Zimbabwe: Questions As Chinese Resurface On Anjin’s Marange Diamond Claims – by Mukasiri Sibanda (All Africa – April 23, 2018)

http://allafrica.com/

On 20 April 2018, the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) accompanied ambassadors from European Union countries during their field visit to the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) mining operations in Marange in the east of the country. One interesting observation was the fresh fence erected on Anjin’s concession, an air strip clearance and the presence of some Chinese on the ground.

The personnel are clearly not ZCDC staff and indications were that they were not maintenance staff either. This raises several questions: is Anjin back? If so, in what disguise? Did they get a new license?

Anjin is a diamond mining partnership between Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Company Ltd of China (AFECC) and Matt Bronze, an investment vehicle controlled by Zimbabwe’s military.

The military, which anchored the removal from office of former president Robert Mugabe. In November last year, is among the security forces that ventured into diamond mining in the controversial Marange fields.

State security agency Central Intelligence Organisation held 50 percent shareholding at Kusena Mine, with the other 50 percent held by the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC), according to former director Happyton Bonyongwe’s disclosure in Parliament recently.

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