Diamond Deaths - Shocking Reasons Why You Will Not Find Mass Graves At Chiadzwa

Tendai, an illegal diamond miner at the Chiadzwa Diamond Fields shows where he was stabbed with a bayonet by soldiers whom he says he was working for. The people who compiled this report traveled to Zimbabwe as journalists. The report will now be presented to the Kimberly Process. It is devastating. Which, I fear, may lead to Mugabe clamping down again on foreign journalists, accusing them of acting as spies.

Harare, Zimbabwe, 20 September 2009

An illegal miner has told a tale of horror from the Chiadzwa Diamond Fields to reporters under cover.

Known as Tendai, the miner reveals that he escaped the strafing of the diamond fields by the miners and that, now, everyone at Chiadzwa works for the army "as slaves".

Soldiers routinely go after miners whom they decide are not producing quite enough. Tendai was one of them. He was bayoneted through hi knees and stabbed repeatedly on the chest with knives. One of his co-workers died on the spot.

The exercise was carried out in public, with a crowd having been gathered by the soldiers to ensure that they saw this warning. The soldiers believe the villagers are stealing some of the loose diamonds and selling them on. Hence these warnings.

Tendai says those who are killed at the diamond fields are buried in the mining pits dotted around the diamond fields themselves. "The area is then declared off limits," he says.

But, and this is where it gets interesting, the soldiers eventually come back to those graves, after the flesh has been eaten and rotted away into dust. They then remove the bones.

In other words, all traces of the murders is erased.

A Mutare lawyer tells them the diamond smuggling operation is running like clockwork. Because the government controls everything from roads to customs, they move freely to the borders with Mozambique and South Africa. In army trucks. Once over the border, the other side is bribed and the stones make it through.

This report has now been submitted to the Kimberley Process people as they make their determination on what to do about Zimbabwe's diamonds - whether to ban them or not.

Mugabe and perhaps even Prime Minister Tsvangirai will see this as a threat to Zimbabwe's recovery. With government announcing that they have shortlisted three companies for a 50% partnership at the Diamond Fields, this move would scupper any deal that may be in the works.

If the Zimbabwe diamonds are banned, then the investors will hightail it into the mountains.

You may even hear Mugabe blaming Tsvangirai and the MDC, whom he now says are working feverishly to sabotage any economic recovery as a way of maintaining pressure on ZANU PF to settle all outstanding issues.

One thing is for certain, though, the Chiadzwa Diamond Fields, if this report is genuine, have now become nothing more than slave camps, with the "workers" fenced in and restricted severely. They are driven almost unto the point of death to produce the diamonds so that the army can ship them out.

Someone is clearly in a hurry.