Zimbabwe is known for its mounting humanitarian crisis. Other than its former status of being the bread basket of the region little is known about its natural resource capacity.
Zimbabwe faces a myriad of challenges including crumbling infrastructure, a cholera epidemic, widespread unemployment, food shortages and an unbridled inflation rate. In January 2009, President Robert Mugabe and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai agreed to a power sharing deal that saw Tsvangirai being appointed as prime minister and gaining control of certain ministries.
Prior to the commencement of forced seizures of mainly white-owned farms, Zimbabwe used to have a strong agricultural sector. The doomed land reform programme failed to ensure that the people allocated seized farms were able, or willing, to produce at same capacity of the former owners.
Diamonds: A Possible Solution to Zimbabwe’s Problems?
The government-run Herald reported, on the 24 February 2009 “Zimbabwe: Country Eyes SADC Financial Package”, that newly appointed Finance Minister Tendai Biti and Tsvangirai were set to ask a SADC Finance ministers’ meeting for a financial package to aid the country’s economic recovery.
Not known as a major diamond producer, in the last few years diamonds have been found in parts of the country. Since 2006 there have been discoveries in River Ranch in the South and Marange in the east. These finds have caused a bit of a diamond frenzy that government has struggled to contain.
The Los Angeles Times Robyn Dixon’s article, “Zimbabwe's deadly diamond fever” published on the 4th December 2008, examined the situation at the diamond rich Marange fields. Dixon writes that “diamond fever” has hit Zimbabwe. Illicit miners and “[o]fficials of President Robert Mugabe's regime are looting the diamonds.” The fairly unfettered access to this precious mineral not only has the potential to fuel illegal activities but, could provide a lifeline to the weakening Mugabe regime. An unnamed diplomat is quoted in the article as saying "[r]ight now, the government's getting very little. If it can regularize this in some way, it could really prop things up for a while. It could give them some time to pursue their interests and just keep going." Maranage could be “one of the most significant diamond discoveries in decades.” The exploration rights to these fields are currently held by the British company African Consolidated Resources. After the 2006 diamond rush, the company was evicted and the land is now officially controlled by the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation. This seizure is subject to pending litigation.
Government Response to Illegal Diamond Mining
Jon Swain, in his report “Battle for Zimbabwe’s blood diamonds” published in The Sunday Times on the 7 December 2008, contends that the military is brutally suppressing people suspected of being illegal miners. He details an attack by the military on suspected diamond miners. According to Swain, “[t]he military threw up road-blocks and searched vehicles. Anyone found in possession of foreign currency was arrested on suspicion of being an illegal digger or diamond dealer, taken back to the fields, beaten and made to fill in the holes they had dug with their bare hands, without food and water.”
Diamonds might just be the answer to Zimbabwe’s current challenges. Similarly, it could send it into deeper turmoil. The country’s future depends on the success of its current power-sharing arrangement. If Mugabe stalwarts and the MDC could put fair regulatory systems in place, Zimbabwe might see itself rise to prominence once again.
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