V. Human Rights Abuses, Corruption, and Extortion by the Police (November 2006 to October 2008)

On November 21, 2006, five months after the discovery of diamonds in Marange, the government launched a nationwide police operation code-named Chikorokoza Chapera (End to Illegal Panning), which was aimed at stopping illegal mining across the country, including in Marange. During the operation, police deployed some 600 police officers, arrested about 22,500 persons nationwide who it said were illegal miners (some 9,000 of them were arrested in Marange), and seized gems and minerals with an estimate total value of US$7 million.[41]

The operation was marked by human rights abuses by the police, as well as corruption, extortion, and the smuggling of diamonds. Police coerced local miners to join syndicates that would provide the police with revenue from the sales of diamonds that the miners found. In seeking to end illegal mining and maintain control of the fields, police engaged in killings, torture, beatings, and harassment of local miners in Marange, particularly when police "reaction teams" carried out raids to drive local miners from the diamond fields.

Corruption in Marange

Over the 100-kilometer stretch of road from Mutare to Marange, police set up at least 11 permanent checkpoints to restrict access to Marange district and searched all persons travelling to and from Chiadzwa for precious stones.[42] Some local people interviewed by Human Rights Watch stated that they believed these restrictions were an attempt by the police to allow access to the fields only to those willing to pay off police officers.[43] They said that time allowed on the fields also depended on how much one paid the police: the bigger the bribe, the more time one was allowed. Those able to pay bigger bribes went in first.[44]

The security checkpoints and guard posts soon became de facto payment points where miners would bribe police to gain access to the fields and pay an exit fee on their way out.[45] Initially the police demands were modest, and often the bribes paid were small. According to one miner who spoke to Human Rights Watch:

When the police started guarding the diamond fields in Chiadzwa, we could easily bribe them. At the end of 2006, we used to gain access to the fields simply by giving the police a pack of cigarettes, a can of beer or mutsege (roasted nuts). At one time we even devised a plan with three gwejelines (women) in my team where the women had sex with the six police on guard and, while they attended to the police, we were digging for diamonds.[46]

With time, the police began to charge more. At each checkpoint, police began to extort payments of at least US$5, or the equivalent in South African rand, for miners to proceed onwards. A miner who first went to Chiadzwa in September 2007 told Human Rights Watch:

Although police usually demanded US$5 at checkpoints, the bribes would increase as one got closer to the field. We paid the largest bribes to police stationed at the edge of, or inside the diamond fields. For middlemen sometimes the bribes could be as much as US$100 to access the diamond fields.[47]

Another miner told Human Rights Watch that the police would not turn people away if they did not have the required fee; they just gave preference to those with the correct fee and gave them more time on the fields. Those with insufficient amounts would be allowed a very short period of time, sometimes only 20 minutes on the field.[48]

One local miner explained the working relationship with the police:

In the evening we would approach the police and say, "We want to work the fields tonight." The police would then tell us if it was fine... [and] they would tell us to pay them for access to the fields. When it was time for us to leave the field, the police often fired shots in the air, and we would stop working and leave the field with bags of ore on our backs. We would pay a bribe to leave the field with the ore.[49]

The police were in full control, but seemed to deliberately let illegal mining and trading activities thrive, while seeking to profit from them.[50]

In an internal police memorandum dated September 18, 2007, obtained by Human Rights Watch, Police Spokesperson Chief Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka stated that police officers stationed in Chiadzwa were engaged in corruption and that many were actively soliciting and receiving varying sums of cash from local miners in exchange for access to diamond fields. The memorandum noted:

Following corruption where members of the police force received varying amounts of money from illegal diamond diggers (magweja)-17 constables, sergeants, and an assistant inspector were charged, convicted, and sentenced under the Police Act. They were all dismissed from the force. A further 11 officers facing corruption charges under the Police Act (omitting or neglecting to perform any duty or performing any duty in an improper manner)have since been relieved of their duties.[51]

Human Rights Watch found, however, that disciplinary action and prosecutions of police officers were highly selective and inconsistent.

