The Kimberley Process decides not to allow Zimbabwe to trade its diamonds.
Zimbabwe’s diamonds are being a great human cost for the exclusive benefit of the country’s ruling elite. It is right and just that the country should not be allowed to sell its bloody diamonds.
Some things never change. As a child the white colonialists oppressed and exploited blacks and, to add insult to injury, the whites never tired of telling us and the whole world of just how happy we blacks were. The denied us a voice to speak for ourselves. If anyone pointed out at the glaring injustices visited on blacks; the white supremacists and their black apologies had a quick answer to that – these were unfounded allegations propagated by ungrateful agitators.
Every black Zimbabweans thought things would be different after independence; if anything things are worse.
Mugabe and his cronies treat the black masses no different from the way the white treated them. The black masses are still oppressed and exploited by the country’s new ruling elite. They too insult the masses by denying them a meaningful say and then insist the masses are glorious happy. The people voted to end this dictatorship and the regime turned the lives of at least five million people a living hell and hundreds were murdered in the drive to force the electorate to vote for the dictator.
The Mugabe oppression is worse than that of Ian Smith for three reasons:
1) The masses are worse off economically than they were before 1980; life expectancy, the ultimate acid test of economic well being, then was 65years compared to 34 years now.
2) The masses are worse off politically too. Before independence blacks did not have a vote; afterward, they had the vote but not a free vote and they have paid dearly for it too considering the human upheaval the country has been subjected to.
3) Mugabe and his cronies are black and they were fellow travellers before independence and now they are the ones oppressing and exploiting their fellow blacks. What is happening in Zimbabwe is betrayal of the innocent.
The tragic human suffering in Zimbabwe will only end with regime change. “There will be no regime change” Mugabe, his cronies and the team of apologists have said. “Not in a thousand years,” Ian Smith said when he faced the same call. His reign did not last that long; Mugabe’s time to go is long overdue!
4 comments:
@ Nee Nee and Alex Nhando
Thank you for speaking for the real victims in this, the men, women and children who are forced to toil in Marange for little reward and people like Farai Maguwu who are imprisoned for flagging these human rights violations.
What the KP is failing to accept is that rebels as well as the government of the day can use blood diamonds for its own selfish gain. Mugabe is a ruthless dictator and he is using the wealth from the diamonds to pay his cronies and henchmen who are keeping him in power. Of course the diamonds are being mined illegally in that the revenue from their sale is not reflected in Minister of Finance’s books.
@Dambudzo
The fact that Chikane was accepted by all to report on whether or not Zimbabwe met the minimum requirements to be allowed to trade does not mean everyone must accept Chikane’s report as the Gospel truth. So what if the KP chair said "his reputation exceeds him..." of Chikane. The facts on the ground tell the real story; Mugabe and his cronies are ones benefiting from the diamond operations. They have everything shrouded in secrecy not even the Zimbabwe Parliamentary Committee was allowed to inspect what is happening. Chikane himself has played the arrest of Maguwu. Whatever reputation Chikane had before, I know he has none now! And the KP stood to lose its reputation too if it had endorsed Chikane’s report ignoring the facts.
Dambudzo, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance has not received a penny in revenue from the sale of so it is a complete mystery why you insist “The people of Zimbabwe should be left to benefit from their resources.” Mugabe and his cronies are the only ones benefiting and they certainly DO NOT constitute the people of Zimbabwe!
@Dambudzo
"KP will keep the companies mining in this area in check. It will see to it that no forced labour or child labour is used." So you admit these things are happening. The logical question then is why did the KP let them happen in the first place? Even then, it makes sense that these things stop first before Zimbabwe is allowed to trade in diamonds mined in this way.
“The revenue will definitely go into the treasuries books because every proceed for the Govt is going through the Ministry of Finance.” Sure, sure and every penny of the revenue generated is accounted for! Dambudzo, you are very naïve and dictators like Mugabe thrive because of people like you.
"With regards to Farai Maguwu, let the courts decide" you say. Again if the Zimbabwe Courts were doing their work of administering justices without favour then they should have demanding that Maguwu be charged and brought before the Courts by now. Why have they not done so?
9999
@ Fungayi
Even if what you say is true that there are human rights violations in DRC, Angola, etc. and no one is saying anything about it. Still that does not mean Zimbabwe should be allowed to commit the same human rights violations in its diamond fields!
For a Mugabe apologists you are really pathetic, a sign of desperation! It is hard to excuse the inexcusable without making a monkey of oneself!?
8888
@Fungayi
If it is true, which I doubt, that some human rights organisations asked for "1% of all Zim diamond sells in return for supporting the KP certification"; then one has to ask why they thought the Zimbabwe government was more amenable to black mail than any other government out there? The answer; they knew the Mugabe regime was trying to fraudulently get the KP certificate. The regime would not get the certificate otherwise, not with its continued human rights abuses. My main concern is for the fellow Zimbabweans whose lives are living hell because they are being forced to mine the diamonds in terrible conditions for little or no reward. And for the human rights activists like Farai Maguwu who are being punished by the brutal regime for flagging the human rights violations in Marange.
