Villagers trapped in Marange diamond fields

Thousands of families are trapped in Marange diamond fields with their long wait for relocation dragging despairingly into an unknown future.

Locals and human rights groups now hold government liable to the "prisoner status" of the more than 3, 300 families after it allowed for the extraction of the gems before clearing the fields of people.

Pressed for space, it only availed space adequate for the relocation of only 1, 800, in Arda Transau, out of the 4, 300 affected families.

Manicaland Provincial Administrator (PA), Fungai Mbetsa confirmed that "current space can accommodate 1, 800 families… about 10 villages can easily be accommodated…the other 21 (villages with 2, 500 families) we are still looking for the land."

The PA also bemoaned the lack of consultation in the issuing of mining licences limiting his office's ability to properly plan for the relocations as they were not clear of individual concessions' affected population sizes to guide the process.

"We are not clear of the demarcation between each concession," Mbetsa said betraying a lack of transparency in the whole process which was being presided over solely by the Ministry of Mines.

The Marange fields stretch over 80,000 hectares with diamonds deposits estimated in billions of dollars, but these astronomical figures mean very little for now to the trapped villagers.

Mining companies have been estimating each housing unit at about $50, 000 while they were giving each household $1, 000 before any compensations pushing the value of moving people to a new location at around $300 million for the 4, 300 families before factoring in any recompense.

While Minister for Provincial Affairs for Manicaland Christopher Mushowe argues that they are yet to find space to for the other 2, 500 families as they are looking for big enough tracts of land in Manicaland to move the en block to preserve their socio-cultural integrity as well as their traditional leadership this is coming at a huge cost.

The acting PA Cosmas Chiringa confirmed that "efforts are being made to identify land and there have been indications that some land could be found in the middle Sabi area."

But, for Chiringa, while the 2, 500 families need to be urgently moved, his office is fighting an even bigger problem of the continued stay in the diamond fields of nearly a thousand families whose relocation land has already been secured and some of whose houses have also been built.

The 2, 500 families are "not even the issue as we still have space to move about a thousand families to Arda Transau," Chiringa said.

"Just last week l had to phone DMC, there are 6 families who are desperate. One of these families' children in the UK called us complaining that they have now been surrounded by mining operations. So we are enquiring on why they have not been relocated because they have houses which have not been occupied in Arda Transau."

"We don't understand because their fields have already been mined and there is no hope that they can plough anything this season."

"There is need for the DA's office to push. Most companies have the land to relocate people onto in Arda Transau. We are doing censuses of every block and we would want to know what has stopped them from moving people."

Of all the companies in the Marange diamond fields only Anjin had by mid-last year had moved all its targeted families but is still liable to violating locals' proximity rights due to the gerrymandering in the pegging of concessions, according to the parliamentary mines and energy committee report.

The report noted that Anjin Investments has built all 474 houses for the households  targeted to be moved to Arda – Transau; Mbada Diamonds has only built 100 houses and moved 100 households of the 487; DMC has only built 30 houses out of a target of 114; Marange Resources has also built 184 out of a total of 350 but had moved 116; Jinan Investments had constructed 110 houses of 350 and only moving 31 families; while Rera Diamonds is yet to construct a single house for the 92 households to be moved in the first relocation phase.

The fact that even if all those destined for Arda Transau are moved the rich diamond fields will still be populated may be giving mining companies impetus to delay the relocation of the nearly thousand families at their own convenience.

Although land to move a significant proportion of the affected population had almost been secured in the Middle Sabi area that has hit a snag following the recent discovery of diamonds in the same region.

A ministry of lands official who spoke on condition of anonymity said, "We were exploring chances of moving people to Middle Sabi area but there is a slight complication in that there has also been a diamond discovery around this area.

"Global Diamond Trackers are currently conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment which will also determine the population size to be moved. But then even if it's not in this specific area there is a foreseeable possibility to move people around in this area. So it's a bit complex at the moment because it will be unfair to bring outsiders here and move locals out of the district."

A local government official in Chipinge who declined to be named due to the sensitivities around the issue said they were bound to resist any inflow of hundreds of families before its clear how much land they want for themselves in the face of Global Diamond Trackers.

Whatever the reasons for their continued stay almost everyone in Chiadzwa now wants out only that there appears to be a powerlessness on the part of local government departments to pressure mining companies to move them due to the centralised nature of government.

Acting PA, Chiringa said they have since taken up their concerns with their permanent secretary to discuss with his ministry of mines counterpart with the hope that the miners will comply better with the ministry they report directly to and which also has half of their stake through the Zimbabwe Mining Development Company (ZMDC).

"The problem is that these companies are not headquartered here," Chiringa said.

Otherwise all other departments to include parliament and civic society have shouted hoarse over the welfare of locals.

Minister Mushowe who is also MP for Mutare West, under which is Chiadzwa, has complained about the welfare of these families to no avail.

