing more than a little upset in the
Kimberley Process. But then, the partnership is one of its consciences.
On the other hand, South Africa's government is a process signatory,
but its record and that of other African signatory governments on
Zimbabwean human rights abuses offer little hope of much being done
about the diamond operation.
The Zimbabwean situation might appear to fall outside the aim of
halting the flow of diamonds noted in the Kimberley Process
Certification Scheme's (KPCS) core document as …directly linked to
the fuelling of armed conflict, the activities of rebel movements aimed
at undermining or overthrowing legitimate governments, and the illicit
traffic in, and proliferation of, armaments, especially small arms and
light weapons.
In May 2000, De Beers and some of its Southern African host countries
wanted to rebut the bad press of blood diamonds. That led to the
process's establishment. Wars and civil wars across Africa were being
funded by illicit diamond trading, which involved some respectable
diamond companies. In an earlier cartel incarnation, De Beers' agents
would prowl the war zones to buy up illicit diamonds to support the
market. Respectability needed to be restored, because De Beers
executives were known across the continent as the most refined thugs in
Africa.
Of course, it is not like that now, particularly with the introduction
of the Kimberley Process, which counts companies, governments and NGOs
among its adherents, thereby bringing an added respectability to the
diamond- mining industry. But when the Chiadzwa killings became known,
the Kimberley Process dithered over whether to issue a statement. That
was all it did.
As Partnership Africa Canada said: This is not a matter of semantics
and it is not a stretch of the Kimberley Process mandate, because the
second item in the KPCS preamble clearly notes the devastating impact
of conflicts fuelled by the trade in conflict diamonds on the peace,
safety and security of people in affected countries, and the systematic
and gross human rights violations that have been perpetrated in such
conflicts'.
If the Kimberley Process signatories continue to dither by failing at
least to suspend Zimbabwe's membership, then we have proof that, as
World Diamond Council member Chaim Even-Zohar wrote in February:
Though the very existence of the KPCS has rightfully been heralded as
a magnificent achievement, it is slowly degenerating into an
antidemocratic, non-accountable and non-transparent mechanism.
Its key members spend great efforts fighting the dissemination of
relevant feedback to their constituencies and stakeholders as a way to
mask their inability to act responsibly and do what they are supposed
to do.
As such, the KPCS is evolving in ways that will gradually erode its
trust and standing within and outside its immediate stakeholder
communities.
Sunday Times (SA)
Post published in: News