VIII. Beneficiaries of the Illicit Diamond Trade

Research conducted by Human Rights Watch suggests that the police and military have benefitted greatly from access to Marange's mineral wealth. Although it was not possible to trace the proceeds of diamond sales, Human Rights Watch believes that revenue from the gems mined by the police and military has also enriched senior ZANU-PF officials and provided an important revenue stream for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, which is underwriting ZANU-PF activities as well as military operations. Human Rights Watch research suggests that both the bank and senior members of the party have been complicit in the human rights violations in Marange district.[150]

Police "Reaction Teams"

One police officer in Harare told Human Rights Watch that ZANU-PF officials often worked with police units stationed in Marange to secure access to the fields. He explained:

There were two different police teams operating in Marange: regular police based in Marange, and "reaction teams" of rotating support units who would raid both the police and the local miners. Reaction teams were effectively advance teams to clear the diamond fields... [for] an [incoming] team of miners accompanying a senior ZANU-PF politician or military officer. As reaction teams, we had to make sure that no local miner was present to witness when our seniors were on the field. We would only let the miners back after the politicians were long gone.[151]

According to several miners interviewed by Human Rights Watch who experienced raids by reaction teams, the police would drive them off the field, and then trucks would come onto the fields carrying people the miners suspected to be linked to senior government officials:

We do not know for sure who the people were who came to work in the diamond fields on certain nights after reaction teams cleared us off the fields. The police we work with in our syndicates told us reaction teams make way for big chefs [senior leaders] in ZANU-PF to dig for diamonds.

We named a portion of the diamond fields zamu ramai Mujuru (Mrs. Joyce Mujuru's breast) because on several nights trucks would go there, and we were told by police that the portion belongs to the vice-president, Mrs. Mujuru. That portion of land is heavily guarded both by police and by a private security company, which is owned by another senior ZANU-PF official.[152]

Local and international media have reported on the alleged involvement of Zimbabwe's Vice-President and senior ZANU-PF member Mrs. Mujuru in Marange diamond mining and smuggling, including on ownership of a claim in the diamond fields popularly known as churu chamai Mujuru (Mrs. Mujuru's anthill).[153] International media have also reported on alleged attempts by Mrs. Mujuru's Spain-based daughter to sell uncertified gold and diamonds on the international market. The origin of the diamonds in question has never been publicly revealed.[154]

As a result of internal conflicts within ZANU-PF and infighting over the control of diamonds, some senior ZANU-PF officials have been arrested in connection with diamonds smuggling. For example, a ZANU-PF provincial spokesperson for Harare and senior official within a government ministry, William Nhara, was arrested at the Harare airport on March 1, 2007, together with a Lebanese woman, and was charged with attempted bribery and attempting to smuggle suspected Marange diamonds out of Zimbabwe. The two had in their possession diamonds weighing a total of 10,700 carats. The Lebanese woman, Ms. Carole Georges El Martni, was convicted of possession and attempting to smuggle diamonds and was fined US$84,000 in September 2007. Nhara died while on remand awaiting trial.[155]

In February 2007 police arrested Mthulisi Dube, the son of a director of a Zimbabwe military company, Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI), for possession of 1,164 pieces of Marange diamonds and an electric scale used to weigh diamonds.[156] Dube pleaded guilty in a Harare magistrate court and was convicted and fined for violating the Precious Stones Trade Act.[157]

Among the soldiers stationed in Marange, disputes over control of the illegal diamond trade and the share of benefits have often turned violent and fatal. On June 1, 2009, local media reported that four soldiers in Marange were shot dead by their colleagues on May 24, 2009, allegedly over disputes involving the sharing of proceeds from the illegal sale of diamonds.[158]

Role of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe

Human Rights Watch research suggests that the RBZ, which had no legal status to buy diamonds until the end of January 2009, has been a major buyer of illegal diamonds from Marange since as early as 2006. In so doing, it violated the Precious Stones Trade Act by buying diamonds from unlicensed miners and other illegal sources. Buying diamonds from illegal and undocumented sources also violates KPCS requirements, which stipulate that participants must record all sources of diamonds and export them with necessary documentation indicating their origin.

