RSS 2.0 FeedJune 2010 vol 16, Featured Articles, Mining and Industry Indaba
Chikane blackmailed with 'evidence'
Zimbawean President Robert Mugabe spied on the monitor of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), Abbey Chikane, to find sensitive information that could be used to blackmail him to write a positive report about the country's controversial diamond trade writes Times Live of South Africa
Mugabe used his dreaded Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) agents to keep Chikane under surveillance and to steal documents from his hotel room in Harare on May 24. They included confidential communications with the United States government on Zimbabwe's controversial Chiadzwa and Marange diamonds, according to CIO officers.
The theft of the documents came ahead of the KPCS meeting in Tel Aviv, Israel, which starts tomorrow and ends on Wednesday. Zimbabwe's controversial diamond mining activities at the Marange fields will feature prominently at the meeting.
Intelligence officers who spoke to the Sunday Times said the CIO broke into Chikane's room while he was travelling around the country talking to diamond mining stakeholders to assess whether Zimbabwe was ready for admission into the KPCS or not.
"The Zimbabwe government, mainly Mugabe and his officials, had information that Chikane was under pressure from the US government to write a negative report after his mission," a senior intelligence officer said. "So our agents were deployed to monitor him and obtain documents to prove that he was being directed by Washington over the issue."
The intelligence officer said the CIO obtained a spare key to Chikane's hotel room. "Our agents got into his room and seized sensitive documents, including e-mails, and then photocopied them."
Chikane told journalists in Harare at the end of his visit that a "naughty intelligence officer" might have broken into his room and stolen his documents. However, he did not reveal all.
The CIO took the documents to the government and to Mugabe's office so that they could be used as evidence of US interference and lobbying to ban Zimbabwe's "blood diamonds".
A senior government official who saw the documents, which were later leaked to the official media to "expose and blackmail" Chikane, said they revealed that he was under pressure from US state department special adviser on conflict diamonds, Brad Brooks-Rubin, to take robust measures against Zimbabwe to avoid trade in the diamonds.
Mugabe's government confronted Chikane with the documents and threatened to deport him if he did not co-operate. Harare also took up the issue with the KPCS and the South African government.
After serious wrangling, an amicable solution was found to let Chikane finish his mission, but Zimbabwe clearly expected a positive report from him or else he would be further charged with collaborating with the Americans to stop Zimbabwe's diamond exports.
Chikane's final report was positive about Zimbabwe and he also defended two South African companies mining the Marange diamond fields with Mugabe's government.
Mugabe was irked because Chikane had earlier forced his government to stop illegal and secret diamond exports, mainly to Dubai.
Splashing the e-mails between Chikane and Brooks-Rubin in the media was intendeded to put pressure on Chikane to prove he was not under the direction of Washington.
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