The Political Economy of Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Central Zimbabwe

Abstract

Zimbabwe's post-2000 period has been characterised by a dramatic increase in artisanal small-scale mining (ASM), particularly gold mining. Economic decline and rising unemployment meant that ASM provided one of the very few opportunities for survival and capital accumulation. This article provides a contextual analysis of the growth of ASM, together with a detailed discussion of a case study of mining in Totororo, Kwekwe District in central Zimbabwe, based on field research and media reports. Totororo was initially the site of an intense gold rush, which was quasi-formalised through being registered as a small mine. The article situates the discussion of the growth of ASM in the context of the political economy of Zimbabwe's crisis decade and subsequent period of power sharing. It reveals both similarities and differences with the political economy of diamond mining in Zimbabwe, which has attracted greater attention from scholars and the human rights community. Artisanal gold mining in Totororo clearly provided significant survivalist livelihood opportunities. Yet the site was also highly politicised and contested, and the politics of controlling extraction and trade were part of a bigger story of elite accumulation and patronage. The article criticises those who approach ASM only through debates over grass-roots, informal survivalism, and also suggests some of the ways in which elite accumulation has provided not only lucrative opportunities for a broad network of lower ranking party or state agents but also work for locals and itinerant panners who would otherwise be jobless.

Notes

¹ Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT), Harare, 2010

²Human Development Report 2010, 20th anniversary edition, The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2010).

³ T. Hentschel, R. Hruschka and M. Priester, Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining: Challenges and Opportunities (International Institute for Environment and Development and World Business Council for Sustainable Development, London, 2003), p. 7.

⁴Ibid., p. 8.

⁵ Zimbabwe, Mines and Minerals Act, [Chapter 21:05], 1961 (last amended in 2006).

⁶ Oliver Maponga and Maideyi Meck, ‘Illegal Artisanal Gold Panning in Zimbabwe – A Study of Challenges to Sustainability along the Mazowe River’, in Gavin M. Hilson (ed.), The Socio-Economic Impact of Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in Developing Countries (A.A. Belkema, Lisse [Netherlands], 2003), p. 350.

⁷ See Ian Phimister, An Economic and Social Economic History of Zimbabwe, 1890–1948: Capital Accumulation and Class Struggle (Longman, London, 1988); Showers Mawowa, ‘Political Economy of Crisis, Mining and Accumulation in Zimbabwe: Evidence from the Chegutu-Mhondoro Area’ (PhD thesis, University of KwaZulu Natal, 2013).

⁸ Showers Mawowa, ‘Tapping into the Chaos: State, Crisis and Accumulation’ (MA thesis, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007).

⁹ M. Castells and A. Portes, ‘World Underneath: The Origins, Dynamics, and Effects of the Informal Economy’, in A. Portes, M. Castells and L. Benton (eds), The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989).

¹⁰ Gideon Gono, ‘Promoting Indigenous Economic Empowerment’: Address to the Extraordinary Session of ZANU(PF) Congress in Harare, 14 December 2007,

¹¹ Human Rights Watch, Diamonds in the Rough: Human Rights Abuses in the Marange Diamond Fields of Zimbabwe (June 2009).

¹² Tinashe Nyamunda and Patience Mukwambo, ‘The State and the Bloody Diamond Rush in Chiadzwa: Unpacking the Contesting Interests in the Development of Illicit Mining and Trading, 2006–2009’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 38, 1 (2012), pp. 145–66; Patrick Bond and Khadija Sharife, ‘Zimbabwe's Clogged Political Drain and Open Diamond Pipe’, Review of African Political Economy, 39, 132 (2012), pp. 351–65.

¹³ Karl Marx, ‘Capital Volume 1 – Part viii: The So-Called Primitive Accumulation’, in Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Marx–Engels Reader, 2nd Edition (New York, Norton, 1972), pp. 431–8.

¹⁴Ibid.; Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London, New Left Books, 1974); Michael Perelman, The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation (Durham, NC and London, Duke University Press, 2000).

