DEADLY DIAMONDS
Life in remote eastern Zimbabwe has changed little over the centuries. That is, until a startling discovery here three years ago. Some of the rocks littering these plains turned out to be diamonds. The man who's showing them to me is a former policeman turned dealer, who I'll call Mischek, He's agreed to take us to the Marange diamond fields but he's worried about running into soldiers.
MISCHEK: If they catch you, they beat you till you can't walk. If they don't kill you, you end up crippled. Because they beat you.
As a white woman I'm too conspicuous so it's agreed he'll take my Zimbabwean colleague who'll film with a hidden camera. It's a dangerous journey into an area tightly controlled by Zimbabwean security forces, and off limits to the outside world.
COLLEAGUE: We are going to use public transport because we think public transport is less scrutinized by police and then when we get there we are going to walk in the bush for 2.5 hours and it will be night by the time we get there.
At first light my colleague starts filming. He's already made it past three security checkpoints. But they've had to walk much further than normal to avoid detection.
COLLEAGUE: I thought the journey was going to be 2.5 hours but now it turns out to be almost six hours of walking at night. We're almost at the area. Just in front of me are three buyers, the guys I am going with. What we doing here is we are looking for a base. A base is a sorting area where diamonds are sorted from the field, ready for sale to the buyers.
This is Marange, the world's largest find of alluvial diamonds in more than 50 years. On the edges of the diamond field these children are sifting through soil hoping to find a stone someone else may have missed.
COLLEAGUE: If you find them, what do you do?
CHILD: Nothing. Nothing at all.
COLLEAGUE: Nothing?
CHILD: Yes.
COLLEAGUE: Where do you take them?
CHILD: Home!
At night, the military's own syndicates, and those willing to risk going it alone dig for diamonds. In the morning it's time for the buyers to move in.
COLLEAGUE: This is the sorting field where we are right now. The guys are busy sorting their diamonds. Guys! How are you? If this diamond didn't have spots, how much would it be worth?
DIAMOND SORTER 1: Yes, it's not very good. So these spots are the problem.
COLLEAGUE: Tell me, what's your price?
DIAMOND SORTER 1: It would be fair to give us $1,800.
Diamonds from here are distinctive in colour and the oldest in the world. A huge amount of them are pouring out of this area worth an estimated $200 million a month.
COLLEAGUE: How much can you sell it for?
DIAMOND SORTER 2: About $70.
It's not just individuals working these fields now but also the Zimbabwean government. While it's impossible for us to openly film here 'Dateline' obtained these previously unreleased pictures of the mechanised mining being conducted by government agencies.
ANDREW CRANSWICK, AFRICAN CONSOLIDATED RESOURCES: This is organised theft. Organised theft from African Consolidated because they are mining on African Consolidated Mines.
Andrew Cranswick is a Zimbabwean and Chief Executive of the British-based mining company which holds the mining rights to Marange. His euphoria at the big find quickly vanished when he tried to enter a joint venture with the Mugabe regime. Three weeks after the company declared the discovery, there was a surprise visit from the Mines Minister, followed by a blunt eviction notice from security forces.
ANDREW CRANSWICK: We were told listen - if you are going to refuse the guns are going to come out and you are going to get arrested and you are going to get harassed. So literally, here are the guns, sitting in the truck, do you want to stay or don't you want to stay.
The company's equipment was seized, its employees locked out and he says more than 25kg of diamonds vanished. The Mugabe regime then opened up the fields to the people.
ANDREW CRANSWICK: That's before. Before the rains and the diggers got on about pretty much at the same time. And that's what it looked like afterwards.
Within weeks these fields were swamped with ordinary Zimbabweans and miners and dealers from further a field.
ANDREW CRANSWICK: Here’s a picture of an illegal crowd coming in. That's a South African numberplate.
The youngsters from the village were selling bottles of water, a bottle of water a diamond. So it was quite extraordinary what was happening.
