Good to learn that you are now putting on paper what you have done over years. As a member of civil society and part of the academia in Zimbabwe , I will be happy to get in touch with you and share more insights around these issues if you don’t mind. Please do get in touch on cmutasa@gmail.com

On the last point regarding security sector reform (SSR) i just want to bring to your attention that there is good start or an embryo as regards SSR in the form of the Zimbabwe Peace and Security Project (ZPSP), which has been up and running since last year with the support of Sweden, Norway and the EU. All political parties are participating. Jeremy Brickhill is in the lead.

what i do also wonder though, is just what kind of opinion people would have had on my country’s diamonds had the claim indeed remained in the hands of ARC – the UK listed company claiming ownership. indeed, this would have meant that in effect, these vast deposits would have been held by a mere handful of directors and their shareholders.

i would assume that these shareholders will most likely already be fabulously rich – perhaps enough so to be categorised as ‘elites’. the same elites that you believe should not have access to such resources. (i for one, believe that it is unhelpful to categorise ‘elite’ as only those in government).

i wonder if any of the critics of the Zimbabwean governments position on our diamonds would have ever questioned the activities of ARC had they been extracting diamond wealth from our soils and depositing them in vaults back home (UK). would anyone ever have questioned their activities at all?(i have read reports of the ACR chief being wanted in australia for tax evasion – food for thought considering that the australian gvt is looking towards retaining more taxes from multinational mining conglomerates operating there).

i am certainly a firm advocate of such resources benefitting the people, but am also of the belief that such resources being nationally or indiginousely owned stand a far better chance of benefiting the Zimbabwean economy than the options that involve an elite based in far off lands. let us not forget that their objective, as private enterprise, is not to serve the host nation, but to make profits. while we as a nation certainly have unscrupulous business people of our own, at least they’re OUR people – i’ll take those chances over the other option any day.

you also seem to doubt whether Anglo could at all be considered a ‘former colonial power’. considering the amount of public funds the Western governments are chanelling towards military spending in order to secure concessions for their oil firms (as they are doing in Lybia), and indeed the lobby power that such giants have over the policy direction of these countries, i would say yes – we can refer to the two interchangebly.

i will reiterate – it is only cooperation with the government of Zimbabwe that will ensure that the diamonds benefit us the people. fighting them, as is being done now and as was done during the land reform programme, can only lead to unwanted underground dealings.

the problem however, is that the institutions that hold the power in the global diamond industry are most likely more concerened with protecting diamond market prices that our diamonds stand to disrupt, than they are with the welfare of my people.

once again, the civil society that are fighting for what i hope is the good of the Zimbabwean people, are partnering with powers that have their own interests at heart. it doesn’t work.

added to that, and revisiting the jist of your research, the objectives of these players (civic included), which are claimed to be humanitarian, are to a large extent political. this cycle is, as they say, vicious.

Whether, however, Anglo American’s role can be uncritically discussed as a “former colonial power” is worth considering, alongside, alternatively, the role of elites globally ensuring profits come their way, often in collusion with elites in a particular context who will benefit. That said, elites profiting from international business who are in government often have facilitated access to such contracts, take for example oil contracts in Iraq for Halliburton, where US VP Dick Cheney was Chief Executive for five years. While it is clearly important that international actors are constrained from removing massive riches from countries experience severe widespread poverty and unemployment – especially when they are not creating jobs, significant taxes, or offering profit share to local communities – a government that serves and is respected by its people is best placed to do this in a responsible way. I’m sure we can agree that it is Zimbabwean elites who have primarily benefited from Zimbabwe’s diamond riches. Developing and post-conflict countries should be the primary beneficiaries from their resources, but the resources must go to development of all in society, and especially the poor.

Liberia has done quite well in moving from a fairly chaotic system of resource extraction to support war, and in the post-conflict setting, to support those who could get their hands on them without visible wider community and national benefits, to now having far more controlled systems in place which are creating jobs, national income, and community profit shares. Worth looking at.

I would suggest that around diamonds in Zimbabwe, some combination of resistance and participation as I have described, as well as rights and redistribution, is needed against and with both government and international actors. I know there are competent Zimbabwean NGOs working on this. It must be very challenging in such a context to decide which international and national actors to partner with to bring transformative change.

Erin McCandless

I concur with her when she states that civic organisations have been drawn towards either one of the rights or redistribution dilemmas without fully acknowledging the value of both. Over the years they have been quick to align any issues surrounding the land redistribution with socio-economic problems the country has faced and also link it with the same rights abuses that they may have opted to focus on.

What I believe the civic society has also failed to factor into their debates is the massive role of the international community in contributing to our problems and fuelling the very polarization she refers to. She correctly states that such powerful players have been way too focused on regime change where more humane intentions have been falsely claimed. The decade has seen a slow transformation in views, from one of complete denial of the interfering hand of the West, to a fair degree of acknowledgment of the same. I am glad that certain global events, particularly in North Africa, are helping to bring forward this reality. Although, my heart bleeds for the prospects of my brothers and sisters there.

HOWEVER, the same cycle of not acknowledging the whole picture seems to be starting once again with respect to our diamonds. McCandless loses the power of her argument by stating that the diamond wealth that brings in new dilemma’s for my country, ‘has no former colonial power involved’!!!!

Does she not have any suspicions about Anglo-America’s ownership of the claim for many years of the past, while consistently claiming to be ‘exploring’ for minerals? Could it at all be possible that they never realized that they were sitting on one of the worlds richest deposits? Really?? With all their expertise?? Is it therefore of no consequence that these very claims were ‘transferred’ to a company listed on the London SE?? Can one really separate any role of the former colony from the dynamics of Zimbabwe’s diamond deposits? Can one really claim no involvement by the former colony in light of the fact that they are once again at the forefront of efforts to block diamond sales from the country – that they in fact are fighting tooth and nail for these claims to be given back to London listed ACR??

More relevant to the research in question, civic society in this country has been doing their best to block sales of the very same diamonds. In my view this is the very same RESISTANCE strategy that these organizations undertook with respect to the land redistribution at the beginning of the decade in question, all in order to ‘fight human rights abuses/ protect innocent citizens’. This is the very same resistance to the land reform programme (by civil society, political parties and some sections of the international community) that I believe contributed to any negative aspects of the programme.

Where exactly are they placed with respect to contributing to healing and reconciliation for the people of my country? ….My view – they will continue to contribute to our polarization for a long time to come. While I appreciate the writers efforts, I am disappointed by this final shortcoming in her analysis. Why should things like this be seen in retrospect only? All the while it is the innocent that are affected by such intervention. It is very frustrating.

Robert cohen.