Diamond Boy
Page 27
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
This novel was written because of a red letter I received from Madolyn (yes, a real letter, on red paper, in a stamped envelope), sent all the way to Cape Town from a school in New Hampshire, USA. Madolyn had read Now Is the Time for Running and wanted to know more about the world I created in that novel, and asked me to write another book.
When I told Pam Gruber, my editor and publisher at Little, Brown, about Madolyn’s letter and how it inspired me, she suggested that I write a companion piece to Now Is the Time for Running. I had never done this before, so, looking for a way in, I returned to the story of Deo and Innocent and rediscovered Patson. He was the one-legged boy who played soccer with Deo and joined them as they crossed the Limpopo River and the game park into South Africa. I couldn’t remember why I wrote Patson into that novel, and I had no idea where he came from or what happened to him after he was arrested by the police. He just disappeared from the story. I do remember, however, once seeing a group of one-legged boys playing soccer, and thinking how brave they were and how difficult that must be.
In researching how Patson might have lost his leg, I discovered the Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe, and learned that the army’s Operation No Return happened at the same time as Deo and Innocent’s odyssey to South Africa. After reading more about what happened in Marange, how families from all over Zimbabwe traveled to the diamond fields to find their fortunes, I realized I had found my companion story. (I also read how miners would cut their bodies with razor blades and hide small diamonds in their wounds to get them off the mines.)
In Diamond Boy I have brought back to life some of the characters from Now Is the Time for Running and discovered what Innocent contributed to Patson’s journey.
So, dear reader, Diamond Boy exists because someone like you wrote me a letter. I hope that reading this novel will inspire not only your interest in what is happening in southern Africa, but also that a similar interest in something you read may someday inspire another author. And if you see a little of yourself in Patson’s story, then that’s what this reading and writing thing is all about. Thank you, Madolyn.
Michael Williams
November 2014
THE DIAMOND FIELDS OF MARANGE
“The discovery of significant alluvial diamond deposits in the Marange area of eastern Zimbabwe [Manicaland Province] in June 2006 should have been a means of salvation for the virtually bankrupt country after ten years of chaos that saw world record inflation and the nation brought to its knees. Instead, it has led to greed, corruption and exploitation on a grand scale, the use of forced labour—both adults and children—horrifying human rights abuses, brutal killings, degradation of the environment and the massive enrichment of a select few.”*
Soon after diamonds were discovered, the ZANU-PF government declared the fields open to everyone, and so began the Great Marange Diamond Rush. Tens of thousands of teachers, nurses, bus drivers, goat herders, schoolchildren, and street kids converged on eastern Zimbabwe between 2007 and 2008 to dig for diamonds. Many of them hid in the bush during the day and burrowed under fences at night, and from dusk to dawn all of them sifted the dirt for the precious stone that might change their lives forever.
The news of the diamond rush spread around the world, and soon buyers from Belgium, Lebanon, Israel, Botswana, South Africa, and China descended on the town of Mutare. They hid in hotels and guesthouses, since, as foreigners, they were easily spotted by undercover intelligence agents. And once the country’s Reserve Bank governor admitted that Zimbabwe had lost, in only nine months’ time, four hundred million US dollars’ worth of diamonds smuggled out of Marange, the soldiers and secret policemen were sent in to make arrests. “We must protect the nation’s riches from crooks and scoundrels,” one minister said.
The government launched a nationwide police operation, End to Illegal Panning, aimed at stopping the illegal mining and trade in diamonds. During the operation, police deployed some six hundred police officers, arrested about nine thousand persons in Marange, and seized gems and minerals with an estimated total value of seventy million US dollars. For the next two years, police committed numerous human rights abuses, including killings, torture, beatings, and harassment.
At the peak of the scramble for diamonds in October 2008, more than thirty-five thousand people from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Lebanon, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Belgium, and India were either miners in the fields or buyers in Marange.
