The killing fields of Chiadzwa

The killing fields of Chiadzwa

• Alex Magaisa: Marange's silent war of stones

• Mine faces closure after failing to settle power bill

• Mutare's diamond trail

• Mugabe to netionalise mines, banks

• Mugabe accuses foreign mining firms of economic sabotage

• Zimbabwe seeks 25 percent stake in foreign-owned mines

• Mugabe cancels nephew's uranium mining deal

• Diamond deposits found in Tsholotsho

• Macmillan escapes jail, fined

• RBZ hikes gold prices 757 percent

• Defence lawyer spars with prosecutor in Macmillan trial

• 'Diamond Geezer' Nhara dies

• Zimbabwe gold deliveries lowest in 90 years

• Zimbabwe sets up diamond whistle blowers fund

• Diamond geezer Nhara refused bail

• Nhara arrested after airport diamond find

• Magistrate to appear in court for illegal gold panning

• RBZ bars journalists from illegal mining hearing

• Top official outed as illegal gold dealer

• 25 000 small scale miners lose claims since November

Posted to the web: 24/11/2008 16:45:14
THE Zimbabwe army and police are this week facing accusations of mass murder in a fierce crackdown on illegal diamond mining in the Chiadzwa area of Manicaland, near the country’s eastern border with Mozambique.

A local newspaper on Sunday said “as many as 50 people could have died” since August this year, and “hundreds more injured” in the joint operation by the army and police.

On Saturday, Nathaniel Manheru, a columnist for a state-run newspaper believed to be President Robert Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba said the government “has had to reassert its authority in this wild, wild East”.

Charamba said the “untouchables” accused of looting Marange’s diamonds were being made to “refill the deep gullies with bare hands”.

“They shall use their fingers, and accomplish the job in record time… It is a season of tears as man become beast to get beastly men and women to repair the heinous damage they have wrought on innocence,” he said in the Herald about the brutal operation codenamed Kakudzokwi (You Won't Return).

Charamba listed several nationalities – including Lebanese, Mozambicans, Belgians, Angolans, Liberians, Indians and Sierra Leoneans – that he said had formed “a mini United Nations in sin and greed” in the exploitation of Chiadzwa’s diamonds.

The weekly Standard newspaper said bodies of illegal diamond miners killed during the operation were piling up at mortuaries in Mutare.

The government sent in the army and intelligence officers after local police were accused of taking bribes from the miners, known locally as magweja, and failing to keep law and order in the area.

An official at the Mutare General Hospital told the paper that “scores of people, including children”, were being treated for gun shot wounds, dog bites and other injuries sustained from torture.

Army units have marched on homes of people suspected of profiting from the illegal diamond trade, seizing property.

Former Manicaland provincial prosecutor, Levi Chikafu, said he has seen several people losing property to the troops.

“They are looting people’s properties here,” he said. “I know of one businessman who has lost a fleet of vehicles. It’s so sad.”

The troopers reportedly round up suspected diamond buyers, torture them before taking them to the diamond fields to fill up the pits with bare hands – just as Charamba wrote.

Trust Maanda, a Mutare-based member of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, described the operation as “a gross violation of human rights”.

“The police are abducting people in Mutare before handing them over to soldiers in Chiadzwa where they are being tortured,” he said. “They are confiscating any car they suspect was bought using proceeds from the sale of diamonds without any shred of evidence.”

Zimbabwe National Army spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Simon Tsatsi said: “We are under the police at the moment because it is not a war situation. We are just helping out. Ask the police.”

Police spokesman Waybe Bvudzijena said: “I don’t have reports of people being killed in Chiadzwa. We will, however, issue a full report after the operation.”
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