Former Vice-President and National People’s Party leader Joice Mujuru has vehemently denied that she dealt in diamonds and that there was place at Chiadzwa called “Churu cha Mai Mujuru” saying the project that she had in Chiadzwa was a horticultural project.
She also denied on the British Broadcasting Programme, Hardtalk, that she had any dealings with a European company called Firstar.
According to a 2009 Human Rights Watch report entitled: Diamonds on the Rough several miners interviewed by Human Rights Watch who experienced raids by reaction teams said the police would drive them off the field, and then trucks would come onto the fields carrying people the miners suspected to be linked to senior government officials:
“We do not know for sure who the people were who came to work in the diamond fields on certain nights after reaction teams cleared us off the fields,”: they told Human Rights Watch..
“The police we work with in our syndicates told us reaction teams make way for big chefs [senior leaders] in ZANU-PF to dig for diamonds.
“We named a portion of the diamond fields zamu ramai Mujuru (Mrs. Joyce Mujuru’s breast) because on several nights trucks would go there, and we were told by police that the portion belongs to the vice-president, Mrs. Mujuru.
“That portion of land is heavily guarded both by police and by a private security company, which is owned by another senior ZANU-PF official.
“Local and international media have reported on the alleged involvement of Zimbabwe’s Vice President and senior ZANU-PF member Mrs. Mujuru in Marange diamond mining and smuggling, including on ownership of a claim in the diamond fields popularly known as churu chamai Mujuru (Mrs. Mujuru’s anthill).
“International media have also reported on alleged attempts by Mrs. Mujuru’s Spain-based daughter to sell uncertified gold and diamonds on the international market. The origin of the diamonds in question has never been publicly revealed.”
Indeed, The Insider in 2009 talked to two senior executives of Firstar Europe.
Bernd Hagemann, the head of Firstar Europe, a commodities trading company based in Warrington in the United Kingdom, said Joice Mujuru phoned him after the company had blacklisted her, her husband Solomon Mujuru, her daughter Nyasha, Nyasha’s husband Pedro Del Campo and their South African agent Dancor Spies.
Nyasha had tried to sell the company 3 700 kg of gold and several consignments of diamonds.
The diamonds in batches of two, three, four and five carat and had a total value of $15 874 366.60.
The gold was worth $141.9 million at the 2009 prices.
Here are the diamonds Mujuru wanted to sell:
Two carat diamonds
