Regionen var tidligere mest kendt for dens høje fattigdomsrater og fejlernæring. Nu betragter tilrejsende diamanthandlere luksusbilerne glide afsted fra nyvaskede terrasser til hurtigt opbyggede hoteller. Manica er ikke til at kende igen, skriver IRINNEWS tirsdag.
MANICA: Without a four-wheel drive, Manica’s potholed dirt roads are a challenge, but thanks to a steady stream of illicit diamonds from neighbouring Zimbabwe, more and more people in the impoverished town in western Mozambique can afford one.
Manica is bustling with business and the newfound wealth – manifest in the latest Hummer or a high-end Toyota, always with tinted windows – is flaunted along Eduardo Mondlane Avenue, the dusty border town’s only significant road.
It is a new frontier energized by diamonds: new restaurants and shops have opened and offer a wide assortment of practically anything – all imported from South Africa.
“The diamonds enter Mozambique in an obscure and clandestine way. Nobody in Manica is permitted to [buy or sell] them because we do not have this mineral,” Jose Tefula, administrator of Manica district, told IRIN.
The diamonds are believed to come from the vast Chiadzwa diamond fields in the eastern province of Manicaland, about 90km southwest of Zimbabwe’s eastern city of Mutare, not far from the border. Traders use “mules”, who often ingest the stones, to smuggle the diamonds into Mozambique, Tefula said.
According to Alberto Limeme, head of the border patrol at Machipanda, the main border post between Mozambique and Zimbabwe: “The diamonds cannot cross the border without proper certification but we don’t have enough personnel for adequate control.”
Stones worth hundreds of thousands of dollars are allegedly being smuggled in every month. In December 2009 authorities seized more than 500g of diamonds from a single smuggler.
A recent joint operation by the Mozambican Migration Services and Border Patrol to stem the flow had not managed to contain the illegal traffic of the precious stones, Limeme admitted.
Limeme said the Zimbabwean authorities had long been aware of the illegal diamond pipeline but “as long as the Zimbabweans do not clamp down on the illegal trafficking, it will be very difficult for us to restrain the entrance of the diamonds”.
– IRINNEWS writes on Tuesday.
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