June 26, 2009 - from Human rights Watch
(Johannesburg) - Zimbabwe's armed forces are engaging in the forced labor of children and adults, and are torturing and beating local villagers on the diamond fields of Marange district in eastern Zimbabwe, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The military, which remains under the control of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), the former ruling party, killed more than 200 people in a violent takeover of the diamond fields in late 2008.
The 62-page report, "Diamonds in the Rough: Human Rights Abuses in the Marange Diamond Fields of Zimbabwe," documents how, following the discovery of diamonds in Marange in June 2006, the police and army have used brutal force to control access to the diamond fields and to take over unlicensed diamond mining and trading. Some income from the fields has been funneled to high-level party members of ZANU-PF, which is now part of a power-sharing government that urgently needs revenue as the country faces a dire economic crisis.
"The police and army have turned this peaceful area into a nightmare of lawlessness and horrific violence," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "Zimbabwe's new government should get the army out of the fields, put a stop to the abuse, and prosecute those responsible."
In February 2009, Human Rights Watch researchers conducted more than 100 one-on-one interviews with witnesses, local miners, police officers, soldiers, local community leaders, victims and relatives, medical staff, human rights lawyers, and activists in Harare, Mutare, and Marange district in eastern Zimbabwe.
Those interviewed said that police officers, who were deployed in the fields from November 2006 to October 2008 to end illicit diamond smuggling, were in fact responsible for serious abuses - killings, torture, beatings, and harassment - often by so-called "reaction teams," which drove out illegal miners.
For the rest of the press release and to download the report go to Human rights Watch
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