Claim Jumping

The organized crime ring that Robert Mugabe heads, sometimes humorously referred to as the 'government of Zimbabwe', has just ordered the seizure of diamond fields recently discovered in that country. This comes after the government methodically cheated its own people to "buy" the diamonds they dug out with their bare hands at rock bottom prices.

While President Robert Mugabe has seized thousands of white-owned farms since 2000 he has, up until now, left mining property alone.

The claim, an extraordinary chunk of ancient tribal land in south eastern Zimbabwe, may be one of the richest diamond fields found in recent years.

And the Zimbabwe government wants it.

African Consolidated Resources plc, with about 1,000 claims in Zimbabwe, listed in London in June and says it was granted title by the Ministry of Mines.

The order to leave the dry, poverty-stricken Marange district, about 200 miles south east of Harare, comes after months of drama.

When rumours of diamonds spread during the summer, thousands flocked there from all over Zimbabwe and neighbouring countries in what may have been the largest diamond rush in Africa in the last 100 years.

Company officials estimate £120 million of diamonds were dug out by desperate people over the last few months. Dirk Benade, 57, an ACR geologist, saw it all. As the hordes massed, they dug deep holes within a metre of one another.

….

As the hygiene conditions continued to deteriorate, Tinos Rusere, the deputy mining minister, went to the site on September 25 and told swarms of diggers to carry on mining and sell their stones to the government.

Dealers from neighbouring South African also appeared, offering better prices.

ACR has built roads and refurbished dams for the local community and, when the diggers were finally moved out of the area by police last week, the company began sifting gravel to estimate how much had been looted.

While the company is trying to fight the government action through the courts, it probably won't really do much good. Mugabe pretty well takes what he wants in that benighted country. And the UN certainly won't be of any help. After all, Kofi Annan's kids have to make livings, don't they?