MARANGE — His two thatched huts lay side by side overlooking a stream beyond which stood mounds of soils dug up from the diamond mining claims in the vicinity of his home.
Yet, over the 14 years since the diamonds were discovered in Marange, 56-year old Tenson Gowero has never tasted the sweetness of the country’s diamond wealth despite living in the midst of the gems.
Marange is a district in Zimbabwe’s Manicaland Province, West of Mutare, a town at the country’s border with Mozambique.
Home to many poverty-stricken villagers like Gowero, Marange is also an area of widespread small-scale diamond production in Chiadzwa, again west of Mutare, the Manicaland capital.
Even as Marange diamond fields were known to the public over a decade ago, the lives of many villagers here like Gowero have not changed for the better amid claims locals like Gowero himself were overpowered by migrant artisanal miners who descended on Marange diamonds salivating for the gems.
“I have nothing to show as a sign that I live in an area that houses the country’s diamond wealth; my children dropped out of school and I have no job even as some of my colleagues found employment at local diamond mining firms, I couldn’t because I know nobody there,” Gowero told Ubuntu Times.
In 2006, diamonds were discovered in Marange, home to Gowero, triggering a diamond rush that lasted for three to four years, but even then Gowero claims that never turned around his fortunes.
“I have remained poor although it is known all over the world that my area sits on the country’s bulky diamond wealth,” said Gowero.
Yet, in a 2013 report, Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines said it ‘observed with concern that from the time that the country was allowed to trade its diamonds on the world market, the government has still not realized any meaningful contributions from the sector.’
Besides the poverty that has pounded many villagers like Gowero, rights abuses have also accompanied Zimbabwe’s diamond wealth.
In fact, at the height of artisanal diamond mining in Gowero’s village, in particular, around 2008 an estimated 40,000 artisanal miners and diggers lived in the Marange diamond fields.
But, without warning whatsoever, the Zimbabwean government under the leadership of late President Robert Mugabe, deployed the military into Marange in November 2008 to violently put an end to artisanal mining.
Subsequently, what ensued was a holocaust of local diggers and dealers.
But, for many Marange villagers like Gowero, even as brutality reigned supreme on Zimbabwe’s mines, poverty for them surpassed all and even to this day, he (Gowero) still bewails the grueling poverty that has gripped many like him despite living in a diamond-rich section of Zimbabwe.
Instead, according to civil society organizations like the Platform for Youth Development (PYD), criminal gangs made up of artisanal miners with links to Zimbabwe’s governing politicians, have seized parts of the diamond mining areas in Marange.
“Local villagers since the days the diamonds were discovered have rarely had the turn to directly benefit nor enjoy the diamond wealth of this country as armed gangs from other provinces like the Midlands Province seized the opportunity to run the show on the diamond fields,” Claris Madhuku, PYD director, told Ubuntu Times.
In Zimbabwe’s Midlands Province, machete-armed artisanal gold miners better known as mashurugwi because of their origin in Shurugwi town in the Province, stormed Manicaland’s Marange diamonds fields 14 years ago, elbowing out many locals like Gowero from the opportunities to mine the gems, rendering them further poorer.
Meanwhile, the Midlands Province itself, with a population of approximately 1.6 million, even with its gold wealth, 70 percent of its population is living in poverty, according to the Zimbabwe Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT).
In Manicaland, where Marange diamond fields are located, 65 percent of the area’s population of 1.7 million as of the 2012 Zimbabwean census, are poor — many like Gowero, despite the people living in the midst of the country’s diamond wealth.
According to human rights activists like Elvis Mugari of the Occupy Africa Unity Square, a rights organization that was led by the missing journalist-cum activist Itai Dzamara, ‘in all the mineral-rich areas in Zimbabwe, criminal gangs have gained control, barring poor people from accessing the minerals.’
In order for ordinary persons to mine either gold or diamonds, or any other precious stones, to Mugari, ‘they have to bribe criminal gangs before they are permitted to mine, and so only the financially able can mine at the end of the day.’
So, Gowero said ‘as villagers, we have not only been robbed of diamonds but also of our freedom and we are now worse off than we were before diamonds were discovered here.’
As such, many poor villagers like Gowero even as they live amid plentiful diamond wealth, face twin hurdles to contend with — poverty and rights abuse.
To regional human rights defenders like Dewa Mavhinga, the Southern Africa Director with the Africa Division at Human Rights Watch, lack of effective national policies to help locals benefit from natural resources in their areas, have helped fan poverty around Zimbabwe’s mineral-rich spots.
“Communities on mineral-rich areas of Zimbabwe continue to live in extreme poverty for several reasons, including the absence of effective devolution and decentralization that would otherwise allow local communities to benefit from their indigenous resources,” Mavhinga told Ubuntu Times.
He (Mavhinga) also said ‘the centralization of control of mineral resources disempowers local communities and deprives them of an equitable share of the benefits from mining.’
In March 2016, in his televised 92nd birthday, former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, while providing no evidence, told the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) that diamonds worth over US$15 billion had been looted in Marange.
However, to this day even after the former President kicked the bucket, no one has been held accountable for the alleged diamond heist.
But, evidently, Marange’s villagers like Gowero have had to remain behind testifying of the resultant poverty.
The Centre for Natural Resource Governance, (CNRG) which works with Marange community activists, petitioned the Parliament of Zimbabwe in 2017 to “ensure diamond mining contributes to the development of the health, educational and road infrastructure of the Marange community, especially areas affected by diamond mining.”
But, to this day, the 89 km road from Marange to Mutare is derelict, with its longest stretch unpaved over 10 years after Chinese diamond mining firms descended on Marange.
CNRG is a research and advocacy civil society organization whose mandate is to promote good governance of natural resources.
