Inquiry into diamond field abuses urged

August 09, 2011|New York Times

LONDON - Britain has urged authorities in Zimbabwe to investigate a BBC report that its security forces are beating and raping prisoners at two camps in the Marange diamond fields in the east of the country.

BBC News says that the camps hold workers recruited by the police and the military to dig illegally for diamonds for them but who then demand too large a share of the profits and are subsequently detained. The camps also hold civilians who have been caught mining for themselves, the BBC said in its documentary program “Panorama.’’

A released prisoner whom the BBC did not name said that guards at the camps were beating prisoners three times a day, with 40 lashes at a time. Dogs were loosed to bite shackled prisoners, and women held at the camps were frequently raped, the BBC said.

The Zimbabwean authorities offered no immediate comment.

The government of President Robert Mugabe has been working to increase its legal sales of diamonds. Mugabe’s political opponents fear that he will use diamond income to finance a violent campaign to win elections, expected for next year.

One of the torture camps the BBC identified, called Diamond Base, is about a mile from the Mbada mine, which the BBC says is operated by a friend of Mugabe’s. Witnesses cited by the BBC described Diamond Base as “a remote collection of military tents, with an outdoor razor wire enclosure where the prisoners are kept.’’

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