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Victims tell of vicious floggings in 'The Cage' in Operation No Return
Jane Fields, Scotsman
November 24, 2008

http://news.scotsman.com/zimbabwe/Victims-tell-of-vicious-floggings.4723008.jp

A packet of throat lozenges saved his life, he believes. The sweets were tucked into his top breast pocket when around six police and plainclothes officials came to his home in Zimbabwe's eastern city of Mutare this month.

They arrested the man, an elderly artisan, on charges of illegally dealing in diamonds, an accusation he vehemently denies.

Late at night, he was driven along the bumpy road to the Chiadzwa diamond fields and herded into a "cage", which measured 12 metres by 15, underneath a tree stripped of all leaves.

A lone lightbulb illuminated the 70 or so other inmates of the cage, all suspected diamond diggers and dealers. "This is where I saw the worst of mankind," he said.

The Zimbabwe authorities are calling it Operation Hakudzokwi, or No Return.

Police and soldiers have launched a massive push to clear the diamond fields of Chiadzwa, where thousands of Zimbabweans have found riches in an uncontrolled two-year-long diamond rush.

Sources say that the head of the air force, Perence Shiri, was in Manicaland province earlier this month to supervise the clampdown. Helicopters are regularly seen travelling from an army barracks in Mutare in the direction of Chiadzwa.

The Scotsman spoke to one man who was caught up in the clampdown. His buttocks and the base of his back are purple from where he was beaten.

There were 20 to 30 beatings a day inside the "cage", said the man, who cannot be named for his own safety. "I saw at least two people beaten to the stage where blood came through their trousers," he said.

One woman who was found in possession of a small scale used for weighing diamonds and at least 200 (possibly fake) US dollars was beaten with a switch more than one and a half metres long. After the beatings, an army medical officer dispensed painkilling tablets, thought to be codeine.

Officials close to the clampdown told the local Manica Post newspaper this week: "After this operation, no gweja (illegal dealer] will think of going to Chiadzwa again."

Diamonds were first discovered in Chiadzwa in 2006. Until recently, President Robert Mugabe's administration tolerated almost uncontrolled mining: villagers were allowed to believe the stones were a gift from their ancestors to help them through Zimbabwe's economic crisis.

School pupils, teachers and up to 10,000 foreigners joined the diamond craze, turning the normally sleepy city of Mutare into a magnet for fortune seekers, prostitutes and plasma-TV sellers.

But last month, the governor of Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank, Gideon Gono, announced that the country was losing $1.3 billion a month from the illegal diamond trade. That revelation appears to have prompted Operation No Return.

Police are now trawling Mutare's suburbs with a list of the people they believe have recently come into wealth, and are thus suspected diamond dealers.

Out in dusty Chiadzwa, police patrol on horseback with dogs. The army has set up a tented barracks. There are testimonies of terrified youths fleeing in terror as plainclothes officers shoot at them.

Already, there have been a number of deaths: the Manica Post reported on Friday that 20 bodies of illegal panners lay unclaimed in Mutare mortuaries, some of them shot in clashes with the security forces.

Locals claim around seven bodies were brought in broad daylight to Mutare central police station earlier this month.

The elderly man was released after two nights in custody. Though he had been handed a plate of sadza and cabbage to share with three others at mealtimes, he says the throat lozenges kept him going in the dust and the heat.

As he was crouching on the ground before his release, an army officer knelt down next to him. "I'm sorry about what has happened to you," he said.

"Things will change soon."

Background

The Chiadzwa diamond field, also known as the Marange Fields, used to be managed by De Beers.

Under Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF government, it was confiscated from African Consolidated Resources (ACR) and handed to the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation in December 2006. Strongly condemning violent police raids on illegal diamond diggers, the company has since taken the government to court.

ACR says it has no way of preventing the violence as staff are denied entry by the police.

In the most recent raid by state security forces, 10,000 people were digging for diamonds about 20 miles north-east of Mutare.

Police, some on horseback, floodlit the area and unleashed their dogs, then began firing after people started attacking the dogs with iron bars. It is thought about 14 to 16 people died. But Wayne Bvudzijena, an assistant police commissioner, has denied having any knowledge about the raid.

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