Apologises if this is an odd question...in Martin Meredith's The Fate of Africa: a History of the Continent since Independence, he concludes his section on Zimbabwe by commenting that major new diamond finds in the east of the country provided the government with an huge source of new revenue just as the economy as a whole was declining.
How important were these diamond finds for the government's finances; were they as essential as the author implies?
Also how unexpected was the discovery? What I mean is, was it just a chance discovery or was diamond mining already established in the east of the country (over the previous decade(s) etc) and this was just the most recent discovery?
Thanks for reading.
What page is this on? The end of his chapter on Mugabe and Zimbabwe does not discuss anything like this. On page 635 (and on 540) he discusses the concessions he got from Laurent Kabila (including diamonds) in return for military aid in the late 1990s, but in that case the diamonds were coming from the eastern Congo conflict area into Zimbabwe for sale to obtain foreign exchange. Is there another section you're thinking of?
Diamonds in the Marange area of eastern Zimbabwe were extracted by an exclusive prospecting order held by De Beers via subsidiary until 2006. It was a significant strike--not particularly high quality, but still important in sheer volume. De Beers obtained that agreement in 1981 (if memory serves), and I do not think their concession payment to Harare increased over the 25-year term of the concession. Unfortunately, the rush that occurred in 2006 after the EPO's expiry falls within the 20-year prohibition in this subreddit, as does the Kimberley Process/Protocols' 2009 prohibition of Marange diamonds on the market. Martin & Taylor (2012) may provide you some reading on the deeper history of the diamond fields, up to and including those things we can't discuss here.