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- Read: Moz villagers digging for rubies ‘shot and left to die’<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
With the globe at Gemfields\u2019s fingertips and wealth at hand, it is easy for such distant men \u2013 suited, grey portraits in annual reports \u2013 to broadcast their version of the company to the world\u2019s rich. On the back of blood-diamond scandals in West Africa and the horrors of Zimbabwe\u2019s Marange diamond fields, Harebottle and company present themselves as the clean-cut new generation of miners. Their glossy documents proclaim: \u201cGemfields is the world\u2019s leading supplier of responsibly sourced coloured gemstones.\u201d<\/p>\n
They employ Hollywood actress Mila Kunis as their brand ambassador and trot her out, glittering with gems, to say ridiculous things, such as this summation of African people: \u201cTheir concept of happiness is so different from ours. As long as they have shelter, sunlight and some clean water: happiness.\u201d Or she coos that Gemfields takes \u201cso much pride in how socially and ethically responsible they are. I do believe that they believe it. They don\u2019t just say it for the sake of saying it.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the company\u2019s ruby fields in northern Mozambique, however, the picture does not gleam.<\/p>\n
In a frontier mining environment, good information and clearly apportioned blame is hard to come by, but villagers repeatedly told us stories of how the men who protect Gemfields\u2019s mine allegedly beat, shoot and kill them. One man took our reporters to his young son\u2019s grave and described how he was allegedly shot and left to die because he had dug for rubies in Gemfields\u2019s concession.<\/p>\n
Local officials, including a policeman and the district prosecutor, described the same broad picture; the prosecutor could point to four cases in which convictions were secured against men who were protecting Gemfields\u2019s asset and, in the process, shot and killed artisanal miners. The convicted were three state officers and a Gemfields contractor. The prosecutor referred to many other cases but said evidence was still being collected.<\/p>\n
In most cases, it is not clear precisely which security agency is to blame \u2013 there are four separate forces protecting Gemfields\u2019s rubies \u2013 but what is clear is that the situation is costing desperate people their lives.<\/p>\n
Wiese and Gilbertson would not answer our questions. Gemfields and Harebottle, who did answer questions, would not shoulder responsibility. They pointed to smugglers peddling unfair rumours and killings by \u201cdrunken\u201d agents of the state. They exonerated their own contractor, saying he acted in self-defence, in one incident, and otherwise claimed ignorance.<\/p>\n
This does not present a picture of a transparent and ethical enterprise. Kunis and her employers need to know that an African person\u2019s version of happiness involves respect, not having to fight life-and-death battles to feed their families and, yes, for some, \u201cshelter, sunlight and some clean water\u201d.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>The M&G<\/em> Centre for Investigative Journalism (amaBhungane) produced this story. All views are ours. See www.amabhungane.co.za <\/a> for our stories, activities and funding sources.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The dealings of the self-proclaimed “world\u2019s leading supplier of responsibly sourced coloured gemstones” look less rosy on the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}