Zimbabwe’s diamond theft

In this sense Marange became the symbol of a classic ‘resource curse’, undermining accountability and fuelled by a corrupt legal and political order, linking political struggles with accumulation and elite formation, as Alois Mlambo describes in the Foreword.

But this was not just a Zimbabwe phenomenon, as is sometimes suggested. The international connections, feeding local corruption, were important.

The chapter by Alan Martin offers a detailed and fascinating account of the murky international networks associated with the diamond trade over time.

The connections with Dubai, India, Belgium, South Africa, the UK, US, Israel and more were crucial. Competition in the international diamond trade – from traders to distributors to processors to retailers – had big effects on who became involved at the Zimbabwe end, and what deals were struck with both companies and state officials.

Of course the evidence is inevitably patchy and secretive, as much of this activity was illegal, but the chapter sheds important light on the international dimensions of the story, including the clear limitations of the Kimberley Process, the global certification attempt established in 2003 to ensure accountability and transparency in the diamond trade, and the focus for much local and international civil society action.

As the book shows, there were clearly different phases of exploitation of the Marange diamond fields over the last decade, involving different actors, with different political connections, and with different patronage networks.

The first phase involved African Consolidated Resources, a company with British connections, who had the mining rights to the newly discovered field. However their license was quickly withdrawn.

Here the rhetoric of indigenisation and resources for the people was used, although the party-state at that stage showed little interest at the highest levels, not knowing the extent of the find.

From mid-2006 followed a period of ‘free-for-all’ when informal miners arrived en masse. This was a period when the economy was in crisis, inflation was accelerating, and when many were looking for alternative sources of income.

People had been displaced by Operation Murabatsvina in 2005, and younger people often had not benefited from the land reform in 2000. At its peak in 2007-08 there were reputedly 35 000 people – miners, traders, service providers of various sorts – living in and around the Chiadzwa area.

The excellent chapter by Tinashe Nyamunda provides an important insight into this period, showing how mining was organised, and how miners had to link with policy and security syndicates, paying off other officials in turn, in order to operate. Links to traders were facilitated and cuts were taken at every stage.

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