IN our NewsDay edition yesterday, we reported that hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of villagers in Marange, Manicaland province, have said they are now appealing to be relocated from the country’s diamond fields after the area was placed under the Protected Places and Areas Act (PPAA) in 2007 via General Notice of 180 of the same year.
Under this Act, it meant that entering or exiting Marange or Chiadzwa diamond fields was now controlled, while also the movement and conduct of persons within the area were monitored and restricted.
For the people of Marange, it must have been a very painful and trying 15 years so far living under restrictions as if they were prisoners; moreso given that they have hardly realised any meaningful benefits from the gems being mined in their homeland.
If anything, the precious stones have become more of a real curse than a blessing.
A recent statement by community-based and civil society organisations in the area is telling. While the villagers strongly feel that their rights have been unjustifiably and unreasonably violated to such an extent that they now believe they no longer have the “right to life, the right to dignity, the right not to be tortured or subjected to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment”, it wrenches the gut to discover that they no longer have express access to the barest services from their district council.
“(Development is lagging in) Marange community because Mutare Rural District Council is not at liberty to undertake development without permission from the diamond concession holders. The process is arduous and unsustainable. We demand to be relocated if the PPAA conditions are not reviewed. We did not ask to be in a protected area or under the military. Mining companies in Marange must strengthen their own security capabilities. Government committed to a phased withdrawal of military in Marange in 2009, but Marange has remained heavily militarised,” the villagers are crying out.
It is, indeed, shameful that the custodians of probably the world’s richest diamond fields are being treated worse than criminals.
Sixteen years after the Chiadzwa diamond rush, and six years after government nationalised the fields, it is quite disheartening that Zimbabwe has realised little to no benefit from the gems.
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Bulls to charge into Zimbabwe gold stocks
- Ndiraya concerned as goals dry up
- Letters: How solar power is transforming African farms
Keep Reading
The amounts that have been bandied by government as revenue from the gems and the plight of the Marange villagers are a real mockery to the blessings that this country was endowed with.
It is quite a serious humiliation that we boast of some of the world’s richest diamond reserves, but we have very little to show for it and we are busy torturing the very people who have been custodians of these vast riches.
Diamond production in Marange has for the past decade or so been shrouded in secrecy such that one begins to doubt that government is at all in control of the diamond extraction happening there.
Given the ruthless environment that has visited the Marange villagers, it appears the area has been privatised because if a government of the people and by the people was in charge there, this should not be happening.
Something tells us that the Marange diamond fields are now privatised and our soldiers are being used as guards for the private people extracting the diamonds, otherwise those villagers should not be exposed to the agony of being imprisoned and impoverished in a Zimbabwe that attained freedom 42 years ago.
There is something fishy happening in Marange regarding our diamonds, and the plight of unfortunate villagers there is exposing this. Their plight is worth sparing a thought.
