October 2, 2019

Andrew Campbell 

On October 1 US government denounced Zimbabwe using forced labor in its diamond industry and issued the Withhold Release Order blocking its diamond exports to America.

In addition, the US government also considers endorsing the CECIL Act, motivated by the 2015 killing of Cecil the lion by an American millionaire dentist, Walter Palmer, outside Hwange National Park in the Matabeleland North province of Zimbabwe, which would ban export in hunting trophies of elephants and lions from Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe to the US.

But, the US Embassy in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, admitted it had only relied on widespread public reporting without any solid evidence in the US’s allegations of Zimbabwean forced labor in the Marange diamond fields.

Mr. Sugar Chagonda, the spokesperson of Zimbabwe Consolidated Mining Company, replied its company’s employment policy fully complied with the Constitution and the Labor Act which did not allow recruitment of children or forced labor.

Mr. Tongai Muzenda, the general manager of Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe also dismissed the US’s allegation of conflict diamonds from child labor.

Mr. Nick Mangwana, the Zimbabwean government spokesman, wrote that unfortunately the US authorities had been misinformed or misled and reassured its government strongly prohibits any form of slavery. He also ridiculed the US being either mischievous or simply ignorant in its accusation against Zimbabwe having forced labor in mining diamonds through forced labor.

Photo:Webshot.