Several middlemen told Human Rights Watch that they had been RBZ agents in Marange since October 2006 and that they got money to buy diamonds from bank officials.[159] Local miners told Human Rights Watch that the RBZ and foreign buyers offered market prices for the diamonds purchased. A credible local organization based in Mutare that carried out research in Marange has also named the RBZ as one of the main buyers of the area's diamonds.[160]

A police officer in Harare told Human Rights Watch that when he was deployed to guard Marange diamonds fields in August 2008, his superiors told him that several named middlemen, including one known only by the alias "Gonyeti," were untouchable because they worked for the RBZ. They had free access to the diamond fields and were sometimes escorted onto the fields by senior police officers.[161]

After buying diamonds from unlicensed local miners outside any legal framework from September 2006, in January 2009 the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe classified diamonds as a national strategic reserve asset, which the RBZ would export exclusively.[162] There is no official record of the RBZ's exporting diamonds from Marange, except for an indication in the RBZ's own records that the production of Marange diamonds was still in its infancy.[163]

The classification removed from the MMCZ its statutory responsibility to control and market diamonds in Zimbabwe on behalf of the state.[164] For over two years, the RBZ had been engaged in the diamond trade without legal authority to do so. By having the RBZ supplant the MMCZ and take control of the purchase and marketing of diamonds, the bank formally consolidated its control over this natural resource.

Human Rights Watch believes that the revenue the RBZ derived from diamond mining in Marange, even before it had license to mine and trade in the gems, helped to underwrite the army's abusive activities in Marange, including the Chiadzwa massacres in October-November 2008.

A soldier from the ZNA's No.1 Commando Regiment told Human Rights Watch:

We were all preparing to go on annual leave at the end of October when a "signal" was circulated informing us that our annual leave had been cancelled and that immediately we were to be deployed to Marange diamond fields on a special mission funded by Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono.[165]

Several other soldiers from the three separate army units involved in the operation confirmed to Human Rights Watch that they received separate salaries, travel, and subsistence "bush" allowances from the RBZ.[166] Soldiers on mission in Marange were told that they would get special allowances directly from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and then be offered a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity to benefit directly from diamond smuggling.[167]

Because of the lack of transparency in diamond mining and marketing, Human Rights Watch was unable to verify the bank's transactions. The onus is on the RBZ to account for the diamonds it illegally bought in Marange and to be transparent about the use of revenue it received from Marange diamond sales. Not doing so compromises and severely undermines both the Kimberley Process and Zimbabwe's own laws.

Response to Allegations of Human Rights Abuse and Illegal Diamond Trading from the Government of Zimbabwe

Zimbabwean officials deny human rights abuses, smuggling, and even the presence of soldiers in Marange.[168] However, the former provincial governor of Manicaland, Chris Mushohwe, admitted in May 2007 that the diamond rush had, to a large extent, benefitted certain individuals and not the country at large.[169]

In November 2008 the Zimbabwe National Army, through its spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Simon Tsatsi, denied any involvement in Chiadzwa:

As far as we are concerned, we have not been deployed in the Chiadzwa [Marange] diamond field. That is a police operation and the police can enlist the Air Force when they deem fit.[170]

Zimbabwe's minister of mines, Obert Mpofu, in what might have been an unguarded moment, recently admitted while addressing police recruits at a police training center in Bulawayo that the army, CIO, and police were deployed in Marange and were now resisting transfer. He said the reason that they did not want to leave is because they are involved in corrupt activities and are looting diamonds, which they are selling to foreigners from South Africa and Nigeria.[171]

Addressing Zimbabwe's parliament in response to questions about killings in Marange, the minister of mines stated that the police had assured his ministry that the military and police had not killed anyone during the "special operation in Chiadzwa that is still on-going," but that instead, "the police say there were murders among the illegal diamond diggers as they scrambled for control of pits, stones and as they robbed one another."[172]However, as noted earlier, evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch points to wide-scale abuses-including the killing of more than 200 people, beatings, torture, and forced labor-committed by the army since October 2008 and by elements of the police since 2006.