Sefus, as I'll call him, was one of the estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people drawn to Chiadzwa at the start of the stampede paying a commission to police to be there. Like many people in this story, he was willing to talk, but only if his identity was protected. Sefus says he watched as Reserve Bank officials arrived in Chiadzwa to buy gems from one and all.
SEFUS: They used to come in trucks with cash in sealed boxes and a police escort. They'd say they were licensed to buy these things - diamonds. Only the Reserve Bank can because they know where the stones are going.
NEWMAN CHIADZWA, COMMUNITY LEADER: We know the value of the diamonds at Chiadzwa, that they can look after this country very well without even looking at external borrowing or something.
Tribal leader Newman Chiadzwa says that while many community members were at first willing to mine for the government, that soon changed as the police abused their power.
NEWMAN CHIADZWA: If you take the diamonds confiscated from me by the government, it was over 10kg. And that 10kg were only produced in one week, by less than 20 people. And I can put an estimate of around $15 million worth of diamonds which were confiscated.
REPORTER: $15 million?
NEWMAN CHIADZWA: US$15 million. Yes, because half of it were gem quality.
At the same time, Zimbabwe's political landscape was also changing. President Robert Mugabe was being pushed into signing a power-sharing agreement with his political foes. Without the patronage of the army he looked like losing power completely.
KEN ROTH, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: That was the era of hyper inflation and you could walk around with wheelbarrows of Zimbabwean currency and still pay nothing. So Mugabe needed a way to buy the loyalty of the army.
Ken Roth is Executive Director of the internationally respected Human Rights Watch. He believes Mugabe devised a plan to keep the army on side.
KEN ROTH: What better way than allow units to rotate through Marange, get their two weeks of picking up diamonds and selling them and he thought that that would be a perfect way of maintaining the loyalties backing, the army's backing of the Mugabe government.
But first the military had to gain control of the fields. In late October last year, Operation No Return was launched. Farai Maguwu from Zimbabwe's Centre for Research and Development has been investigating what happened next.
FARAI MAGUWU, ZIMBABWE'S CENTRE FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: The first week of November marked the turning point in these atrocities which were being committed by the state security agents. This is a time when the military replaced the police.
REPORTER: When they went in, what was their brief? What do you think they were ordered to do?
FARAI MAGUWU: They were ordered to kill. They were ordered to kill.
Zimbabwe's helicopter gunships launched a massacre, according to scores of credible witnesses. Human Rights Watch and eye witnesses say hundreds of people were gunned down. Sefus says he was there.
SEFUS: They were shooting from a helicopter, and on the ground. The helicopter was in the air. Then the helicopter landed and they got out and continued shooting.
Human rights investigators say this photo shows one of the many bodies that began accumulating in hospital morgues.
SEFUS: They never said anything. They'd just shoot and leave the body. Relatives would come and get the victim and say "Our kin has been wounded. We can't leave them here."
I'm taken to a cemetery on the outskirts of Mutare. It's close to an army base so we have to move quickly. Human rights investigators have uncovered a paper trail tracing the bodies from Chiadzwa to morgues and hospitals and finally to this spot. These documents reveal scores of unnamed bodies were brought here.
MORGUE OFFICIAL: It is unknown, unknown. And also the cause of death is written NA, not applicable. Unknown, unknown, you see, a lot of these papers, unknown, unknown.
These two men are too frightened to be identified, but they show me to what they say is the cemetery's grisly secret.
MAN 1: This was the grave, the mass grave, where 85 people were buried.
REPORTER: Right. Were you here that day?
MAN 1: Yes I was.
REPORTER: What did you see?
MAN 1: There were prisoners from Mutare Farm prison who prepared this grave and they were the same prisoners who did the burial.
The true death toll is not yet known but Human Rights Watch say it's uncovered proof of more than 200 deaths - local researchers say it could be double that. And they believe blame for the massacre can be traced to the highest levels of the Mugabe regime.
REPORTER: So a lot of people saw what happened here?
MAN 1: Yes.
REPORTER: And the authorities deny it?
MAN 1: Yes, the authorities are denying, but it is true. There are people, I think if it is at all allowed, we can.
