Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai lost another family member, following the tragic drowning of his two-year-old grandson in the prime minister’s home in cholera stricken, Harare. 91,164 cases of cholera, with 4037 deaths have been reported since the current outbreak began in August 2008.
Tsvangirai was injured in March, in a suspect car crash, that killed his wife, Susan, of 31 years. Defense Minister Moven Mahachi was killed in a car crash in 2001, Employment Minister Border Gezi killed in 1999 and Ellit Manyika, a government minister and former regional governor was killed in a car crash in 2008.
Tsvangirai was sworn into office as Zimbabwe’s prime minister on February 13, under President Robert Mugabe’s power-sharing new unity government. Tsvangirai won the disputed presidential election in March 2008, by 49%, to Mugabe’s 42%, but Mugabe refused to give up his position of power. Tsvangirai was forced to withdraw, after months of angry dispute, that included state-sponsored violence against his supporters. On December 19th, 2008, Mugabe defiantly declared, “Zimbabwe is mine. No African nation is brave enough to wrest it from me.”
Tsvangirai said he would take on the urgent task of rescuing the ruined country. The unity government faces the daunting task of reversing 10 years of economic disaster. Eighty-five year old Mugabe has presided for three decades, since Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain in 1980 and overseen the economic and social disaster of one of Africa’s most prosperous nations. It is reported that thousands of Zimbabwean people have been pushed to the edge of starvation with aid agencies hampered in any effort to assist. At the close of 2008 only 6% of the population was formally employed.
In January the central bank issued 100 trillion dollar banknotes, which are now sold to tourists as souvenirs for $2. In the face of the worst hyperinflation rate in modern times, reaching 231 million %, the country has resorted to using foreign currency.
However the new unity government says nothing of the situation in the Marange diamond fields, where Mugabe’s government has ejected the legal mine owners.
There have been calls to ban the diamond trade in Zimbabwean ‘blood’ diamonds, because of the fear of human-rights violations, funded by illicit diamonds. The World Federation of Diamond Bourses, (WFDB) has called for a ban on trade in Zimbabwean diamonds, claiming the process is funding ‘human rights’ violations, by Robert Mugabe’s government. The EU has also called for an investigation by the Kimberley Process, which seeks to ensure that diamonds do not fund conflict, such as appears to be evident under Mugabe’s despotic regime.
African Consolidate Resources (ACR) acquired the De Beers concession in December 2006, to mine the eastern Zimbabwe Marange/Chiadzya diamond fields. ACR was immediately shut down by the Zimbabwean government. A court order giving the mining rights back to ACR was overruled by the mines minister and the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) took over the diamond properties, which produced an estimated US$15m worth of stones in 2007.
In December 2006 approximately 15-20,000 illegal miners were working the alluvial deposits. Police and army units drove the miners out, leaving the ZMDC alone working the fields. Last year there were scores of reports of miners being shot dead by security forces.
“By January 2009 the fields resembled a military garrison,” says Partnership Africa Canada. PAC believes the mines are being worked by soldiers and villagers from Marange, press-ganged into service by the authorities.
Many believe the Zimbabwe diamond industry is out of control. Mugabe’s government has been accused of clearing the diamond fields by brute force. Non-government organizations like PAC are attempting to keep pressure on Mugabe’s government, to clean out the mines and return them to the dispossessed mining companies.
All this is in the face of the drastic global decline in the diamond industry over the past six months, due to the world financial crisis.
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