Looting legitimised

Not to the villagers in Marange to whom the discovery of diamonds at Chiadzwa has been, to put it lightly, virtually like a curse from God. How can the villagers rejoice when fields and pasturelands have been dug up and trampled by men seeking the glittering stones? When drunk young men with pockets full of US dollars earned from selling diamonds to Lebanese smugglers and other international crooks have corrupted all the village girls.

Like wise, diamond certification can never be cause for celebration to the ordinary Zimbabwean who knows from past experience that little, if any, of the about US$1.7 billion expected to be raised from the 4.5 million carats of stockpiled diamonds will ever find its way into the public purse. The only ones celebrating will be the same vultures in the military and Zanu (PF) who have been looting the Marange deposits.

And why shouldnt they, when now they will be able to plunder the diamond fields, conscript villagers to work for them in the mines and smuggle more gemstones without easy detection because of the thick cloak of legitimacy offered by Chikanes certificate. We have said it before and we repeat: it was wrong for the KP to lift the ban on Marange diamond exports in the absence of evidence that state-sponsored brutality in the diamond fields has stopped or that the widespread smuggling of diamonds from Marange into neighbouring countries has been curbed.

It was reckless and disingenuous for the KP to permit exports in the absence of a mechanism to ensure that proceeds from diamond sales will go to funding provision of healthcare, education, food and other social requirements. One needs not be the proverbial rocket scientist to know that money from diamond sales or most of it will disappear as soon as Chikane boards the plane back to Johannesburg.

To certify the Marange diamonds is nothing but to legitimise the looting of a vital national resource by the same greed and powerful elite that has brought Zimbabwe to this sorry state. And for this Chikane and his KP should surely be ashamed of themselves.