REPORTER: Exhume the bodies.
MAN 1: Yes, exhume the bodies. They are there. You can't deny, the truth is the truth. People are there in the graves.
REPORTER: And you are still seeing victims?
FARAI MAGUWU: We are still putting together evidence because we believe action has to be taken against the perpetrators of these gross human rights violations and just two days ago we interviewed a woman who was mauled by dogs in November, and until now, the scars are all over her body.
This is that woman. A 58-year-old widow who says she was attacked on her first and only visit to Chiadzwa to sell clothes to the panners. With helicopters in the air, police and soldiers on foot and on horseback - the dog squad was also set loose.
WOMAN 1: A dog caught me and pulled me down. I was on the ground and the policeman ordered the dog "Go for her hands." They kept setting the dogs onto me, then pulling them back while they bit me, one from each side. They'd let them bite me, then pull them back.
Eye witnesses say the violence and shootings continued for weeks. Those detained were beaten and tortured, and women were raped. This woman, who does not want to be identified had also gone to Chiadzwa with clothes to sell.
WOMAN 2: We were caught by the soldiers, me and two friends. The soldiers were beating detainees at will and doing whatever they wanted. They told us to sleep with the men if we wanted to go home. We couldn't do anything, so we slept with the men. The soldiers stood and watched, laughing.
Throughout the entire security operation, no civilian was above suspicion, including those living in the nearby city of Mutare.
CARL WOODS: So first session give or take - 12 or 15 strikes. The next session maybe eight when I still felt pain, the third session maybe another 8 or 10, and I had no more pain.
67-year-old Carl Woods is a former farmer and now bauxite miner, who was arrested on his way home from work one night. He says that for two days, he was held in a cage along with scores of others. He was only let out to be flogged.
CARL WOODS: I regard myself as being abducted from a police station in Mutare. Taken straight to the police, to Chiadzwa, for flogging. When they asked me in Chiadzwa are you a diamond dealer, that's about all they could ask me and no more. They beat me when I denied that I was.
Hospital records confirm the months of brutality on the mine field which eventually left it fully under military control. But soldiers were soon providing more than security. Hundreds of illegal miners were organised into syndicates to mine for the military.
SYNDICATE MEMBER: We go to the fields and bring diamonds, then we share, we share with them. Let's say we make $US10,000, we call that $US10, we split it in half.
According to an actual syndicate member, as each new military unit arrives, it takes over the mining teams run by the departing soldiers.
SYNDICATE MEMBER: The syndicate never stops working. It will always continue to work. They take turns, one group of soldiers will spend two months, then they leave after two months.
With entry to the district now severely restricted, Mugabe's ministers deny the massacre and other human rights abuses ever took place. At this Mining Conference in the capital Harare, the nightmare in Chiadzwa is far from people's minds. Zimbabwe's new unity government is trying to paint a rosy picture to attract foreign investment.
OBERT MPOFU, ZIMBABWE MINES MINISTER: I cannot overemphasize the advantage we have in the mineral wealth. What we crave for is the capacity to exploit that wealth.
Obert Mpofu is a Mugabe loyalist and recent appointee to the position of Mines Minister. He's told Parliament only three people died at Chiadzwa - victims of internal strife - and he's unrepentant about the government's decision to bring in the military.
OBERT MPOFU: No, we moved in and we don't regret having done that. We moved in through our police who were supported by our military because of the magnitude of the invasion by the diamond panners. And that has been achieved, the panners have been cleared.
Authorities at every level continue to proclaim their innocence. And President Robert Mugabe insists that all mining in Zimbabwe is totally above board.
ROBERT MUGABE, ZIMBABWEAN PRESIDENT: The sanctity of property rights and the rule of law in all its dimensions are fully respected.
Andrew Cranswick would like to believe Robert Mugabe but watching this video filmed recently on his claim, he's shocked.
ANDREW CRANSWICK: This it totally illegal. And they are aware of it to have the attorney-general's opinion. They all have senior attorney-generals opinion, which is the government's own lawyer stating in 2006 categorically that they have to no title there. And have no right to be here.
