Mining guards beat man to death

A MAN digging a well near Zimbabwe’s controversial Chiadzwa diamond fields was beaten to death by police and guards from a mining company linked to first lady Grace Mugabe, a post-mortem examination has shown.

Tsorosai Kusena, 39, and four relatives were beaten through the night last Friday after security guards from the Mbada Diamonds company accused them of digging for diamonds at their homestead in the arid Bereta village in eastern Zimbabwe.

The property was “nowhere near” Mbada’s claim, activists say. Mr Kusena died in police custody: two of his brothers are still battling for their lives in hospital.

The vicious nature of the attack suggests abuses are still being perpetrated at Zimbabwe’s eastern diamond fields, nearly three years after a military clampdown that rights groups say left around 200 panners and villagers dead. A report conducted by a doctor in Mutare, quoted in the independent Newsday newspaper, shows Mr Kusena died of stress caused by the beatings.

His family wants the senior police officer they say was in charge to be arrested, but reports say the officer has been moved to Harare.

Famed for her love of designer clothes and overseas shopping, Mrs Mugabe is a shareholder in Mbada, one of five companies handpicked to mine in Chiadzwa by mines minister Obert Mpofu. His personal assistant is on the board.

Mrs Mugabe, 46, portrays herself as the caring “mother of the nation”, running an orphanage at a seized farm in Mazowe and acting as patron of a training institute for the disabled.

But the brutality of personnel employed to police Mbada’s diamond claim dent her image.

Mine security guards have just been granted an industry-wide 10 per cent salary hike.

In Chiadzwa they allegedly use dogs, guns and beatings to terrorise panners and passersby.

The ongoing violence – denied by president Robert Mugabe’s side of a coalition government – has led some members of the Kimberley Process, the global watchdog for the gem trade, to promise a boycott ahead of its plenary session in November.

In March, KP chairman Mathieu Yamba of the Democratic Republic of Congo gave Zimbabwe the go-ahead to export its Chiadzwa gems, though he has reportedly asked Mugabe’s government to respond to allegations of torture at Chiadzwa aired in a BBC Panorama documentary in August. “We remain particularly concerned that this plenary will likely end all meaningful oversight of [Chiadzwa] Marange, despite ongoing and credible concerns about its compliance and cooperation with the KP in meeting minimum standards,” wrote Alan Martin of Partnership Africa Canada, a non-profit organisation promoting sustainable development in Africa, in an e-mail circulated this week.

Along with mining companies Anjin and Marange Resources, Mbada has also funded the construction of houses for displaced Chiadzwa villagers. The state-controlled Manica Post carried glowing testimonials from some of them. “We have been longing to leave Chiadzwa for a long time. Life had become unbearable,” claimed Shelton Makunike, who last week was given a five-roomed house in Odzi, east of Mutare. Villagers are being handed “disturbance” allowances of US$1,000 (£640) plus fertiliser and food.

Yesterday, independent human rights research group Zimbabwe Peace Project said political tension remains “very high” in Zimbabwe ahead of proposed elections, reporting more than 20 human rights violations each day over a four week period.

The US Embassy in Harare yesterday responded by criticising police and judicial officials for bias and failing to stop continuing violence.