Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe: A Once-Promising Past
Not so long ago, Queen Elizabeth II granted knighthood to Sir Robert Mugabe for his “significant contributions” to British-Zimbabwean relations. So how did the Zimbabwean president go from being so admired to losing his knighthood in 2008, fourteen years after receiving it; “earning” Parade magazine’s ignominious title of “worst dictator of the year” in 2009; and firmly establishing his status as an international pariah by 2012? To answer these questions, we must briefly retreat into history, to the early 1960s, at which time Great Britain was preparing to grant independence to Zimbabwe, known then as Southern Rhodesia. With the imperial power poised to depart, the colony’s sizable white settler population rallied behind Ian Smith. In 1965, his administration seized control and signed the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, Mugabe, as secretary-general of the nationalist Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) movement, had been advocating the end of white minority rule of any type, which landed him in prison from 1964 to 1974. Upon his release, he rejoined the struggle, actively participating in the nationalist guerrilla campaign to topple the UDI regime. By 1979, the UK had intervened, and the warring parties finally agreed to put down their arms and hold majority elections, which Mugabe won in 1980. Hailed as both a freedom fighter and an adroit politician, Robert Mugabe had rightfully won the respect of peoples around the world.
The 1980s and ’90s saw Mugabe retain much of this international esteem, despite his government’s ruthless treatment of domestic opposition. However, Mugabe’s fortunes soon changed, roughly with the arrival of the new millennium. A tightening grip on power and a poorly run program to return white-controlled farmlands to black Africans (many of whom were Mugabe cronies) as part of an attempt to rectify the inequities of the colonial era prompted Mugabe’s fall from international grace. At the same time, the Zimbabwean economy collapsed. In November 1997, for example, the Zimbabwean dollar lost 74 percent of its value during just a four-hour period! Into the early twenty-first century, the country experienced hyperinflation, rendering its already battered currency useless, before it finally abandoned the Zimbabwean dollar altogether in April 2009. Zimbabwe had become a basket case.
In the midst of this seemingly endless downward spiral, the Marange deposits, centered on Chiadzwa, were discovered, appearing like manna for the embattled leader. In fact, a subsidiary of De Beers had been engaged in limited prospecting for some time in Marange before a British company, African Consolidated Resources (ACR), succeeded it. But unfortunately for ACR, it was on its watch that the major finds were made. Think: Boer farmers almost 150 years earlier futilely trying to keep waves of “rushing” diggers off of their lands. In the far eastern stretches of Zimbabwe, it was Kimberley, all over again.
Zimbabwe’s “Wild, Wild East”
As ACR desperately tried to maintain control, profit seekers of all types flooded into the diamond-bearing areas, spurred on by the country’s deepening economic crisis. By now, you know the story. Virtually overnight, the region was overrun with informal provisioners of goods and services; a wide range of government and business elites, who were often in competition with one another; and, of course, illicit and artisanal diggers, called magweja. And, if the diamond fields weren’t already crowded enough, Zimbabwean soldiers and police were also on the scene, charged with “putting a stop to the illegal activities” and “protecting the area.” This flurry of activity also extended across the nearby Mozambican border, where eager buyers flush with foreign currency awaited the arrival of stones smuggled out of Zimbabwe. By 2007, influential individuals associated with ZANU or other organs of the state apparatus had become deeply involved in Marange, increasingly utilizing the state’s security forces to protect extraction and smuggling operations, as well as to remove local communities, legal title holders, and informal miners, by whatever means necessary. These public officials often competed rather than cooperated, prioritizing personal rather than national interests, and thereby deepened the chaos. As the scholar Richard Saunders has argued, “Unlike other . . . cases of ‘blood diamonds’ such as Sierra Leone and Angola, where mineral proceeds fueled armed rebellion from outside the central government, Zimbabwe’s conflict diamonds posed a threat . . . from within.”[115]