Just last month Zimbabwe's High Court agreed, ruling that Marange was still legally owned by Cranswick's company but the government's mining goes on regardless. Diamonds that escape the government's hands are still leaving the country illegally. This man is a diamond smuggler. "David Moyo", as we'll call him, has a cache of gems hidden in his shoes. He buys them from military syndicates and scrounging locals, and takes them across the border to Mozambique. 'Dateline' travelled with him to see how it's done.
DAVID MOYO: These days, yes, the borders are tight, but, you know, at times even if they caught you, normally these police officers need something and you can just give them a bribe and go through.
Smuggling of diamonds and gold is at such rampant levels that last year Zimbabwe estimated it was losing revenue worth more than US$50 million a month. David Moyo has crossed this border countless times in the past two years.
SOLDIER: I am fine. How are you?
DAVID MOYO: Have you seen the guy running T1?
SOLDIER: I have seen him. He is enjoying money!
DAVID MOYO: So what can you do for me today?
SOLDIER: I want two bags of rice when you back.
There are growing calls for Zimbabwe's government to be held to account for both small and large scale smuggling and human rights abuses. Critics say Zimbabwe must be suspended from the Kimberley Process the international body charged with stopping the trade in conflict diamonds.
KEN ROTH: If Zimbabwe is expelled from the Kimberley Process, if it no longer has the right to sell its diamonds it will be losing one of its key economic lifelines and there is no question that at that stage Robert Mugabe will have to take action - he will have to reign in his military, on the killing, the beating - the forced labour will have to stop.
Kimberley Process members visited Marange in July this year, collecting this photographic evidence along the way. Next month they will decide whether Zimbabwe's right to export diamonds should be suspended. But some members, like Cecilia Gardner, say the massacre allegations won't be the ultimate decider.
CECILIA GARDNER, KIMBERLEY PROCESS DELEGATE: It is not a subject the Kimberley Process can really grapple with, we don't have the expertise, we don't have the experience and it is simply not on our list of priorities.
IAN SMILLIE, FORMER KIMBERLEY PROCESS DELEGATE: The Kimberley Process has to show that it is tough. It has not shown that it is tough in the past and here's another example of weak-kneed behaviour in the face of obvious problems.
Ian Smillie was a founding member of the Kimberley Process but believes it's failing. Recently he resigned in despair and now he fears the Kimberley Process won't act against Zimbabwe.
IAN SMILLIE: The whole point of the Kimberley Process was to stop blood diamonds. To ignore this, to ignore this most obvious example of the kind of things the Kimberley Process was supposed to stop - it will damage its integrity in a most serious way.
But Smillie also has another damning allegation that Australian officials have been actively working to prevent Zimbabwe's suspension.
IAN SMILLIE: As I understand it, members of the Australian diplomatic corp, have visited the governments of countries that had team members on the review team that went to Zimbabwe in June and have tried to dissuade them from action that would include the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Kimberley Process.
He believes Australian diplomats are trying to protect the exports from one of Zimbabwe's other diamond mines - the Marowa mine which is 78% owned by Australian company Rio Tinto.
IAN SMILLIE: I was, well I should say I am old enough not to be surprised but I was actually quite stunned that you would allow commercial interests to trump human rights or even to trump the long-term best interests of the diamond industry, I think to me, it is unfathomable.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says it hasn't yet finalised Australia's position and while it's been talking to other governments it denies recommending they act in a particular way.
While wrangling over Zimbabwe's status as a legitimate diamond dealer continues. So too does the smuggling with the collusion of those meant to stop it. David Moyo is now in Mozambique and on his way to the house of a well known diamond buyer with his stash of gems. Unless international authorities act soon, the diamond wealth that could transform the country will continue to fall into the wrong hands and be smuggled away.
Reporter/Camera
GINNY STEIN & ZIMBABWEAN COLLEAGUE
Editors
DAVID POTTS
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
Producer
AARON THOMAS
Translations/Subtitling
DENFORD MATEMARA
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN