Cabinet agrees to sell uncertified diamonds

SW Radio Africa News Stories for 01 July 2010

By Alex Bell
01 July 2010

Cabinet has reportedly agreed to sell a multi million dollar stockpile of Zimbabwe’s controversial diamonds, despite the gems not having legal certification allowing their sale.

The state controlled Herald newspaper on Wednesday quoted Mines Minister Obert Mpofu as saying Cabinet agreed to proceed with the export of diamonds from the Chiadzwa diamond field. He said this would happen whether or not the diamonds were certified by the Kimberly Process, the international watchdog tasked with ending the trade in conflict stones.

Kimberley Process members last month failed to reach consensus on whether or not to certify the diamonds, resolving to further discuss the issue at another meeting later this month. The meeting pitted Western governments and Human Rights Groups against, mainly, African governments. Australia, Canada, the European Union and the United States all opposed a recommendation to approve diamond sales from Chiadzwa.

This recommendation was made by the Kimberley Process monitor to Zimbabwe, Abbey Chikane, who since been implicated in the arrest of diamond researcher Farai Maguwu. Maguwu, who has exposed the ongoing rights abuses at Chiadzwa has spent four weeks behind bars since his arrest last month. His arrest came shortly after meeting with Chikane last month and providing him with details about the ongoing abuses. He has since said Chikane deliberately ‘shopped’ him to the police and human rights groups have said he is being deliberately silenced while the Kimberley Process deliberates on Zimbabwe’s trade future.

The legal certification of gems from the Chiadzwa diamond fields, which would allow their sale, was suspended after evidence surfaced of massive human rights abuses, as well as high level corruption. Human rights groups have been calling for Zimbabwe’s complete suspension from international trade until the abuses stop. But the Kimberley Process instead gave Zimbabwe more time to meet ‘minimum’ international trade standards and follow guidelines to reach this objective.

Part of these guidelines was to have Chikane in place as a monitor, and it is Chikane’s recommendation that Minister Mpofu is now using to justify his decision to sell the diamonds. Mpofu told the Herald that Chikane said that Zimbabwe met the Kimberley Process’ “minimum requirements” for diamond mining and “so now everything is in place to resume the sales.”

It’s understood that $1.7billion in diamonds has been stockpiled for sale; a sale that economists have said would amount to about 17% of the annual value of the global diamond trade. These profits are set to line the pockets of ZANU PF’s elite, and it’s highly unlikely that any money will go towards rebuilding the country.

Gabriel Shumba from the Zimbabwe Blood Diamonds Campaign told SW Radio Africa on Thursday that it is “extremely shocking” that Zimbabwe is considering selling the diamonds without Kimberley Process approval. He said that it is this “arrogance” towards different regulatory bodies that has seen Zimbabwe become a “pariah state.” Shumba added that it is unlikely that “any profits of diamonds sold outside of the Kimberley Process will trickle down to the ordinary person.”

“It is widely feared that the profits will instead go towards securing the next elections for ZANU PF,” Shumba said.

The diamonds fields and the gems meanwhile remain at the centre of a legal battle of ownership, with UK based African Consolidated Resources still fighting to reclaim their legally obtained mining title. The Supreme Court had ruled that no mining should take place until the ownership wrangle is sorted out, but this order is being completely ignored.

Electoral laws to be amended

SW Radio Africa News Stories for 01 July 2010

By Tichaona Sibanda
1 July 2010

The inclusive government has agreed to amend the electoral laws, as part of measures meant to avoid disputes over the conduct of future polls.

Since the advent of a strong opposition party to ZANU PF a decade ago, elections in Zimbabwe have been characterized by disputes, allegations of fraud and extreme violence.

Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the state media that cabinet had agreed to amendments to sections of the Electoral Law dealing with the release of results for presidential polls, as well as the role of police officers at polling stations.

Under the proposed amendments, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) would be required to announce results of presidential elections within five days following the day of voting.

During the harmonized elections of 2008, it took the discredited ZEC almost six weeks to release the results of the presidential elections in which Morgan Tsvangirai beat Robert Mugabe.

The proposed amendments would also bar police officers from taking part or interfering with the electoral process, beyond maintaining law and order. The partisan police force has always faced accusations of abusing their power when they ‘helped’ disabled or illiterate voters to cast their ballots in all elections held since 2000.

There were also proposals to allow people to register and vote closest to where they live. At the moment there is a generic ward-based voters’ roll system for the entire ward or district.

