- Sep 2, 2008
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Inside the Zimbabwean diamond racket | WikiLeaked
Quite an interesting read I think.
First, the background: Zimbabwe's economy has more or less vanished over the past decade, but the Mugabe regime does have one thing going for it: diamonds. In 2006, a huge diamond field called Marange was discovered in eastern Zimbabwe, prompting a mad dash for the riches. A British company called African Consolidated Resources, taking over a claim that had belonged to diamond giant DeBeers, opened large-scale mining operations, only to be forcibly evicted by Mugabe's government, which took over the diamond field in 2007. The national mining company attempted to run things there for a little while, but eventually excavation was ceded to a small army of independent hand-panning prospectors, giving rise to a lawless, Wild West environment; the Zimbabwean military was reported to have gunned down illegal miners from helicopters in its efforts to gain control over the chaos.
Indeed, the account of how the Zimbabwean diamond trade worked is pretty interesting reading. First there are the principals: Eleven Zimbabweans including Mugabe's wife, prime minister, and minister of mines and mining development, plus the local governor. (The cable notes that the embassy's own inquiry yielded a similar list of names.) Then there's the pipeline: Once they were sold to "a mix of Belgians, Israelis, Lebanese (the largest contingent), Russians, and South Africans," the low-grade diamonds were smuggled into Dubai and traded in an economic free-trade zone there, while gem-quality stones found their way to Belgium, Israel, or South Africa.
Back on the diamond field, meanwhile, things were slipping ever deeper into chaos, as prospectors from half a dozen other African countries flocked to Marange for a cut of the action, and efforts to control them "led to hundreds and possibly thousands of homicides." This was known at the time, but still, the details here are engrossing
Quite an interesting read I think.