“Honestly, how is supporting Zimbabwe's right to benefit from its natural resources equivalent to being a Mugabe apologist?” you ask. The diamonds are not benefiting the people of Zimbabwe but a select few who were granted the mining concessions. Only Mugabe and his cronies know how many diamonds are coming out of Marange and Chiyadzwa and the wealth generated is going straight into their pockets. The worst thing of all hundreds of thousands of ordinary Zimbabweans are being force to work in these diamond fields in condition comparable to one sees in such movies a The Legend of Zoro! Only a crony or Mugabe apologist can turn a blind eye to such tragic human suffering!
@Dambudzo
Talk of hogwash, the real hogwash comes from the scam who are cashing in on the misery and death of their own kith and kin. What is happening in Marange is but one example of what is happening all over Zimbabwe.
“Whether you like it or not Zimbabwe is going to export those diamonds with or without a Kimberly certificate.” You are right there. You should have also added that Mugabe will continue to terrorise, rape and murder more Zimbabweans in his determination to return political power at any cost. You would have been right too. But for how much longer; THAT is the question?
Mugabe’s iron grip on power is very shaky and it is not because he has arthritis – he has that too, old age and thirty years of white-knuckled grip have taken their toll. There are two reasons Mugabe’s days in State House are numbered:
1) His cronies are a greedy and wasteful lot. He has looted the country’s farms, ransacked the Reserve Bank, schools and hospitals closed for lack of funds, etc and all because he needed the wealth and money to buy the continued loyalty of his cronies. The more they received the more the wasted and still they kept coming back asking for more driving the national economy into the tail spin we see today. The Marange diamonds are God-sent, as far as Mugabe is concerned; he has been dishing the mining concessions to his cronies. “Diamond are for ever!” Yes but there certainly not enough diamonds in Chiwadzwa and Marange to satisfy the greed of Mugabe’s cronies. He will soon have nothing to bride them with.
2) Mugabe’s decision to loot the country’s wealth to bride those keeping him in power costed him the support of the ordinary Zimbabweans whose lives has been turned into a hell-on-earth. As Zimbabwe’s economic melt down gathered momentum more and more Zimbabweans found themselves on the rubbish heap. Mugabe and his henchmen are ruthless but no amount of intimidation and terror can silence the of Zimbabweans desperate for change for much longer.
Change, real democratic change is coming Dambudzo; whether or not you or your master Mugabe like it or not. You will have some difficult questions to answer; this time you will not get away with calling it hogwash!
999
@ Fungayi
Member of Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary the Mining Committee were deny access into Marange and Chiadzwa. Why? Chikane met the Committee and they told him the same; surely alarm bells should have started ringing in Chikane’s head.
The report Chikane says he was given by Farai Maguwu talked of human rights abuses in Marange. I accept that Chikane could not use the report to write his own but he should have carried out his own investigations at the very least.
There still the important issue of Farai Maguwu. Why was he arrested? The arresting officer did not have an arrest warrant nor did he/she know on what charge Maguwu was being arrested.
But of course, none of all these people matter to you and Mugabe; you are used to riding over ordinary people rough shod. To those at the cutting edge of this tyrannical rule; it is a matter of life and death - their lives no yours. No one should have to face such a grime reality; no one! THAT is not the Ziimbabwe millions of our people want; and their voices too must be heard.
@Fungayi
You are a sick. So you think Tsvangirai should have been "charged with treason for campaigning for sanctions against his country". Mugabe called for the exact same thing before Zimbabwe's independence should he too been charged for treason?
Zimbabwe should have had the equivalent of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to establish the truth of the serious human rights violations committed by Ian Smith’s white regime, Zanu PF and PF Zapu. If was a serious omission on the part of Mugabe but then he never had the same vision as SA’s President Nelson Mandela. Ever since Mugabe got into power he has murdered over 200 people in three months of madness in 2008 and over 20 000 in mid 1980. That will not be swept under the carpet, there will be no whitewash by some toothless TRC either; there will fully flanged Court trial with a noose awaiting those found with blood on their hands.
“Human rights without economic empowerment are no rights at all.” So you think Mugabe and his cronies can justify robbing the people of Zimbabwe of a future by looting the country and of denying them their basic human rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and the right to life all in the name of this imaginary “economic empowerment”? Well they can tell that to the judge. My guess, when the chips – and it will not be long now -, many of them will fellow the late Mauris Nyangumbo’s example and take rat poison than take your stupid line of defence!
Fungayi you do sound desperate yourself: more desperate than one with just some loot to lose. Well if you have any innocent blood on your hands; there will is a rope with your name on it – real name, Fungayi Dzvinyangoma and all the other assumed names you have used in your shameful life!
After thirty years of corruption, tyranny and lawlessness, Zimbabwe is awash with rats; some dramatic action is called for – hangman’ noose or rat poison. We want a country in which honour, hard work, respect, human dignity and all those virtues and values that distinguish us as human are valued and cherished again.
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