"The villagers in Marange (diamond field) as I'm talking to you are sleeping without food, their children are not going to school and there are very few clinics. Their clinics are not even in the clinics commonest tablet and yet they sniff dust 24 /7 within the mining area… I go there (Marange) every week and I see these people every day heading their animals in the mining area and all the dust they are sniffing will affect them at one point in time," Mushowe laments.

"This is a hostage situation. Their operations have gaged our economic activities yet only Mbada is doing something to assist but again only limited to food aid. The assistance is not covering our complete cost of living despite of our limited ability to look for money," said a Chiadzwa villager.

With Mbada Diamonds digging up prospecting trenches as near as 20 metres from people's homesteads and Diamond Mining Company mining less than 50 metres from Gandauta Secondary School in open violation of the Mines and Minerals Act which pegs the minimum distance to 450 metres the whole area is indeed one huge open cast mine.

Ben Matambudze the former councillor for the area says he has stopped Anjin from mining less than 450 metres away from his homestead four times now. "I had to stop them from mining too close to my house. I was given that information by the chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee of Mines and Energy (the late) (Edward) Chindori-Chininga when he visited Chiadzwa," Matambudze said.

With high unemployment and locals' fields being exploited under their watch as they choke in dust many are only being kept from open revolt by the menacing presence of state security organs with their 2008 brutal clean up and their diamond based torture camp reputation which is still intact.

Stripped of most of their rights by the protected area status of their homelands since as far back as 2008 these families are effectively cut off from the rest of the country and with most of their livelihoods activities either infringed on by mining activities or in anticipation of their movement, any moment which is however never coming.

It is however clear that there is no one closely superintending that locals' rights are guaranteed amidst the Chiadzwa mining frenzy due in part to this area's classification as a protected area since as far back as 2008 under the Protected Places and Areas Act, ‘An Act to make provision for the control of the entry of persons into certain places, for the protection of certain premises and for the control of the movement and conduct of persons within certain areas; and to provide for matters connected therewith.'

Protected Places and Act Section 5 (2) says ‘Any person who is in any protected area shall comply with such directions for regulating his movements and conduct as may be given by an authorized officer. (3) An authorized officer may search any person entering, or seeking to enter, or being in, a protected area, and may detain any such person for the purpose of searching him.'

These provisions have stripped locals of a full spectrum of their liberties as enshrined in the constitution's bill of rights.

Zimbabwe Lawyers' for Human Rights Provincial Coordinator Blessing Nyamaropa however notes that "The issue is not that they are not in a protected area but the sufferings or inconveniences they are going through.

"There are environmental issues as the new constitution guarantees environmental rights but there is a lot of dust and noise pollution. There are also restrictions in movement. There are disruptions to school children due to mining activities. The environment is not convenient and the authorities should have ensured that people are moved before a lot of rights violations are done."

On the possibility of mounting a legal challenge to force affected families to be moved, Natural Resource Governance (CRG) Executive Director Farai Maguwu said of it, "Prosecution, whilst it may not yield any meaningful result, will go a long way to cast a spotlight on the condition of the people in Marange. It may be a wakeup call on government, a call to conscience and perhaps a demand for dialogue by the people."

"The situation is unbearable. We are virtually imprisoned in a huge open cast mine and unable to do anything even to plan," said young man at Mashuka-shuka business centre in Chiadzwa who declined to be named for fear of victimisation.

This was also picked up in a detailed the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee of Mines and Energy Report which said, "as a result some households still living in Marange suspended most of their livelihoods such as farming on the grounds that they would be relocated. As a result this caused anxiety and food insecurity within the community."

The report also confirmed that requests to be moved had been made as people want to get on with their lives.

It's now more than three years, and counting, since formal mining began.

Bogged in the mire are also teachers who say their transfer requests are being shot down as they will only move when their schools are closed.

At the moment they complain of the curfews and mosquitoes breeding uncontrollably in the puddles and dams being in nearby mining concessions.

Gandauta Secondary School and Chiadzwa Primary are currently being accessed through a fenced-off DMC mining concession whose guards often block traffic forcing teachers to travel long distances on foot with heavy luggage, often at night.


DMC mining a few metres from Chiadzwa Primary School

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Provincial Education Director, Andrew Chigumira while acknowledging having heard challenges in Chiadzwa could not be drawn to comment arguing that he had nothing on paper but would follow up on it.

A local research nongovernmental organisation feels government sacrificed Chiadzwa communities for diamond extraction. "Government got more interested in mining than the need s of people who were going to be affected by the mining operations," Centre for Research and Development Director, James Mupfumi said.

"Government did not have a model to relocate affected households," Mupfumi said adding that they was little coordination among government departments in the issuance of mining licences as focus was on the minerals.

Mupfumi argues that the ideal situation was moving people out of the allocated concessions before any mining activities commence unlike the current situation where mining companies are targeting fields with the best returns per tonne regardless of people's presence.

But some families are already fleeing. "We have since moved our livestock to Mutambara and we are now actually farming there but only maintaining our presence here to protected our right to fair compensation," an elderly woman who again refused to be named for fear of victimisation said.