Zanu PF faction behind ACR office attack

Business, News — By admin on February 4, 2010 11:30 am

Harare – The Zimbabwe Mail can reveal that the armed group behind the attack on a British-Diamond company African Consolidated Resource’s (ACR) in Harare on Tuesday night belongs to a Zanu PF faction led by Retired Army General Solomon Mujuru, a Senior Zanu PF source said last night.

State media linked the incident to much-publicised plans to transport 129 000 diamond carats, seized from ACR, to the Central Bank. But an intelligence source said a faction led by General Mujuru is objecting to the plan by its rival led by Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa for the Diamonds to be handed over to the Reserve Bank as provided by the recent Supreme Court ruling.

Mujuru faction are furious about the arrengement because they don’t have any inside information or control over the events at the Central Bank where former Police Commissioner Henry Mukurazhizha has been tasked with the security and so they fear their rivals are planning to enrich themselves and eventually dislodge them from the succession contest using the proceeds.

The Supreme Court ordered that the diamonds be moved to the reserve bank to be kept by “a neutral body” pending the resolution of the ownership dispute, but the Mujuru faction are accusing the Supreme Court bench of being manipulated by Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa who belongs to the Mnangagwa faction.

Retired General Mujuru is pushing for his wife, the current joint Vice President Joyce Mujuru to succeed Robert Mugabe in a bitterly contested succession battle with the Defence Minister Emmerson Mnagagwa and the two factions are engaged in hostile activities to out do each other as the curtain comes down for the aging Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

In Harare, gunmen armed with AK47 rifles stormed the Zimbabwe offices of a British-based diamond company, African Consolidated Resource after midnight Tuesday, in an incident police tried to play down describing it as a robbery. A police spokesman on Wednesday confirmed the raid on the Zimbabwe headquarters of London-based African Consolidated Resources, and said investigations were in progress.

Police Spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena, last night refused to confirm reports that there was an exchange of gun-fire between the armed group and members of the police and the guards. Our source who was one of the first investigation team to arrive at the scene said they picked up a number of cartridges which have been sent for forensic examination.

However, another source in the Zimbabwe military intelligence (MID) investigation team said the three vheicles used by the armed gunmen, a saloon car, a 4×4 Nissan pick-up and a van have been sighted at a farm in Ruwa, about 22 kilometres East of Harare and the farm is said to be owned by a Senior Zanu PF official and another vheicle was last seen heading for Headlands.

The gunmen are believed to be retired army officers, and investigations have since gathered the information that they collected rifles and ammunition at 2 Brigade, a Zimbabwe National Army Barrack in Cranborne. There are growing fears in Harare that Zimbabwe is moving towards a conflict similar to the one in Sierra Leone in the 90s with arms supplied by ruthless foreign criminals and arms traders from Israel, Russia and rogue states in Eastern Europe.

The World’s top influencial diamond traders mainly from middle East are now focused on Zimbabwe’s diamond fields, deemed by some experts as the World’s most significant find of the gems in the past century. Meanwhile, a source who is very much close to the Zanu PF bitter power struggles told our reporter that the succession battled has now shifted into the diamond fields and he warned that it is fast developing into a highly emotive issue between the two rival factions.

The source, a senior member of Zanu PF, speaking on condition of anonymity told our reporter that the country’s political stability is now in danger over the control of the diamonds and it could escalate into an internal armed conflict similar to Sierra Leone civil war. On Tuesday, The Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) postponed its plans to transport 300,000 carats of diamonds to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, after the armed men raided African Consolidated Resource’s (ACR) offices in Harare.

Former Thornhill Airbase Commander and President Robert Mugabe’s personal helicopter pilot, Retired Air Vice Marshal Robert Mhlanga is the Executive Chairman at Mbada Diamonds, a secretive company and he reports directly to Robert Mugabe and Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Mr Mhlanga is reported to be commanding sorties of Helicopter flights everyday transporting diamonds to secret places and some are smuggled through Mozambique and South Africa with the assistance of international rogue agents. A mile-long runway capable of accommodating massive, long-range cargo jets is being built in the Chiadzwa diamond fields

Aerial pictures published in the media show construction work is well under way, with a newly built control tower apparently complete and the runway nearly ready for surfacing. But the construction of the runway suggests that the army wants to use its access to the raw diamonds – whose production is worth an estimated £125 million a month – to obtain goods from abroad, in particular weapons.

The company ACR is locked in litigation with President Robert Mugabe’s government over the claim for the rich Chiadzwa diamond field in eastern Zimbabwe. ACR officials did not comment on the raid, but mining industry sources said the intruders assaulted the company’s four security guards at the heavily-protected building in central Harare, and made off with computers and a new pick-up truck.

The vehicle was discovered shortly afterwards at a nearby hotel, abandoned, but with the keys still in the ignition. The government seized the claim from ACR in 2006, and let thousands of illegal diggers and panners overrun it until two years later, when soldiers and police cracked down, allegedly killing scores of people and severely assaulting and torturing hundreds more.

The violence drew sharp criticism from the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, the international body founded to stop the trade in “blood diamonds” in Africa, and demanded that the military be withdrawn and transparency and order be established at Chiadzwa. Controversy has continued, however, as the government allowed two South African companies to form joint ventures with the bankrupt state-owned mining company to exploit the alluvial diamond field.

An ongoing parliamentary inquiry this week accused the government of “irregular” dealings with the two companies. The raid came as ACR was about to apply for an eviction order against the two companies, after a high court judge in September ruled that the state seizure of the field was illegal, and that ACR was the legal owner of the claim.

Political analysts say that the Chiadzwa diamonds are of crucial importance to the turnaround of the cash-strapped country, which is under a power-sharing government formed by Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Mining experts believe the field could earn the government up to 1 billion dollars a year in revenues from the field.

But diplomats and members of Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change have expressed fears that Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party are planning to seize the claim, after the collapse of the economy in 2008 left them without financial support. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been briefed about the continued presence of the army at the diamond fields and the construction of the secret runway. A party insider said: “We know about it and it is extremely sensitive. We are very worried about what we have found out this week.”

The Sierra Leone Civil War began in 1991, by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under Foday Sankoh. Tens of thousands died and more than 2 million people (well over one-third of the population) were displaced because of the 11-year conflict. Neighboring countries became host to significant numbers of refugees attempting to escape the civil war. It was officially declared over on 18 January 2002. In 1985, Joseph Momoh, a military leader, was installed as president of Sierra Leone. One major opposition group consisted of students including Foday Sankoh, Abu Ahmed Kanu, and Rashid Mansaray.

Many students were expelled from the country and this group fled to Ghana and then Libya where they attended Moammar Qaddafi’s secret service military training facility. The group recruited unemployed young men and students, but as the group grew, internal squabbles arose, and many left the group, some students to universities in Ghana, others back to Sierra Leone.

Control of Sierra Leone’s diamond industry was a primary objective for the war. Although endowed with abundant natural resources, Sierra Leone was ranked as the poorest country in the world by 1998. With the breakdown of all state structures, wide corridors of Sierra Leonean society were opened up to the trafficking of arms and ammunition, and an illegal trade in recreational drugs from Liberia and Guinea. Zimbabwe Mail

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