The escalating violence in Marange correlated with the passage of Zimbabwe’s Precious Stones Act in 2007, which criminalized any mining the central government hadn’t formally sanctioned. By the following year, the state had deemed all informal digging to be illegal, including artisanal mining, which had previously been permitted. Consequently, the Marange fields were designated a “no-go zone” and the government began to conduct aggressive operations to remove all unsanctioned diggers from the area. These sweeps included Operation Hakudzokwe kumunda (“You will not return to the field”) in late 2008 and Operation Dzokera Kumusha (“Go back home”) early the next year. Yet rather than dispersing, many of the estimated 15,000 to 35,000 Africans involved in illicit activities fought back. According to Human Rights Watch and a number of other NGOs, human rights abuses were rife. Owing to the lingering violence, senior government officials decided that the police had been ineffectual in subduing the area and turned to the military. Zimbabwe’s Air Force began strafing diggers from helicopter gunships and used teargas, attack dogs, and other extreme measures to terrorize diggers, suspected buyers, and the nearby villagers accused of harboring them. No one was spared. These troops also, however, wanted a piece of the mineral action and began to coerce anyone they could detain, including boys as young as eleven, to mine the deposits on their behalf. By now, Marange’s diamonds were, quite literally, soaked in blood.
Not coincidentally, the militarization of the diamond fields coincided with Mugabe’s declining domestic political popularity. In 2008, the ascension of the rival Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Mugabe’s highly suspect reelection prompted regional leaders to intervene. Following formal negotiations, ZANU and the MDC agreed to a power-sharing arrangement, known as the Government of National Unity (GNU). However, there was nothing unified about this government; ZANU elements within the GNU retained exclusive control of the diamond fields, as well as the military and police. These security forces have been instrumental to ZANU’s ongoing control in Marange, yet they also regularly permit informal miners to enter the deposits at night in exchange for a share of any stones that these diggers might unearth. Despite the persistence of this type of illegal mining, the Marange deposits continue to be, for all intents and purposes, at the disposal of Mugabe and those elements within the GNU loyal to him.
Predictably, these diamonds have delivered absolutely no benefits to the vast majority of Zimbabweans, while enriching only a select few. Tendai Biti, Zimbabwe’s finance minister and one of the leaders of the MDC opposition, has openly complained that hundreds of millions of dollars from the Marange operations have gone missing. If this accusation is indeed true, it will surprise very few observers. In fact, since the Zimbabwean military took control of the Marange fields, Biti has objected that exactly none of the diamond revenues have found their way into the national treasury. In response, he has called for clearer audit trails, new revenue-sharing arrangements, and greater transparency regarding the sale of diamonds. However, under the existing agreement, the revenues derived from the diamond fields are, conveniently for Mugabe and his supporters, the only streams not subject to oversight by the finance minister. With the wealth flowing directly to Mugabe and his allies, Biti’s greatest fear—which he shares with millions of fellow Zimbabweans—is that the aging president (born in February 1924) will continue to utilize these profits to violently retain control of the diamond fields, strengthen his hold on power, and snuff out the nation’s nascent political pluralism, at any cost. Indeed, Zimbabwe’s prodigious diamond deposits have not only led to the death and dislocation of many citizens but have also virtually crushed its once promising democracy.
Zimbabwe and the Kimberley Process: The Quest for Legitimacy
Following the discoveries at Marange, the stones it yielded were initially sold on the international market, even as global observers began to voice concerns regarding the increasing violence on the diamond fields. In 2007, Zimbabwe’s minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Patrick Chinamasa, responded by lashing out at critics. The minister declared, not without some bitterness, contempt, and condescension: “Diamonds are not found in many countries in Europe save for Russia. The rest do not have diamonds, but the Kimberley Process committee is based somewhere in Europe so we are forced to comply with their regulations. For us to sell our diamonds, if we have to comply with set procedures, we run the risk of being stuck out.”[116]Zimbabwe would, indeed, soon be “stuck out.” After visiting the region, an investigative team from the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme delivered an interim report to the Zimbabwean government urging it to suspend the production and exportation of diamonds from the eastern Marange district. In particular, the report denounced “unacceptable and horrific violence against civilians by authorities in and around Chiadzwa. . . . Our team was able to interview and document the stories . . . of victims, observe their wounds, scars from dog bites and batons, tears, and on-going psychological trauma.”[117]In 2008, the KP consequently suspended diamond sales from the country, citing rampant human rights abuses. For the growing numbers of critics of the Mugabe regime, the Kimberley Process had delivered an important rebuke.
