A confidential memo by the head of a delegation of the Kimberley Process, which recently wrapped up an investigation into the reports of violence and killings in Marange, has detailed the 'horrific violence' used by the army against civilians there.The Kimberley Process, a scheme tasked with halting the trade in ‘blood diamonds, sent the delegation to investigate Zimbabwe’s ‘compliance’ with international diamond trade standards. Their visit came days after a Human Rights Watch report detailed the ongoing human rights abuses at the Marange diamond fields, which in turn followed numerous accounts of abuse and killings there.
Accounts from survivors of the military onslaught at Marange detailed the killings, speaking of machine-gun attacks by helicopter and armed attacks by troops on the ground. Civilians in the region also reported that anyone attempting to enter the area was arrested and often tortured and killed. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights have said that about 5,000 people were arrested during the army operation, with three quarters of them showing signs of having been tortured severely.
Government officials have repeatedly and adamantly denied state-sponsored violence at the diamond fields. Mining Minister Obert Mpofu earlier this year, at the start of a separate Kimberley Process mission in March, said the accounts of killings were fabrications. Most recently, his Deputy Murisi Zwizwai told a meeting of the Kimberly Process in Namibia two weeks ago that no killings had taken place. The MDC minister’s comments have since landed him in hot water with his party, who last week said his comments were ‘inaccurate’.
In his confidential memo handed over to government officials and which has also been made available to The New York Times, the Kimberley Process team’s leader, Kpandel Fayia, told Zimbabwean officials that he was so disturbed by the testimonies of victims that he had to leave as they spoke.
“Our team was able to interview and document the stories of victims, observe their wounds, scars from dog bites and batons, tears, and ongoing psychological trauma,” said the memo by Fayia, a deputy minister of the ministry that oversees mining in Liberia.
He told Zimbabwean officials in the memo: “This has to be acknowledged and it has to stop.” One of the anonymous victims also reportedly described seeing at least 80 bodies being buried in a mass grave, while the Mutare Mayor, Brian James, has said the delegation was left ‘traumatised’ by what they heard from survivors. The Kimberly team, which included Liberian, American and Namibian officials, as well as representatives of the diamond industry and civic groups, told Zimbabwean officials that they should suspend mining in the Marange fields, demilitarize the operation and investigate the role of the military and the police.
Government officials have said they would ‘try’ to comply with the Kimberly Process standards before the team issued its final report. Deputy Mining Minister Zwizwai was quoted as saying that Zimbabwe had agreed to remove soldiers from the fields “in phases while proper security settings would be put in place.”
But while Zimbabwe could face being removed from the Kimberley Process as a result of the delegation’s findings, it appears the human rights violations in Marange could be swept under the rug. The delegation has recommended a temporary suspension in Zimbabwe diamond trading. But Susanne Emond from Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), an organisation that has been campaigning for the end of conflict fuelled by the blood diamond trade, explained to SW Radio Africa that the Kimberley Process, as a regulatory body, “doesn’t have a specific language when dealing with human rights.” She said that one of the few tools that the Process has is the suspension of a participating country from the body, therefore preventing the country from trading in diamonds all together.
“This suspension would normally be enough to force a participant to comply with their standards,” Emond said. “But it is unacceptable that a country says it is applying the laws while killing people.”
Emond continued that steps are being taken to include a human rights directive as part of the Kimberley Process and for it to have authority in situations such as Zimbabwe. But she conceded that in the interim it would be up to Zimbabwe’s government to initiate any recourse for victims of the rights abuses.
Original date published: 9 July 2009