The names then. The two leading figures are already out of the closet Emerson Mnangagwa, the Minister of Defense, and General Solomon Mujuru, the former head of the Armed Forces, among the richest men in the country. Both are heavyweights of the Joint Operations Command, the beating heart of the repressive apparatus that kept Mugabe in the saddle for 30 years but Mujuru is at the center of a network of relationships in parallel as a prominent member of the politburo of ZANU (Zimbabwe African National's Union), the acronym of the party-state, the real center of power in the country and the husband of Joyce, vice Mugabe. It is said that through the central committee, Mujuru has already managed to secure a leading role in the post-Mugabe Zimbabwe thanks to a backroom deal with the rival MDC (Movement for Democratic Change), already blessed with some Western powers .
A step below are the boss of Prisons, Paradzai Zimondi, that of Police Augustine Chihuri and the commander of the Air Force, Perence Shiri. The latter is one of two key men presidential apparatus. The other is the general Constantine Chiwenga, who as Shiri comes the infamous V Brigade, the elite which, according to Western intelligence reports would have been trained by North Korea, the unit that reported directly to the president and that earned him a place the right of the father-master of the country suppressing the riots of Matabeland and killing 20 000 people between 1982 and 1985. Men in the shadows but extremely powerful.
Marange, the weapon of the conspirators. A network of brothers knives which must however when it moves in sync. They were the main beneficiaries of the expropriation of the landlords against white blessed by Mugabe since 2000. Chihuri, Shiri and Zimondi 14 properties were divided, ended three to two to Mnangagwa and Mujuru. This elite has been enriched at the time of hyperinflation (which reached 2.3 million percent in November 2008) selling hard currency on the black market through its control of the Central Bank (led by another powerful member of Zanu, Gideon Gono) so when in 2006 the diamond was discovered Marange field, the "securocrati" were the only ones who had capital to invest to make it bear fruit. According to CAP, Marange is the real weapon at their disposal; sentitsi dispossessed agreement that Mugabe had to tighten with the opposition MDC Morgan Tsvangirai (who was awarded the government) who in 2008 had defeated the dictator, despite the electoral fraud and the use of intimidation, now want to return to owners of the scene and move against the government of national unity. Loyal to President Mugabe but mostly to themselves. The dictator is now a totem that will disappear at the appropriate time. Meanwhile, a part of the group exclusively manages the huge revenues that come from the mining district of Chadzwa not a dollar ends up in the coffers of the Ministry of Economy, as it happens in the hands of a man of Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, to strangle the executive , which can not count on many other sources of income, and cause it to collapse.
An exemplary history. The history of mining in Marange summarizes the dynamics that drive the state deeper. After years of exploration, the Kimberlitic Searches, sussiadiaria De Beers gave up the mandate (in the jargon, Exclusive Prospecting Order) by the government then sold to an anonymous British mining company, the African Consolidated Resources, which a few months later announced the discovery of a immense reservoir. Until that moment, the immeasurable diamond Zimbabwe had only been scratched in Marange but there was talk of other figures astronomical. At that point, the men of the Acr Mugabe expropriated, confiscated computers and documents (the raid on the offices of the company was carried out by men of the Central Intelligence Organization, read Joc). A script already followed up with another mine, one of River Ranch, illegally removed from the Bubye Minerals and ended up in the hands of General Mujuru. But it is not so much for the property litigation that those stones are devoid of certification kps (Kimberley Process Scheme), the organization responsible for the control of diamonds, because the ones on the market do not end up stained with blood.
In Marange, since Mugabe put mines under the control of the police and army before then, there have been real massacres. Several reports have been written and circulated, such as that compiled by Human Rights Watch in June 2009 and entitled Diamonds in the Rough. Human Rights Abuses in the Marange Diamond Fields of Zimbabwe. The official death toll is 214 but the real figure would be in the order of a few thousand. There he commanded, as it happens, what remains of the old V Brigade, namely Shiri and Chiwenga. If you want to get an idea of hell, Marange is a good starting point: rapes, prostitution, forced labor, including child labor, summary executions, rampant corruption of the whole chain lady at the licensing of research: this is the framework outlined by the testimonies collected by observers. Not surprisingly, the Ksp refuse to authorize the sale. The regime paws, threatens to leave the organization, these days gathered in Israel and dealing with their case Zimbabwe. But in the meantime a growing suspicion that someone smuggling those diamonds (two thousand crati per day, according to estimates by the Center for Research and Development), perhaps through a mine, strangely the River Ranch General Mujuru, already suspected of being the dirty laundry of diamonds mined in the Congo during the civil war that took five million deaths and attended by the soldiers of Zimbabwe. Thus summarized, the plot is quite simple: the Mugabe regime is held hostage by a group of rebels who are united in wanting to just take out the elected government but remain bitter enemies. The politburo of ZANU and the Joint Operations Command are the tools with which you fight the battle, which sees the general Mujuru on opposite sides, which can count on the powerful wife and mines River Ranch, and on the other the general Mnangagwa, who has to be put on the table the control of the JOC and the Marange mines, thanks to her role in the first, the presence of two of his loyalists in the basin of Chadzwa (Chiwenga and Shiri) and its links with Mbada, one of two companies that have had authorization to work in Marange. Whoever wins, however, the most obvious result is that Zimbabwe will become a failed state, another.
Chairman Mathieu Yamba of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has authorized Zimbabwe to resume exports of its rough diamonds, including back stock, IDEX Online reports.
In a recent letter to Kimberley Process members, Yamba said that all unresolved issues surrounding Zimbabwe's diamonds would be addressed at a Working Group on Monitoring meeting scheduled to take place this November.
Yamba also wrote that any decision by the Kimberley Process to stop a country's diamond exports must be subject to a "more credible mechanism that includes verification of allegations and due process."
IDEX reports that the US has issued a warning to the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, and India that the names of all diamond companies receiving diamonds from Zimbabwe will be published on a government website. The US also reportedly plans to ask the Office of Foreign Assets Control to keep a close watch on all diamond transactions.
The EU, in the meantime, argued that Yamba's decision had not been taken through due process. Kimberley Process procedure mandates that all decisions be reached through consensus, one of the reasons why the difficult issue of Zimbabwe's diamonds has taken so long to resolve.
Zimbabwe's Minister of Mines and Mining Development Obert Mpofu maintains that his country has fully complied with KP standards and that the continued sanctions are a "politicization" of the KP process. Human rights organizations and diamond industry activists in Zimbabwe, meanwhile, continue to report human rights violations and abuses by security forces in the country's diamond fields.
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