20100528
all africa

Mutare police on Thursday clamped down on a rights group that has exposed the level of abuse at the Chiadzwa diamond fields. They raided the group's offices, the home of the group's director and arrested his younger brother.

According to the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), police were searching for Farai Maguwu, the director of the Centre for Research and Development (CRD), but could not find him at the time of the raid on Thursday. A man believed to be his younger brother was arrested instead and was being held on unknown charges. The ZPP said the police officers took away some documents from the centre's offices before heading for Maguwu's home in Hobhouse, just a few kilometres away from the populous Chikanga suburb.

Blessing Nyamaropa, a lawyer with the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, on Friday went to the Mutare Central Police Station to try to give legal representation to Maguwu's young brother. The details of the charges that he is being detained on have not yet been made clear. Maguwu's whereabouts remain unknown and attempts by SW Radio Africa to contact him have been unsuccessful.

Maguwu has been outspoken in exposing the human rights atrocities at Chiadzwa, even meeting with an international diamond expert this week to give evidence of ongoing abuse at the hands of the military and the rampant smuggling. Abbey Chikane, who was appointed by the international diamond trade watchdog the Kimberley Process, to monitor Zimbabwe's attempts to fall in line with trade standards, on Thursday said the country was "on the right track."

Ironically, his comments coincided with the raid at the CRD offices.