Police Smuggling Syndicates

To guarantee for themselves a cut of the diamond revenue, police officers formed "syndicates" with local miners. A syndicate was a group of miners that operated under the direct control of members of the police. Groups of between two and five police officers would partner with a large group of local miners under a loose arrangement where police provided the local miners security and escort in the fields in return for a share of proceeds from selling any diamonds the local miners found. A syndicate run by two members of the police could have as many as 30 local miners, and the two police officers could control several syndicates at a time. Some local miners, however, worked independently of police syndicates.[52]

A member of the Police Support Unit based in Manicaland told Human Rights Watch:

During the time I was based in Marange at the end of 2007, together with a colleague we controlled six syndicates with a combined total of 102 members. We would grant them access to the fields, and they would dig for diamonds while we guarded them and then hand over the diamonds to us to sell, and then we shared the proceeds equally, giving 50 percent to each side. My government salary for three months was less than US$5, but from the diamond business together with my colleague we made more than US$10,000 in three months.[53]

A police officer told Human Rights Watch how he was involved in illegal diamond smuggling with a foreign buyer in Marange:

It was obvious to me that the man was an illegal diamond buyer. He could not speak the local language [Shona], and he stated that he was a tourist. I then told him that it was clear he had an interest in diamonds and I offered to assist him, or alternatively arrest him on the spot on charges relating to illegal diamonds trade and take him to court to explain himself.

He then confessed that he had travelled from South Africa to buy diamonds on behalf of his principal, a well-known South African buyer. He said he was on his fifth trip to Marange to buy diamonds. We then agreed that he would buy diamonds only through me and that whenever he came to Marange, he would first contact me. I worked well with him, and now, although I have since left Marange, whenever he comes to buy diamonds, he first contacts me and I refer him to my trusted contacts in the police and army running syndicates in Marange at the moment.[54]

Several middlemen told Human Rights Watch that they worked for the same South African buyer.[55] For several months in 2008, they would travel once a week to Johannesburg, South Africa, to get "bags" of money from this same buyer and to give him diamonds.[56]

Another member of the police based in Harare told Human Rights Watch:

I started my first syndicate with local diamond miners after we had arrested eight of them at a checkpoint that I was manning with colleagues. For the three months that my team was based in Chiadzwa, we worked with the syndicate. And when it was time to leave Chiadzwa we handed over our syndicate to our colleagues who took over the guarding from us.[57]

One local miner told Human Rights Watch that joining a police syndicate was often involuntary; the only alternative was arrest:

In August 2008 we were caught by the police, 14 of us working in the diamond fields. They took us to their base at Chakohwa where 17 others were already detained. One policeman said to us, "Either you all become our syndicate and work for us, or we detain you and take you to court after several days of languishing and gnashing of teeth. The choice is yours." We all chose to be a syndicate for the police officers.[58]

Several members of the police as well as local miners told Human Rights Watch that police frequently coerced miners to join syndicates under police control. In November 2008 RBZ Governor Gono estimated that there were some 500 syndicates operating in Marange at any given time.[59]

Under Zimbabwean law, it is illegal for members of the police to run syndicates under the Police Act, which prohibits police from improperly using their position for private gain and from entering into any trade, business, or occupation while on duty.[60]Forcing local miners to join syndicates also violates Zimbabwe's obligations under the ILO Convention 29, which prohibits forced or compulsory labor.[61]

Killings by Police

From November 21, 2006, to the end of October 2008, police committed numerous human rights abuses, including killings, torture, beatings, and harassment of local miners in Marange. The bulk of the abuses occurred when police "reaction teams" carried out raids to drive local miners from the diamond fields. During "reaction team" raids, or when local miners entered the diamond fields without paying, some police officers used live ammunition to expel them. One local miner told Human Rights Watch how he and several others were violently forced off the fields by police in August 2008:

We had decided to go into the diamond fields without paying the police because we had run out of cash. We were digging in darkness when the police fired a searchlight into the sky, and the whole field was as bright as day. Then the police, about 30 of them, began to fire at us using Mossberg shotguns. Four of my colleagues were in a tunnel when the raid began and had no time to come out. Close to 200 miners were running in all directions.

The shallow tunnel where my colleagues were working collapsed and trapped them inside. There was nothing I could do to save them; I had to run for my own life. On that night, three people were shot by police and died on the field. The following morning, police ordered us to bury the three bodies in one of the pits on the field. When I asked to dig out my four colleagues, a police officer told me, "consider them already buried."[62]

According to several police officers interviewed by Human Rights Watch who took part in the operations, the senior police officer commanding Mutare Rural District (or DISPOL), Chief Superintendent O.C. Govo, was in charge of these operations.[63] The officers said that he told them on several occasions in 2008 to "shoot on sight" any local miners found in the diamond fields.[64] Another police officer who witnessed the killing of three local miners told Human Rights Watch:

At the end of August 2008, DISPOL Govo addressed us and said we were all too lenient with local miners. He then said he was going to show us how to deal decisively with local miners. Around 10 that night, he led us to a well-known camp of local miners in the hills. First he fired a searchlight into the air and then he began to shoot randomly at the sleeping miners.