With the government teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Operation No Return was launched, using the Zimbabwe National Army, Air Force, and Central Intelligence Organisation, in an attempt to both restore a degree of order and allow key army units access to the Marange riches. The attack, in daylight, was carried out by the Joint Operational Command, the country’s top military commanders, using tanks, bulldozers, and helicopters to mow down the miners who ran for cover in the hills. Soldiers opened fire on defenseless miners, dogs were set loose to maul them, and some had their stomachs cut open by soldiers searching for stones. At the end of Operation No Return between two hundred and four hundred people had been killed, many of them teenagers.
Today, the diamond fields are run by the government of Robert Mugabe. In March 2013 it was reported that a 2.5-million-carat stockpile, valued at five hundred million dollars, had mysteriously disappeared before making it into the Zimbabwean treasury.
LAND MINES
One of the most deadly legacies of the twentieth century has been the use of land mines in warfare, and I was shocked to discover that the Zimbabwean army used these antipersonnel land mines to keep miners from running away from the Marange mines.
Antipersonnel land mines continue to have tragic, unintended consequences, even years after wars that employ them have ended. As time passes, their locations are often forgotten, even by those who planted them. These mines can lie dormant for decades, causing further damage, injury, and death to anyone who inadvertently steps on one.
According to One World International, there are currently more than one hundred million land mines located in seventy countries around the world. Since 1975, land mines have killed or maimed more than one million people, which has led to a worldwide effort to ban their further use and clear away existing minefields.
GLOSSARY
amai mother
baba father
Chimurenga a Shona word roughly meaning “revolutionary struggle.” Chimurenga songs were songs sung during the war of liberation in Zimbabwe.
CIO Central Intelligence Organisation in Zimbabwe
ganja slang for marijuana, which comes from the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug and as medicine
Ghuma-ghuma criminal gang that preys on refugees
girazi miners’ slang for pure diamond stone
gwejana miners’ slang for child miners
madala old man, elder
magogo/gogo affectionate term for grandmother
MDC Movement for Democratic Change, opposition party in Zimbabwe
muti a term for traditional medicine, usually homeopathic, in southern Africa
Mxit a free instant messaging application in southern Africa that runs on multiple mobile and computing platforms
ngoda miners’ slang for small, industrial diamonds
sadza mush made from meal produced by grinding corn
sangoma traditional healer and respected elder
shavi ancestral spirit
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The writing of such a novel is possible only because of the generosity of the following people who have been willing to share with me their knowledge and skills: the witty encouragement and wholehearted support from my agent, Wendy Schmalz; the insightful commentary and
literary skills of Pam Gruber, who guided me so adeptly through the editing process; my brother-in-law Dr. Marius Swart, who provided me with all the necessary medical information regarding debridement and wound care; my Zimbabwean reader, Ruvi Mubika, who ensured that all my details of Zimbabwean life were plausible and accurate; my teenage daughters and niece, Ellen-Anne, Emma, and Camilla, who taught me how to Mxit and helped me write the text messages; Miranda Madikane for giving me access to her lovely, helpful staff at the Scalabrini Centre for refugees in Cape Town; my oldest friend and critic, Amy Kaplan, for her unique ability to turn my straw prose into gold and to provide emergency support at all hours of the day; my wife, Ettie, for her words of wisdom and infinite patience with me, and the uncanny ability she has of knowing exactly what I’m trying to say when I don’t.
I would also like to acknowledge the vision of seer Credo Mutwa, for his retelling of the great Ndebele story “The Tree of Life and the Goddess,” and ask his indulgence for the liberties I took with this old story. And finally I’d like to thank Madolyn Bouchard, from North Hampton School in New Hampshire, who wrote me the letter that inspired the writing of this novel.
* The Marange Diamond Fields of Zimbabwe: An Overview, Sokwanele (October 2011): 6, http://www.sokwanele.com/node/2340.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Marange Diamond Fields
JOURNEY Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
MINING Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
SOLDIERS Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
PATSON’S GAME Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
GRACE Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Author’s Note
The Diamond Fields of Marange
Land Mines
Glossary
Acknowledgments
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Michael Williams
Map illustration by Edel Rodriguez
Cover art by Edel Rodriguez
Cover design by Greg Stadnyk
Cover © 2014 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: December 2014
ISBN 978-0-316-32066-5
E3