# Farai Maguwu The Zimbabwean researcher whose arrest exposed the structural defect at the centre of the [[Kimberley Process Certification Scheme]] — that its monitor functioned as an agent of the host state rather than a protector of witnesses. Maguwu was running the Centre for Research and Development in Mutare, documenting military abuses at the Marange diamond fields after [[Operation Hakudzokwi]]. On **25 May 2010** he met **Abbey Chikane**, the Kimberley Process's appointed monitor for Zimbabwe, and gave him evidence. **Chikane passed his identity to the Zimbabwean authorities** — reportedly out of fear of being arrested himself. Maguwu was arrested on **3 June 2010** and charged with publishing falsehoods against the State, carrying up to twenty years. What followed is documented in detail by Front Line Defenders: denied blankets and made to sleep on cement floors; fever and infection with medical attention withheld despite court orders; illegally removed from remand for interrogation; moved to the condemned Matapi cells and threatened. Bail was refused three times, and at the third hearing he reported being held **in leg irons and chains**. He was released on **12 July 2010** after roughly forty days, and **all charges were dropped on 21 October 2010** without a plea. The Kimberley Process had **no whistle-blower protection whatsoever**, and its monitor had just demonstrated why that mattered. The case became the central exhibit in the 2011 fight over Marange compliance and contributed directly to [[Global Witness]] leaving the scheme in December 2011. He received Human Rights Watch's **Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism in 2011** and now directs the **Centre for Natural Resource Governance** in Harare, working on mining-community rights and resource crime. ## See also [[Operation Hakudzokwi]] · [[Kimberley Process Certification Scheme]] · [[Blood Diamonds]] · [[Global Witness]] · [[Ian Smillie]]