Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

Prime Minister `Morgan Tsvangirai, Vice-president Mujuru and Deputy Prime Ministers Arthur Mutambara and Thokozani Khupe arrive at the Opening of the Third Session of the 7th Parliament of Zimbabwe in Harare yesterday. Members of the Presidential Guard of the Zimbabwe Army take up their positions outside Parliament soon after the arrival of President Mugabe to open parliament in Harare, yesterday President Mugabe whistling to himself as is his custom whenever he inspects the Guard of Honour. Behind him is the Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, General Constantine Chiwenga President Mugabe arriving in his vintage Rolls Royce at the Parliament Buildings in Harare yesterday. Harare, Zimbabwe, 14 July 2010 President Robert Mugabe opened the Third Session of the Seventh Parliament of Zimbabwe in Harare yesterday as crowds watched from Africa Unity Square on a giant screen. There was gridlock in the city centre, the traffic jam having been caused by the closing off roads leading to th...

The Chiadzwa Diamond Fields remain very much in the hands of those who have always controlled it and new revelations show that the facade being put up for the benefit of the Kimberley Process people is very thin Harare, Zimbabwe, 11 January 2010 I was shocked to hear the background of one of the key "new players" at the Chiadzwa Diamond Fields and I let you know some of the information here on this blog last year. But new information coming from within ZANU PF shows that the whole thing going on at Chiadzwa is a charade. For instance, the Kimberley Process people insisted that the Diamond Fields should be de-militarised and the Inclusive Government in Zimbabwe pretended that they had listened. There is now a private company running the security at the Diamond Fields, contracted by the companies that are supposed to be operating there. Except all is not what it seems. The new security company, a supposedly private concern, is in fact a company owned by a retired Colonel of the...

Robert Mugabe looks at a picture of himself taken by MDC-Tsvangirai Minister of Water Affairs, Sipepa Nkomo, who is part of his delegation in Copenhagen. This was yesterday, 16 December 2009. Meantime, back home, it is now clear just how much of a charade the whole mining thing at the Diamond Fields of Zimbabwe (the fourth largest in the world) is. Harare , Zimbabwe, 17 December 2009 Regular readers will, of course, remember me saying that of the two companies operating at the Chiadzwa Diamond Fields in Marange, Zimbabwe, Mbada was the secretive one, whose partners could not really be established and whose officials are reluctant to speak even to State media in Zimbabwe. Well,  the court case brought by Africa Consolidated Resources to have the two companies, Canadile and Mbada, evicted from the fields, has forced the Zimbabwe government to come clean. First, we were told that Mbada was a South African company that had partnered with the Zimbabwe Mining Development Company (ZMDC). That...

Diamond Miners in Marange, the so-called illegal miners, have been moved off the Diamond Fields. Two companies were invited to partner a government company and exploit the Diamond Field, but these have now been banned from mining the areas on a legal technicality. Their multi-million dollar equipment remains in the hands of their "partner", the government-owned ZMDC, which is still free to use that equipment to continue mining. It is plunder and confiscation by other means, couched in civilised language, but plunder nevertheless. Harare, Zimbabwe, 13 November 2009 The Zimbabwe government has ordered an immediate stop to the continued mining of diamonds at the Chiyadzwa Diamond Fields in Marange. The reason given is that an "environmental impact assessment study has not been carried out by the mining companies." But the real reason, I am told, is that one of the companies, Mbada Mining, which I have previously called "The Secretive One", may not have been p...

Several illegal diamond miners were discovered this last week hiding in a pit on the claim now being mined by Canadile Mining in the Chiadzwa Diamond Fields of Zimbabwe. They were handed over to the police and revealed that they had been let in the night before by the security guards at the mine. Forty guards have now lost their jobs because of the security breach. Harare, Zimbabwe, 02 December 2009 Forty guards at the Marange Diamond Fields have been fired for accepting bribes from illegal diamond miners. The guards are said to have accepted the bribes in order to allow the illegal miners to get into the Canadile mines at the diamond fields at night in order to mine the precious minerals. Security at Marange Diamond Fields is now so tight that the small-scale and illegal miners are finding it difficult to continue with their operations. They thus resort to bribing guards at night to be let into the diamond claims owned and fenced off by the mining companies now operating there. The di...

Small fish are out at the Marange Diamond Fields in Zimbabwe, as the government of Mugabe and Tsvangirai races to loot them (professionally) before being compelled to hand them back to Africa Consolidated Resources (ACR). Right now, the battle is still at the courts, with ACR getting a setback this last week on very shaky and legalistic grounds that ignored the laws of natural justice and even common sense. Harare, Zimbabwe, 29 November 2009 The British-based diamond-mining company Africa Consolidated Resources (ACR) last week lost the latest round in a battle against President Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe when the High Court refused to entertain the company's application to have government evicted from the disputed Marange Diamond Fields. The High Court, in a case handled by the same judge who is presiding over the Roy Bennett trial, ruled that an earlier victory by ACR at the High Court, confirming their ownership of claims at the Marange Diamond Fields, did not mean that ...