Chinamasa is quoted as saying; ‘In this system, the voter’s name is duplicated in the copies of the voters’ roll, which is often bulky as it contains all the names of the voters in the ward. It is proposed that a Polling Station Specific Voter Regi-stration or Voters’ Roll be adopted. During election time, only voters registered at that particular polling station vote at that station’.

Government orders outreach program to go ahead as planned

SW Radio Africa News Stories for 01 July 2010

By Tichaona Sibanda
1 July 2010

The inclusive government has agreed the troubled constitutional making process, which faced numerous administrative problems in its first couple of weeks, will go ahead as scheduled.

The outreach program was plagued by chaos and uncertainty following reports of teams sleeping rough and dealing with food and fuel shortages, as well as violence and intimidation from ZANU PF supporters and some of their participants in the outreach teams.

The situation quickly developed into a crisis so severe that it was feared government would terminate or suspend the program.

Douglas Mwonzora, the co- chairperson for the Constitution and Parliamentary Commission (COPAC), told SW Radio Africa on Thursday that two crucial meetings were held over the last two days to deal with issues.

‘Our first meeting was on Tuesday with the management committee of COPAC. We were able to report to them the problems the program was facing ranging from the unreasonable demands for payment of cash upfront by hotels. We told them of the troubles trying to access resources from the UNDP and the various cases of violence and intimidation, especially in Mashonaland West and Central provinces,’ Mwonzora said.

In the end the management committee, comprising six inter-party negotiators to the GPA, agreed that the programme should go ahead. The MDC-T MP said as for the violence and intimidation all parties took a common position that they condemn in the strongest terms anyone engaging in violence. He said cases of violence will be reported and investigated by the police. Over the last ten years police have consistently turned a blind eye to ZANU PF perpetrators of violence, so it will be difficult to believe that it will be any different this time.

Mwonzora went on to say; ‘We were also ordered to work on a supplementary budget that would see to it that people are fed on the ground. We decided that where hotels cannot afford to provide full board with breakfast and dinner included for $60, teams would move out of those hotels and look for cheaper lodgings.’

He added; ‘I must emphasise that when we negotiated with the hotels we were meant to believe that $60 would cover breakfast and dinner. It is very annoying that some hotels who had assured us, suddenly reneged on their promises. As a result we had lots of problems with our teams deployed countrywide.’

On Wednesday COPAC met and dealt with 32 items on the agenda. Top of the list were issues of security for the teams, the accreditation of NGO’s and civil organisations, and the need for journalists to be allowed to cover the meetings.

Journalists are now free to cover the meetings as long as they don’t promote constitutional positions that may influence members of the public.

To counter any propaganda that may be coming from private and public media, COPAC said that starting next week they will publish a fortnightly newsletter to clarify constitutional issues.

‘On NGO’s we agreed that they’re free to observe the process and we are formally going to start accrediting them this week so that they’re not mistaken for intruders during the meetings. We are also going to meet with the civil society to ensure them they can monitor the whole process. But of course we will read them the do’s and don’ts of what is expected of them,’ Mwonzora added.

Zimbabwe to buy maize from Zim farmers in Zambia

SW Radio Africa News Stories for 01 July 2010

Tererai Karimakwenda
01 July 2010

While farms that were once highly productive lie idle under the new ownership of ZANU-PF officials and cronies, Zimbabwe is in the process of negotiating a deal to import maize from neighboring Zambia. The tragic irony is that the crops being sought after were grown by white farmers who were illegally booted off their land in Zimbabwe. Many wound up in neighboring countries, which are now benefiting from their expertise.

Zambia used to import maize and other food items from Zimbabwe, but with the influx of some of Zimbabwe’s best farmers, they’ve once again produced a surplus maize crop. Zimbabwe on the other hand has recorded a deficit of 500,000 tonnes of the daily food staple this year.

Chiredzi based farmer Gerry Whitehead described the whole situation as “disgusting”. He said: “Approximately 90% of these Zambian crops are coming from ex-Zimbabwean farmers who were forced off their land here.”

Sipula Kabanje, Zambia’s high commissioner to Zimbabwe, confirmed in reports that the negotiations with Zimbabwe were going on through Zambia’s maize agent, the Food Reserve Agency (FRA). He said Zimbabwe also wants to import other food items like wheat, beef and dairy products from Zambia.

Whitehead explained that many farms in Zimbabwe are producing nothing at all. He said: “I have travelled quite a bit in Zimbabwe on business and you can see the land is lying idle. I mean you drive between here and Harare and it’s hundreds of kilometers of idle land, nothing.”

The farmer also told us that there has been no maintenance at the power stations at Hwange and Kariba, leading to a chronic shortage of power. Because of this the few farms that are still producing food are having difficulty pumping water for irrigation.