I saw him shoot and kill three miners. Many others ran into the night. He told us to leave the bodies, saying the other miners who had run away would return to bury their dead.[65]

A 23-year-old man who was shot by the police in the diamond fields in October 2008 told Human Rights Watch:

Three policemen on horseback raided us while we worked in the diamond fields and immediately fired their shotguns at us. I was shot in the left thigh. A friend later took out four pellets from my left thigh where I was shot. Two of my friends were shot and killed during that raid.[66]

Arbitrary Arrests and Detentions

Police also routinely and arbitrarily arrested members of the local community in the area around the diamonds fields, often without any reasonable suspicion that a person was involved in illegal or unlicensed mining, prospecting, or trading.[67] Several villagers told Human Rights Watch that they were frequently subjected to beatings and harassment during the course of arrest and while in detention, which often was for between four and seven days in makeshift police camps on the diamond fields, before they were taken to Mutare remand prison for further detention and the court process. A former detainee, part of a large group of people detained in April 2008, described to Human Rights Watch how, after having been arrested while selling cigarettes and food at Chakohwa shopping center, he was detained for five days before being taken to court, charged with prospecting without licenses, and forced to pay "admission of guilt" fines before release.[68]

Several other villagers told Human Rights Watch that they were arrested indiscriminately, detained for at least four days, and taken to Mutare, where they were also ordered to pay "admission of guilt" fines for illegal prospecting, and then released.[69] One villager said:

I was arrested [for failure to produce an identification card] by three police constables patrolling in Chiadzwa in May 2008. I was taken to Chakohwa police base, where I joined about 30 other people detained there. We were all beaten on the soles of our feet using iron rods, and we were made to sing and dance. For six days we were in detention. The police gave us very little food. We were divided into three groups, one for cooking, the next for washing clothes and fetching water, and the last for general cleaning. On the seventh day, we were driven to Mutare, where we were all charged with illegal prospecting and fined and released.[70]

 

The mass arrests and detentions of suspected local miners and members of the local community soon filled Mutare remand prison beyond its 300-person capacity, to more than 1,600 inmates. Many were not fed, and those in detention slept outside in the open, but within the prison perimeter and under guard.[71] A member of the Mutare Legal Practitioners Association (MLPA), who was part of a team of lawyers that represented the villagers and diamond miners, told Human Rights Watch that in May 2008, the MLPA represented close to 1,000 individuals from Marange, including boys and girls as young as 10 years old, whom police had detained for well over the 48-hour limit set by law.

Scores of these villagers had dog-bite wounds.[72] A medical officer at a private hospital in Mutare told Human Rights Watch that in 2008 alone he had treated more than 200 victims with dog-bite wounds from Marange.[73] A victim of dog attacks under police guard told Human Rights Watch:

I was in the company of three other women; we had been fetching water at a village well. Two policemen with dogs stopped us and accused us of fetching water and cooking for miners and one police constable said, "We want to teach you a lesson never to assist illegal miners." He ordered us to kneel down and take off our blouses. We did and they both set their dogs on us. We all suffered dog bites on our breasts. After a few minutes the police told us that the dogs only eat human breast meat and let us go.[74]

Sexual Abuse and Exploitation

Women living on the diamond fields described to Human Rights Watch how they suffered sexual abuse and degrading treatment by the police. Three women who underwent degrading body searches by a police constable told Human Rights Watch how they were forced to strip naked at the 22-miles checkpoint between Mutare and Chiadzwa. After stripping, the male police officer searching them inserted his gloved finger in their private parts, probing, and claiming to be looking for hidden diamonds.[75]

 

Several other women told Human Rights Watch how some police officers stationed in Chiadzwa in 2008 would amuse themselves by fighting over women and gambling on them, with the victors winning the "prize," a chance to forcibly have sex with the women for the night. Some women also told Human Rights Watch that they volunteered sexual favors in return for access to the diamond fields or in exchange for diamonds.[76]