HARARE – A top Zimbabwean human rights campaigner on Wednesday said the country’s Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) spy agency has tracked him to an international summit in Namibia to try to stop him from exposing the serious human rights violations his organisation has compiled in the controversial Marange diamond fields.

Farai Maguwu, who heads the Centre for Research and Development (CRD) in Zimbabwe’s eastern border city of Mutare said yesterday from Namibia he had been followed by suspicious people and threatened by senior security officials since leaving for the Kimberley Process (KP) meeting that will decide whether to ban Zimbabwe from the world diamond market.

"My presence has not gone down well with the regime,” Magawu said, adding; “They have been following me. There are powerful people making money out of diamonds (and) they would want me silenced.”

The CRD has been compiling evidence of heinous killings, torture, beatings, rape, kidnapping and kleptocracy by members of Mugabe’s inner circle since Harare ejected a British firm, Africa Consolidated Resources (ACR) from the diamond fields in 2006 to pave way for the state-run Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC).

Thousands of illegal diamond miners and dealers soon descended on Marange to mine and sell the precious stones that at the height of the diamond rush were being sold to traders coming from all over the world including Israel, Lebanon and Guyana.

The lawlessness on the diamond fields that Zimbabwe’s central bank estimates has led to the country losing US$1,2 billion per month in potential revenue from the precious metal, resulted in Mugabe’s government sending soldiers and police to Marange to flush out the illegal miners, dealers and traders.

But human rights groups and the KP review mission say police and soldiers used excessive and brutal force to take control of the diamond field and that the security forces have themselves taken over smuggling of diamonds from Marange.

The KP – a grouping of diamond trading countries and civic society groups set up to prevent trade in conflict or blood diamonds – has been expected to use this week's meeting to impose an export ban on Zimbabwean diamonds.

But sources in Namibia said Zimbabwe looked set to escape the ban after its case was referred to an oversight committee, which is normally the last step before action can be taken.

The KP review mission that visited Zimbabwe at the end of June said in report that Zimbabwean security forces and other government entities had taken part in extra-judicial violent attacks on illegal diamond miners and smuggling of the precious stones from Marange.

The mission called for a temporary ban of six months or more to allow Zimbabwe time to comply with KP standards and said should the southern African nation volunteer to stop selling diamonds, the KP should monitor the “self-suspension” to ensure Harare implements all necessary measures to comply with required standards before it can resume trade in diamonds.

But civic society groups are demanding the KP suspends Zimbabwe, saying Harare had reneged on previous promises to withdraw the army from Marange and that only full suspension could force the Zimbabwean authorities to act to end rights violations at the diamond field that is also known as Chiadzwa. – ZimOnline