Mugabe’s diamonds begin to lose sparkle as abuses of miners exposed

Police stand by helplessly. Shoppers, their memories fresh of ruling party loyalists looting shops and attacking supporters of Morgan Tsvangirai, cower. I watch the pandemonium for 20 minutes from a supermarket entrance.

During the past 11 years, only President Robert Mugabe’s supporters have been allowed to rampage through Zimbabwe’s city centres.

Then I find that this is the funeral parade for street-kid-turned-diamond-dealer, Bothwell Hlahla, who made his millions dealing in gems from the controversial Marange fields, one hour’s drive away.

That Hlahla’s funeral takes place openly on such a scale and is fawningly covered by the local pro-Mugabe press – the convoy is “one of the longest ever to be witnessed in Mutare”, says the Manica Post – shows how illegal diamond dealing is flourishing in Zimbabwe. That is despite the claims of Mugabe’s side of the fragile coalition government.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch this week urged the Kimberley Process to halt the export of gems from Marange because of abuses inflicted on panners in the fields, which are now controlled by Chinese, Zimbabwean and South African firms handpicked by mines minister Obert Mpofu.

Police and private security firms use dogs to “tear the flesh” of diggers, sometimes before the visits of foreign delegations, HRW said in a statement this week. Diggers speak of being handcuffed and then deliberately set upon by dogs as recently as May and June.

In one horrific account, 20-year-old Peter N said: “The police were also there and they had guns... When the police started shooting, I stopped and surrendered. That’s when the dogs came and started biting me. I know that some of the others were shot by the police because I saw them fall,” he added.

Hlahla, who was killed in a car crash on 12 August, was a dealer, not a humble gweja (digger). Hlahla’s death goes some way towards exposing the rampant illegal deals taking place in Marange as well as the misery the minions who dig there for powerful syndicates still face. HRW says some of those injured by dogs or guards prefer not to seek treatment at government facilities “as hospitals often required a police report”.

A shabby private clinic in Mutare’s Avenues area does not demand police clearance: some get their wounds dressed there. Others, frustrated and scared, have turned to gold-mining in the nearby Chimanimani mountains, where eight panners died in a collapsed tunnel last week.

HRW criticised a decision by Kimberley Process chairman Mathieu Yamba in June to lift a ban on Marange diamond exports, accusing the watchdog of “ignoring serious abuses taking place” there.

But Davison Gomo, the head of the pro-Mugabe Affirmative Action Group, said: “It is no longer a secret that the demonisation of our diamonds, particularly those from Chiadzwa, is not innocent but rather carefully managed propaganda.”