These diamond panners from Marange have all but disappeared from the scene as two new companies are now authorised to operate. However, there is more to it than first meets the eye, with one of the two companies still waiting to be given the go-ahead and another, said to be army-owned, already processing thousands of tonnes of ore a day. Harare, Zimbabwe, 14 November 2009 The Government of Zimbabwe, in a desperate bid to hoodwink the Kimberley Certification Scheme, has set up a shadowy company and given it a licence to mine diamonds at the super-rich Chiadzwa Diamond Fields. Government announced a few weeks ago that it had now licenced two investors to help the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) exploit Chiadzwa and there are now frantic propaganda efforts to make it appear as though things have been regularised there. But informed sources say that of the two companies said to have been licenced by the government of Zimbabwe, one is owned by the defence forces of Zimbabwe ...

A diamond dealer holds out a rough diamond wrapped in a US Dollar note at Chiadzwa. The area is now a magnet for all sorts of shady characters, including armed robbers, who shot and killed a shopkeeper on Friday. They come in search of the wealth (in US Dollars, now Zimbabwe's official currency) they believe pervades the area as diamond dealers splash out in shops or hoard cash at home from their illegal diamond sales Harare, Zimbabwe, 20 October 2009 The Chiadzwa Diamond Fields are proving to be a hunting ground for violent criminals. It emerges today that a young man has died at the army-controlled Diamond Fields, shot in the stomach by armed robbers. Three men showed up at a shop at Chiadzwa and bought drinks and cigarettes, apparently. And then they hung about until after 10p.m., when the shop was closing. Instead of asking them to leave, an assistant to the shopkeeper decided to lock them in, so that no one else could come in. He would have unlocked for them to leave. Instead ...

This is the best that Zimbabwe can do: licensing small scale gold and diamond miners who get robbed blind by the political connected and cross-border conman. The fruits of their labour is largely bought for song and spirited out of the country. Zimbabwe itself does not benefit. This is unlikely to change, as mining companies are still operating at 25% capacity or less, despite the promises of the Inclusive Government in April this year Harare, Zimbabwe, 07 October 2009 Gold prices shot to over US$1000 an ounce yesterday on the international market as investors fled a sinking US dollar. There were also rumours that China and Middle Eastern countries had met to conspire to dump US dollars as the pricing currency for oil. Gold mining companies everywhere are celebrating. The Rand in South Africa will now almost certainly strengthen significantly, as it does whenever gold prices firm. But Zimbabwe, with gold deposits that have been officially estimated to last more than 75 years if mined t...

Robert "The Solution" Mugabe today finally opened parliament with the effects of his recent Botox treatment very much in evidence, looking chubby about the cheeks and healthy. His speech was largely a load of nonsense, except for the revelation that the Constitution-making process will now be controlled not by parliament, but the Inclusive Government itself. It is sleight of hand move that few people even realise is happening. Harare, Zimbabwe, 06 October 2009 After giving the legislature the run around since mid-September, saying he was too busy to officially open parliament, Robert "The Solution" Mugabe finally opened Parliament a few moments ago here in Harare. The Service Chiefs and Defence Forces commanders were out in full force, standing to Mugabe's right throughout the address as he sat in the Speaker's Chair. Morgan Tsvangirai attended the opening for the first time, sitting with the President of the Senate, Edna Madzongwe, Didymus Mutasa (who said ...

Although, under the current circumstances and in a more stable country, the presence of the army (above) at the Diamond Fields would be welcome in order to protect the nation's resources, the current situation where we see uniformed forces becoming mining moguls should all give us cause for concern. Put this together with the fact the defence forces themselves are factionalised, each supporting one or the other faction in ZANU PF, then you have a recipe for cooking up civil war Harare, Zimbabwe, 21 September 2009 You have probably read the story below this one, about a group of reporters that went undercover into the Marange Diamond Fields to report on the abuses there. But the absolute shock comes from the revelation in that story that at 400 square kilometres, the Marange Diamond Fields are probably the biggest the deposit of the precious mineral in the WORLD. It is amazing how many people are not aware of this fact. This makes our diamond wealth bigger than Botswana's which ...

In a remote corner of Zimbabwe, the true worth of a vast new diamond field emerges. Robert Mugabe's response? To allow his mutinous military to enslave villagers as miners and seize the profits - and destroy fragile protocols against blood diamonds. Foreign Reporter of the Year Dan McDougall and photographer Robin Hammond risked their lives to get dramatic first-hand evidence of the unimaginable suffering of the miners for Live magazine. Their despatch poses the question - can you go into your local jewellers with a clear conscience ever again? Harare, Zimbabwe, 21 September 2009 The mailashas emerge as cautiously as impala from the shadows of scorched yellow kikuyu grass that fringes the long highway to Mutare. Their name translates as 'smugglers'. It's our first sight of them. There are three in all and they're no more than 14 years old. They reach out into the road at the approach of our slowing BMW and take a deadly gamble, forming their fingers into a distinct...