The Robert Mugabe regime says it is sorry for killing many Chiadzwa diamond field victims.
The government has come out to apologise and say of the Marange
atrocities, “things that happened in Chiadzwa in the past were wrong.
We deeply regret it.”
Diamonds, soldiers, smugglers, helicopter gun ships, child labor, torture, rape, and more than 200 dead? a scene that sounds like one coming straight out of Hollywood, only that this is not? but, a real life experience and a narration of the atrocities in the Chiadzwa diamond fields in the rural Marange district. A lucrative diamond area that soon became a cash cow for military commanders and senior government officials.
This is the first time that the cornered Mugabe regime has come out to acknowledge the misdeeds of Chiadzwa in which villagers suffered untold brutalities, only because diamonds had been discovered in their ancestral home for many generations.
Among those named in a Human Rights Watch report of senior officials who looted and carried out gross atrocities, in the area is former Vice President Joice Mujuru, who has since joined opposition ranks leading the Zim People First party. Mujuru is personally named in the report as a “major stakeholder,” in the exploitation of the ‘blood diamonds’, curiously enough at the time the report was written in 2008, her husband General Solomon Mujuru was still alive.
Precious stones whose value soon vanished to the local community, with President Mugabe himself coming out earlier this year declaring that $15 billion had gone missing much to the shock of hard hit suffering Zimbabweans.
As commemorations of the 2008 ‘operation hakudzokwi’ take place with villagers remembering the evils done against them, at the time, run and coordinated by top military commanders, which left deep emotional scars on the Marange community, two senior government officials have come out to say “sorry.” A time of reckoning as the ruling Zanu PF party comes to terms with the consequences of the economic rot in the country, which is about to introduce a fake currency, the bond note, as it runs out of options, having squandered lots in a country that was not only rich in resources but opportunity too.
“What happened in Chiadzwa was a disaster. Things that happened in Chiadzwa in the past were wrong. We deeply regret it. We are now looking forward to speedy mobilisation of financial resources to finance the MarangeZimunya Community Share Ownership Scheme so that the people in surrounding areas benefit from the mineral resource that is found in their area,” said Local Government Minister Saviour Kasukuwere.
Environment, Water and Climate Minister Oppah Muchinguri echoed Kasukuwere’s sentiments saying the entire Manicaland province is disgruntled over the plundering of diamonds in Chiadzwa.
“Manicaland has been disgruntled over the Chiadzwa issue. What many expected is that there could be remarkable improvement of roads, construction of health centres, diamond cutting and polishing being done here, installation of boreholes and a general improvement of the infrastructure in areas surrounding Chiadzwa.
“But, we witnessed diamonds being taken away without any returns. To make matters worse, we have heard complaints of failure to employ locals in the diamond mining operations. What we are going to do together with my colleague (Kasukuwere) is to table the issue in the next Cabinet meeting, that we really need to mobilise financial resources to fund the MarangeZimunya Community Share Ownership Scheme, and let the people get what they were promised,” said Muchinguri.
Minister of Mines and Mining Development Walter Chidhakwa has previously blamed the
previous ministers of Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment for not following proper procedures on the MarangeZimunya Community Share Ownership Trust.
Chidhakwa is on record as saying there is confusion in the whole issue, hence the need to bring all stakeholders together and deliberate on the way forward. “There is so much confusion, and there is need to correct some of the things which were not done properly as miners maintain they were not consulted, hence nonmovement for the community share trust,” he said in March last year.
At one point, just before the advent of the Governmentowned single mining entity in Chiadzwa, the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company, irate villagers in the Marange, Zimunya communities threatened to stop all diamond mining activities in Chiadzwa, to compel firms operating in the area back then to honour their $50 million pledge to the scheme.
There were five diamond mining companies operating in Chiadzwa and all failed to honour the $50 million pledge to the community share ownership scheme.
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