ROBERT Mugabe’s spy agency secretly controls a diamond miner in Zimbabwe’s Marange region that has enriched the president’s allies and funded state repression, according to an anti-corruption campaign group.
Global Witness said in a report released yesterday that the Central Intelligence Organisation appeared to be an “unidentified and secretive partner” backing Kusena Diamonds, a company that sold gems to the international market and now forms part of a contentious state-owned diamond operator.
The evidence, gleaned from company records and secret documents linked to the CIO, will reignite fears that a black hole of up to US$13 billion in reported revenue from Marange has enriched the country’s political elite and the ruling Zanu-PF.
Zanu-PF is in the midst of a brutal power struggle over who will succeed Mugabe (93), who remains the party’s candidate for president in elections set for next year but is under pressure to name a successor.
Michael Gibb, researcher at Global Witness, said that there were “clear indications of state complicity in the expropriation of these critical resources. Given how opaque and secretive the sector is, what we have uncovered is likely just one symptom of a much wider problem”.
Mugabe has himself acknowledged that billions of US dollars in earnings from Marange diamonds have failed to materialise since the fields were discovered in 2006 and promised a bonanza for ordinary Zimbabweans, most of whom live in poverty.
Hundreds were massacred and thousands had to leave their homes in 2008 when Zimbabwe’s military forced artisan miners to leave Marange after the early stages of the diamond rush.
The government has been accused by Human Rights Watch and other critics of giving the army and security forces access to mineral wealth following the operation.
“Well over US$15 billion or more has been earned” in Marange but only US$2 billion has been received by the state, Mugabe said last year, as he accused foreign-owned diamond miners of having “swindled” the country’s wealth.
Gems from Kusena’s operations have in recent years been sold in the diamond-trading hubs of Antwerp and Dubai. “This means international buyers may have indirectly financed the CIO with their purchases,” Global Witness said.
Last year, the government pushed producers in Marange, including Kusena, to combine into a single operator, the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC), which is 50% state-owned.
The consolidation means that the CIO “may now be in possession of a hidden stake in the company created to control Zimbabwe’s entire diamond sector”, the report added. “This possibility should be of major concern to the global diamond industry and consumers worldwide.”
Since its foundation, the ZCDC has been mired in controversy, including criticism by Zimbabwean parliamentarians over its secretive operations. Last month, a court ordered the company to halt operations after failing to observe environmental regulations.
Kusena is officially owned by the Zimbabwe Mineral Development Corporation (ZMDC), a state-backed investment company.
But a paper trail suggests that Kusena “was set up by the CIO to secure a secret off the books source of financing”, Global Witness said.
Neither Kusena, the ZMDC nor the ZCDC could be reached for comment.