Undeterred, as dictators so often are, Mugabe remained defiant, striving to rehabilitate the image of his country and its diamonds. As he and his political allies tightened their control over the mines, Mugabe was also busy (re-)presenting Zimbabwe’s diamond industry as both “formal” and “legitimate” as part of a successful attempt to secure the certification necessary to openly sell the Marange stones on the international market. Indeed, after considerable delay and controversy, in June 2011 the acting KP chairman, Mathieu Yamba, from the DRC, announced his unilateral decision to lift the Kimberley ban on exports of diamonds from the Marange fields. He made his decision even though independent monitoring, including the KP’s own investigation, had confirmed serious human rights abuses at Marange and rampant smuggling from these deposits. So why did Yamba lift the ban? Although lobbying by fellow African diamond-producing nations was partially responsible for his decision, the KP’s narrow definition of “blood diamonds” ultimately left the monitoring entity with little choice. There was, after all, no diamond-fueled civil war in Zimbabwe. In November 2011, the Kimberley Process effectively endorsed its chairman’s declaration by authorizing limited sales of diamonds from Zimbabwe. Mugabe had finally secured the legitimacy, however tainted, that he so desperately craved.
The KP’s endorsement immediately prompted one of its founders, Global Witness, to withdraw from the initiative in dramatic fashion. In order to avert exactly the type of scenario that existed in Zimbabwe, groups like Global Witness had long been campaigning for the KP to broaden its definition of blood diamonds. Although activist organizations like Global Witness have been unable to prevent the authoritarian Mugabe regime from selling diamonds on the open market, the recent tenure of the United States as KP chair has meant that activist organizations’ demands are now falling on more receptive ears. For its part, the United States abstained from the 2011 KP vote that authorized the sale of Zimbabwe’s diamonds and has also banned the trade of these diamonds domestically, predicated on sanctions that were already in place against the Mugabe regime. Yet the United States acknowledges that, beyond unilateral boycotts and sanctions, much broader participation will be required in order to change the way the Kimberley Process operates. Resistance within the industry and also among certain KP member states, including many from Africa, to any proposed redefinition of “blood diamonds” remains strong. Consequently, no major amendments to the KP’s current approach are expected in the near future.
Who’s Buying? The Chinese Connection
China’s growing influence in sub-Saharan Africa is arguably nowhere more profound than in Zimbabwe. The relationship between the two countries is a long-standing one, dating back to the struggle for black majority rule in what was then (Southern) Rhodesia. Rebuffed by the Soviets during the liberation struggle, Mugabe turned to China, which was eager to assist. Indeed, Mugabe recently reminded international observers that “relations between Zimbabwe and China started when we were fighting colonialism, and after independence we consolidated the relationship. The dimension of co-operation in defense and security is probably the longest and most consolidated of all the other dimensions.”[118]The embattled Mugabe has also greatly appreciated China’s “no questions asked” policy toward the domestic affairs of its commercial partners. In fact, China has emerged as the nation’s only major international supporter. Given Beijing’s global quest for both a wide variety of natural resources and new markets for its products, as well as its growing political and economic influence throughout Africa, it’s not surprising that China has a major presence in Zimbabwe. Nor should it be surprising that diamonds figure so centrally in this relationship.
