How big Marange could be14 Feb 2023 12:26
Background from an old article (huge extract below)
Major new alluvial diamond deposits are rare, but in the Manicaland Province in the far east of
Zimbabwe, about 60 miles south west of the town of Mutare, the Marange diamond field was
found in June 2001. The South African diamond group De Beers had been searching the area of
Marange for fifteen years and in 2001 they found low value alluvial stones.
De Beers’ exploration certificate expired on March 28 2006 and because of the political uncertainty
of that time De Beers did not renew.
Exploration was taken up by UK company, African Consolidated Resources (ACR now Vast).
According to Human Rights Watch, ACR, through its four Zimbabwean subsidiaries, registered
exploration claims over the Marange diamond fields giving it “exclusive rights to explore and search
for diamonds and other precious stones in Marange district”.
When ACR discovered higher value diamonds, it lodged the finding as required by law and asked assistance from the ZANU PF Zimbabwean government to remove local villagers who were digging in the area that by law were allotted to ACR.
But as it had done with white owned farms in 2000, in 2006 it did with white-owned mines – ZANU PF played the race card. In effect ZANU PF claimed the land was public and that anyone could dig there. What followed was a diamond rush, with perhaps up to 20,000 illegal artisanal miners; a free for all that resulted in poor mining practices, random acts of violence and increasing corrupt oversight by Zimbabwe’s military elite.
Confusion reigned. ACR’s claim was upheld on September 19th 2006 by Zimbabwe’s Mining
Commissioner, so ACR started to prepare fencing of its property, but within weeks the Minerals
Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) claimed authority over the area.
This led to the High Court cases in 2008/2010 which also backed Vast Claims
which we presume , satisfies all previous HC Judgements, licenses ours, Diamonds
ours and the ACR ban on mining until so, now lifted.
During the interim, ZCDC was spun out of the MMCZ, with rights and control of all
the land in Zimbabwe for Diamonds and their control and marketing etc. Building
their own facilities to do it all , clean , cut and put to market.
ZCDC will be our partner in Marange. GLA
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