MUTARE – The villagers of Chiadzwa, who face immediate relocation, have filled an urgent chamber application in the High Court to stop the government and companies operating in the area from evicting them from their homes close to the diamond fields.In papers filed last week in the High Court by lawyer George Gapu, of Scanlen and Holderness, the Chiadzwa Community Development Trust argues that the issue of compensation has to be negotiated and agreed to before any relocation takes place.

The villagers, who are led by the trust’s chairman Newman Chiadzwa, are arguing that the whole relocation process is not being handled in a transparent manner and that the companies that were granted licenses to mine the diamonds in Chiadzwa have not conducted any environmental impact assessment.

Mbada Mining Private Limited and Canadile Miners Private Limited, the companies controversially awarded licenses to mine diamonds in Chiadzwa are cited as first and second respondents respectively. Other respondents are the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation, Obert Mpofu, the Minister of Mines and Mining Development  and Ignatius Chombo, the Minister of Local Government, Urban and Rural Development.

The government has announced it wants to relocate up to 1800 families from Chiadzwa to pave the way for full-scale diamond mining operations.

“This is an urgent chamber application for an interdict seeking to stop the respondents from evicting and relocating any individuals from the Chiadzwa Communal area until compensation payable to the affected individuals has been agreed and paid. Furthermore, the affected individuals should not be evicted until the 1st , 2nd and 3rd respondents have conducted an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in terms of Section 97 of the Environmental Management Act (Chapter 20:27). In the same vein the 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents should not conduct mining operations until they have been granted EIA licenses by the competent authority.”

The Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation is the 3rd respondent. The Trust says it is clear the respondents have “jumped the gun by rushing to arrange transportation of the affected families from Chiadzwa”. They argue that information about the impending evictions has been haphazardly disseminated with villagers knowing it only through soldiers and police details manning the diamond fields.

“As the eviction of the affected families looms, there is no information about compensation they will receive, how it will be calculated and whether houses and other amenities will be provided for them at their destinations. These are matters that should be agreed before any relocation is contemplated or effected,” said the villagers in the application.

They argued the affected families should not be derived of their property and the interest they have in their communal land, which they have used for subsistence purposes over many years, without agreements on issues of compensation and compliance with the law.

“The applicants and affected families stand to suffer irreparable harm if the interdict is not granted because they will lose their property in Chiadzwa which they will be forced to abandon,” said the Trust.

Gapu said all the respondents had not filed any opposing papers by the end of day on Thursday.

They also want the High Court to declare that Mbada Mining, Canadile Miners and the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation are operating illegally since an environmental impact assessment has not been conducted according to the Environmental Management Act (Chapter 20:27).

The villagers also want the court to rule that  the respondents or their representatives shall “not evict or cause the eviction of any person from Chiadzwa diamond fields and adjacent communal areas” unless the respondents and the affected persons have a written agreement relating to the compensation payable to the affected persons.

The government last month said it had finished work on 260 of the 900 plots in Odzi where the villagers from Chiadzwa are supposed to be relocated.

The government says it has also successfully sunk 10 out of the 18  boreholes required, while work on renovating  schools and some clinics in the area was still in progress.

The government has also promised to carry out a proper evaluation of the properties owned by the affected villagers for them to be fully compensated. The villagers have also been assured that they will get first preference in getting jobs created by the discovery of the mineral.

But these offers have not fully attracted the Chiadzwa villagers who have vowed to stay put.

Most of the villagers had built houses which the government now wants demolished. One example is Newman Chiadzwa, who puts the value of his house in Chiadzwa at $700 000 and wants full compensation before he can move out of the diamond fields.

He believes the villagers should be allowed to benefit from the mineral resources instead of being pushed out of the place.

The government is expected to start relocating the families before the end of the year when investors mining in Chiadzwa avail  $10 million they pledged for the exercise.

By The Zimbabwe Times