Since the early 2000s, coinciding with Zimbabwe’s deepening international isolation, Chinese arms, including fighter jets, tanks, and assault rifles, have been streaming into the Southern African nation. The Chinese have also been busy constructing various facilities, including a state-of-the-art military intelligence college, in Zimbabwe. And how is Mugabe expressing his gratitude for this apparent largesse? In diamonds, of course. Under the terms of a deal signed in June 2011, Zimbabwe is borrowing $98 million from the Export-Import Bank of China for the construction of the military college and will pay off the loan with Marange diamonds. These stones will travel east to feed China’s expanding appetite for industrial diamonds and to feature in jewelry for consumption by the nation’s rapidly expanding middle and upper classes. With the Marange deposits estimated to contain over $200 billion worth of stones, the future looks bright for China’s arms, construction, and jewelry industries, as well as for Mugabe’s reenergized regime.
Throughout this controversy, it’s been the Chinese, rather than the Zimbabweans, who have actually been mining the diamonds. Rather than busy itself with extracting these stones, the Mugabe regime has instead handed Beijing lucrative mining contracts. Even as Zimbabwe waited for KP approval, the Chinese were actively mining and stockpiling roughly two million carats of Marange diamonds. These stones continue to be mined by a joint Chinese-Zimbabwean venture (though the Chinese are entirely responsible for production) called Anjin Investments, which possesses one of only a handful of Marange mining concessions. Anjin is the product of an arrangement between the Zimbabwean state and the Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Group, a public company under China’s Ministry of Construction. Anjin maintains a low profile, but it’s clear that Chinese military officers, who are stationed at the mines, are involved, as are high-ranking members of the Zimbabwean army. For example, it was recently revealed that one of the Zimbabwean directors of the venture is Brigadier-General Charles Tarumbwa, a serving officer in the country’s army, who is, incidentally, barred by sanctions from traveling to or investing in Western countries. Mugabe has also contributed to this venture by exempting the enterprise from complying with a domestic law that requires foreign companies be at least 51 percent Zimbabwean-owned. This self-serving measure has predictably prompted outcry from Mugabe’s opponents, including Shepherd Mushonga, a member of the MDC. Speaking about Anjin’s preferential treatment, the parliamentarian commented, “In this deal, Chinese have become Zimbabweans.”[119]Perhaps this transformation is not as bizarre as it might appear, though. Zimbabwe’s diamonds have, after all, seemingly become Chinese.
It took the actions of depraved RUF soldiers, greed-driven UNITA and MPLA commanders, and two determined, activist NGOs to finally bring to light the unsavory and unregulated conduct of the global diamond industry that had, for so long, remained hidden. Once agai
n, Africa’s diamonds were thrust onto the global stage, though certainly not in a positive spotlight. In order to avoid a consumer boycott, the industry energetically, if belatedly, participated in the development of the KPCS. For millions of Africans, however, this initiative came too late. While it would be inaccurate to contend that diamonds were solely responsible for the outbreak of violence in either Angola or Sierra Leone, the protracted nature and high levels of brutality that marked these conflicts are directly attributable to the presence of easily exploitable alluvial deposits. Continued violence perpetrated by an array of murderous groups in the eastern Congo, which is partially fueled by diamond revenues, and the ongoing bolstering of Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe suggest that these precious stones will continue to play roles in the continent’s woes.
Although diamonds have contributed to significant distress and destruction in certain places on the continent, Africans have also used these mineral resources to make positive contributions in other settings. While Angola and Sierra Leone are now exploiting their diamond endowments in ways that more equitably benefit their respective citizenries, countries such as Botswana and Namibia have been using their deposits to peacefully develop their nations since political independence. It is to these counterexamples to the violence explored above that we turn in the next chapter.
8: Mineral Assets
Diamonds and the Development of Democratic States
Batswana know that diamonds plus development equals democracy.
—Former president of Botswana, Festus Mogae, 2001[120]
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