Whitehead added that many of the new farm owners need agricultural training and financial management advice. Then there are the many who have no intention of being farmers. He said; “They end up buying new cars and more houses in town and that’s it. It is happening here in Chiredzi”. Meanwhile the Minister of Agriculture, Joseph Made, was on Wednesday quoted in local state media as saying Zimbabwe should cut imports from South Africa. He said: “Agricultural imports are threatening local farmers. We should ensure fair trade and it is critical that we support our farmers."

Made reportedly complained that we should not be importing tomatoes from South Africa when there are many “flooding and rotting at Mbare Musika”, the market in Harare.

Whitehead dismissed Made’s comments, saying: “You can’t cut imports from South Africa, that’s impossible. We will never be able to do that. It is just talk.”

The Zimbabwe government has already limited dairy and meat imports from South Africa to almost nothing and local supermarkets have seen a sharp decline in the availability of chickens, eggs and dairy products. This has created a 6 percent increase in food prices in the last few months.

Court to rule Friday on continued detention of Maguwu

SW Radio Africa News Stories for 01 July 2010

By Lance Guma
01 July 2010

Delaying tactics in the court case involving diamond abuse investigator Farai Maguwu continued Thursday, with Harare magistrate Donald Ndirovei reserving to Friday a ruling on whether he should be freed. Mugabe’s regime accuses the activist of publishing false reports on the Marange diamond fields and has so far ensured that he spend 4 weeks in remand prison. On Wednesday prosecutors sought to extend Maguwu’s stay in prison by another two weeks. They were banking on the testimony of investigating officer Detective Inspector Henry Sostein Dowa to convince the court to detain him further.

Dowa has been arguing for more time to carry out his investigations, but instead his testimony in court exposed more loopholes which highlighted the vindictive agenda of the state. Maguwu’s Centre for Research and Development has been documenting human rights abuses by the army in the Marange diamond fields and this has angered many within the looting syndicates in ZANU PF.

Lawyer Tinoziva Bere told Newsreel that Dowa lied that he had gone to South Africa to meet Abbey Chikane, the Kimberly Process monitor who allegedly ‘shopped’ Maguwu to the police. But it was revealed in court that Chikane was in Israel attending a meeting that was discussing the certification of Zimbabwe’s diamonds. Worse was to come when it came out that Dowa does not even have a passport. Bere said they called his Zimbabwean mobile phone number during the time he was meant to be in South Africa, and each time it rang Dowa deliberately cut the line. Dowa in his defence claimed he received assistance from the South African police to travel without documentation. It was also revealed in court that Dowa and other police officers spent 6 days living in Maguwu’s house in Mutare, sleeping and eating there, intimidating his relatives. Defence lawyers argued that it was during this time that the police should have carried out their investigations.

Dewa Mavhinga analyses diamond industry on BTH

Thursday 01 July

Dewa Mavhinga, the Regional Information and Advocacy Coordinator for the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, joins Lance to talk about the state of the diamond industry in Zimbabwe. Following reports that cabinet has sanctioned the sale of diamonds worth an estimated US$1,7 billion BTH looks at why human rights activists are insistent these are ‘conflict diamonds’ and should not be given a clean bill of health. Mavhinga also looks at the challenges facing the Kimberly Process certification scheme, the corrupt awarding of mining tenders and the forced eviction of villagers living near the diamond fields.

The Heart of the Matter - SW Radio Africa

Today on callback
Wilbert vents his anger at the MDC for agreeing to take part in the constitutional making process, without having dealt with the issues of violence and intimidation. Takudzwa says that households in Bindura are experiencing severe power cuts, despite having to pay exorbitant bills for their electricity.

.................
The Heart of the Matter
Tanonoka Joseph Whande compares Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s dangerous “ownership” of the MDC to that of Robert Mugabe’s ownership of ZANU PF. He also questions who was the driving force behind Tsvangirai’s reshuffle of Cabinet ministers, warning the MDC leader against becoming a ‘pawn’ within his own party.

Constitution Watch 14/2010 - 1st July [Revised Constitution Outreach Meetngs Week 2 Mashonaland East]

CONSTITUTION WATCH 14/2010

[1st July 2010]

Revised Itinerary for Outreach Meetings

1st to 8th July

Meetings will be in Goromonzi and Marondera districts only.  Meetings in Ruwa, Seke, Chikomba and Hwedza districts will be held later in the month.  Provincial Contact Person for Mashonaland East:- C. Ndarukwa [0916 353567]

Veritas makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied