PARADOX OF PLENTY
NEWS ANALYSIS: Zimbabwe’s diamond heist is a warning to keep the state at bay
The enormous squandered potential of Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields, which Global Witness says is providing covert funding for the Central Intelligence Organisation and the military, serves as a lesson for SA about state involvement in minerals. The 2006 discovery of the vast Marange fields to the east of Bulawayo has since turned into the proverbial resources curse for the country under the iron grip of President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF since independence in 1980. Marange diamonds have long been contentious and give rise to questions around the effectiveness of the Kimberley Process, which was designed to prevent diamonds from conflict zones being used to perpetuate war and violence. Monday’s Global Witness report flagged the loopholes in the Kimberley Process through which the Zimbabwean government and its intelligence and military branches are securing funding, sometimes flying in the face of sanctions against some of those branches.Diamonds could almost be seen a...
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