MUTARE – A man from Zimbabwe’s eastern Mutare city has pressed charges against the police after he was allegedly brutally assaulted by a group of officers who mistook him for an illegal diamond miner.

Mutare is the nearest city to the notorious Marange or Chiadzwa diamond field and is frequented by illegal miners and dealers coming to either buy food supplies or to sell gemstones to foreign and local buyers.

52-year-old Elias Masuku claims that he and several other people were seized by police officers and some soldiers from a shopping centre at Hot Springs outside Mutare and were severely beaten up apparently as punishment for illegally digging diamonds at Marange.

Masuku is having difficulties to walk after the assault that took place two weeks ago. Masuku, an inspector with a local public bus transport firm, had stopped over at the business centre for a routine check on buses from his company that pass through the centre.

But he was caught up in a joint police and army operation to drive off illegal diamond miners and dealers from areas near or surrounding Marange.

“The man was brutally attacked,” said a police officer, who spoke on condition he was not named. “But the case has been transferred to Mutare Rural District for investigations. Masuku’s medical report highlighted the gravity of injuries sustained from the beatings.”

According to our source, the file number for Masuku’s case is CR number 237/04/10.

Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena was not immediately available for comment on the matter.

Marange is one of the world’s most controversial diamond fields with reports that state security forces sent to guard the claims after the government took over the field in October 2006 from a British firm that owned the deposits committed gross human rights abuses against illegal miners who had descended on the field.

Human rights groups say soldiers and police, who remain stationed at Marange despite two joint venture companies between the government and private investors taking over the diamond field, have continued to abuse villagers living near the mines, claims that the government denies.

In his statement to the police, Masuku said a group of armed police and soldiers descended on the shopping centre and rounded up everyone on site. They were forced onto a truck and ordered to lie on the truck’s bed on their stomachs before the beatings began.

He said: “In our large numbers we were loaded into the truck and forced to lie on our stomachs. The truck was small and the police had to beat us and force one on top of the other like sacks.”

Masuku said they were driven to a nearby secondary school where the soldiers used huge sticks to beat them, each person receiving up to 20 lashings with the sticks.

They were also ordered to roll over on the gravel before being ordered to leave the school running.

“We were ordered to run for dear life and because of the pain and injuries some of us could not run as fast and the soldiers who gave a chase caught up with me and started to beat me again,” he said.

News of Masuku’s case comes as the Kimberley Process’ monitor on Zimbabwe is in the country to assess whether mining of diamonds at Marange complies with watchdog’s standards.

Zimbabwe needs approval from the KP to sell diamonds from Marange.

Human rights activists want the KP to ban trade in diamonds from Marange until Harare acts to end abuses at the diamond field

By Zimonline