Mugabe's diamond grab loses its shine

HARARE, Zimbabwe, July 8 (UPI) -- The beleaguered government of this bankrupted African state has been forced to withdraw troops from diamond fields in the eastern part of the country that it took over in 2008 in an apparent bid to bankroll strongman Robert Mugabe.

In a classic case of a despotic ruler taking over state assets to hold onto power, Mugabe, the guerrilla hero who drove out the British and the ruling white minority from the former Rhodesia in the 1970s to become president in 1980, allegedly used the funds from illegal diamond sales to buy the loyalty of his army.

The violence in Zimbabwe's Marange diamond fields is emblematic of the wars over resources that are ravaging Africa, most notably the nightmare multistate conflict in mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo that erupted in 1998 and has killed some 5 million civilians.

The steadily dwindling resources across the planet are widely expected to be the main trigger for conflict in the decades ahead.

The dramatic upsurge in demand from China and India, the world's most expanding economies, for the mineral wealth locked in Africa's soil has only intensified the peril.

Mugabe's diamond grab was rooted more in regime survival than geopolitical strategy, but it underlined the hunger for Africa's mineral wealth and the upheaval it can unleash.

The October 2008 takeover of the 140,000-acre Marange diamond fields came as Mugabe, whose one-man rule had driven once-prosperous Zimbabwe into penury and political turmoil, faced international opprobrium for the brutality of his efforts to silence opposition seeking his removal.

Mugabe was forced to accede to forming a unity government with his main rival, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change, who became prime minister.

Mugabe had little choice to share power. He wanted to secure $10 billion in international aid to rescue an economy driven into the ground by the rule of his party, but the donor states first demanded wide-ranging reforms.

ZANU-PF, headed by Mugabe's comrades from the independence struggle, has for years been accused of widespread trampling on human rights and democracy in Zimbabwe.

The government claimed the military takeover, dubbed Operation No Return, was necessary to curb illicit diamond trading from Marange and to restore order.

But at that time the loyalty of the 25,000-strong army was seriously eroding as runaway inflation reduced the value of soldiers' pay to almost nothing.

On June 26 Human Rights Watch accused the military, controlled by ZANU-PF, of using revenues from illicit diamond sales, smuggled out or illegally sold through the Reserve Bank, in a systematic effort to keep troops loyal and to enrich party leaders.

In a damning report it said that troops massacred more than 200 miners in a three-week period in 2008 and buried bodies in mass graves, while forcing villagers, including children, to work in the mines.

"Millions of dollars in potential government revenue are being siphoned off through illegal diamond mining," the report by the New York-based human-rights group said.

Military units were rotated in and out of the Marange fields so that all could get their hands on the loot, the report added.

The government denied any killings were carried out. But in late June a delegation from the Kimberley Process, the U.N.-founded international watchdog set up to staunch the flow of so-called blood diamonds financing wars across Africa, reported after visiting Marange that the government had carried out "horrific violence against civilians."

It recommended that Zimbabwe be barred from selling its diamonds on international markets. Industry experts say that official diamond sales account for some 10 percent of Zimbabwe's mineral earnings but have the potential to join gold and platinum among the country's main revenue earners if the government clamped down on smuggling.

Earlier, the World Federation of Diamond Bourses had also recommended to its members in 20 countries not to trade diamonds from the Marange fields because of the alleged abuses by the military.

This has undoubtedly incensed Mugabe, who is extremely hostile to Western nations and non-governmental organizations that are demanding he institute major political reforms and restore the rule of law.

He agreed to pull the army out of Marange, without citing any timetable, but observers say this was aimed largely at defusing criticism of the army's takeover -- and to ensure that the diamonds being sold are not branded "conflict diamonds," which would seriously reduce their value.