# Operation Hakudzokwi The name means **"No Return."** It is the single case that proves what the [[Kimberley Process Certification Scheme]]'s definition of a conflict diamond leaves out. ## What happened Diamonds were found by villagers in the Chiadzwa area of Marange district in **June 2006**, across about 26 km² of remote ground. A rush followed, involving tens of thousands of informal miners. On **27 October 2008** the Zimbabwe Defence Forces launched Operation Hakudzokwi — over **800 soldiers from three army units** in a three-week campaign to clear the fields. Human Rights Watch documented, in *Diamonds in the Rough* (June 2009): - **At least 214 miners killed** between 27 October and 16 November 2008. Corroborating detail: 107 bodies with visible bullet wounds arrived at Mutare Hospital in twelve days. Soldiers fired live ammunition into fields and villages, including from helicopters. - **Forced labour** — military-controlled syndicates compelling villagers to dig, shooting those who tried to leave. - **Child labour** — up to 300 children working unpaid, up to eleven hours a day, under armed guard. - **Rotation as a spoils system** — army units were rotated through Marange so successive units could each take a share of the revenue. Institutionalised, not rogue. ## Why no stone was a "conflict diamond" Under the KPCS, a conflict diamond is one used by **rebel movements** to finance conflict aimed at **undermining legitimate governments**. At Marange the killing was done by the state's own army, for the state, to secure the field for the government and the ruling party. The definition therefore did not reach it. This is the point most often garbled: the Kimberley Process was not failing to enforce its rules. **Its rules did not cover this, by design.** ## What the Kimberley Process did - **November 2009 (Swakopmund):** rather than suspend Zimbabwe, the KP agreed a Joint Work Plan requiring military withdrawal within six months, and appointed a monitor. - **June 2010:** the monitor concluded Zimbabwe met minimum standards, contradicting NGO documentation of continuing violence. The activist Farai Maguwu, who had supplied evidence to the monitor, was arrested. - **July 2010:** a compromise permitting two supervised auctions of Marange stones. - **November 2011 (Kinshasa plenary):** the KP **authorised exports** from two Marange operators. - **2 December 2011:** [[Global Witness]] resigned as an official KP observer. Charmian Gooch: *"Nearly nine years after the Kimberley Process was launched, the sad truth is that most consumers still cannot be sure where their diamonds come from."* ## Afterward In March 2016 [[Robert Mugabe]] claimed publicly that companies had looted **more than $15 billion** from Marange, with the state receiving about $2 billion of an estimated $17 billion extracted, and used the claim to nationalise the fields into the state-owned ZCDC. **Treat it as a political claim, not an audited figure** — no public accounting substantiates it, no methodology was offered, and his own former finance minister has said Mugabe was aware of the looting as it occurred. Anjin Investments, evicted in 2016, was subsequently allowed back. Marange today produces around 3.8 million carats a year under ZCDC, held by Zimbabwe's sovereign wealth vehicle. Its stones are low-quality and therefore most exposed to lab-grown substitution: ZCDC's trading range has fallen from a $79/carat peak to $22–34, a decline of over 72%, far worse than the global market. The displacement to Arda Transau, the water pollution and the community exclusion remain unresolved. ## See also [[Blood Diamonds]] · [[Kimberley Process Certification Scheme]] · [[Global Witness]] · [[Conflict Resources Atlas]] · [[Robert Mugabe]]