¹⁵ Perry Anderson, Lineages.

¹⁶ David Moore, ‘Intellectuals Interpreting Zimbabwe's Primitive Accumulation: Progress to Market Civilisation?’ Safundi, 8 (2007), pp. 199–222.

¹⁷ Rosa Luxemburg, The Accumulation of Capital (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 2003).

¹⁸ P. Chabal and J-P. Daloz, Africa Words: Disorder as Political Instrument (London, James Currey, 1999).

¹⁹ Karl Marx, ‘Capital Volume I’, cited in D. Moore, ‘The Second Age of the Third World: From Primitive Accumulation to Global Public Goods?’, Third World Quarterly 25 (1), 2004, pp. 27–109.

²⁰ Tendai Masiya, Layman Mlambo and Motive Mungoni, ‘Small-Scale Mining in Zimbabwe: Historical Perspective’, in Global Conference on Business and Finance Proceedings, Volume 7, Number 2 (Harare, University of Zimbabwe, 2012), p. 290.

²¹ Elizabeth Schmidt, ‘Farmers, Hunters and Gold Washers: A Re-evaluation of Women's Role in Precolonial and Colonial Zimbabwe’, African Economic History, 17 (1988), pp. 45–80.

²² Ian Phimister, ‘History of Mining in Southern Rhodesia to 1953’ (PhD thesis, University of Rhodesia, 1975).

²³ Masiya et al., ‘Small Scale Mining in Zimbabwe’, p. 293.

²⁴ Gavin Hilson and Rita Van Der Vorst, ‘Technology, Managerial, and Policy Initiatives for Improving Environmental Performance in Small-scale Gold Mining Industry’, Environmental Management, 30, 6 (2002), pp. 764–77; Gavin Hilson, ‘Small-Scale Mining, Poverty and Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Overview’, Resources Policy, 34, 1 (2009), pp. 1–5.

²⁵ The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and various German and Swedish agencies worked with the Zimbabwe government to encourage more sustainable ASM activities.

²⁶ Luke Danielson, ‘Foreword’, in Hilson (ed.), The Socio-Economic Impacts of Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining, p. xiv.

²⁷ Mawowa, ‘Political Economy of Crisis’.

²⁸ Dennis S.M. Shoko, ‘Small-scale Mining and Alluvial Gold Panning within the Zambezi Basin’, in Godfrey Chikowore (ed.), Managing Common Property in an Age of Globalization: Zimbabwean Experiences (Harare, Weaver Press, 2002).

²⁹Zimbabwe Independent, 18 June 2010.

³⁰ UNIDO, Empowering Small-Scale Miners in Zimbabwe: An Overview of Recommendations from the Global Mercury Project (United Nations Industrial Development Organization, 2007).

³¹ Maponga and Meck, ‘Illegal Artisanal Gold Panning in Zimbabwe’, p. 349.

³² Eleanor Fisher, Rosemarie Mwaipopo, Wilson Mutagwaba, David Nyange, and Gil Yaron, ‘“The Ladder that Sends Us to Wealth”: Artisanal Mining and Poverty Reduction in Tanzania’, Resources Policy, 34, 1 (2009), pp. 32–8.

³³ See http://www.miningfacts.org/Communities/What-is-Artisanal-and-Small-Scale-Mining/

³⁴Ibid.; Maponga and Meck, ‘Illegal Artisanal Gold Panning in Zimbabwe’, p. 349.

³⁵ See also Gavin Hilson and Sadia Mohammed Banchirigah, ‘Are Alternative Livelihood Projects Alleviating Poverty in Mining Communities? Experiences from Ghana’, Journal of Development Studies, 45, 2 (2009), pp. 172–96; Fisher et al., ‘“The Ladder that Sends Us to Wealth”’.

³⁶ Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Monetary Policy Statement, 2012.

³⁷Midlands Observer, 3 June 2003; 27 May 2005.

³⁸Midlands Observer, 3 June 2003.

³⁹ Minister Obert Mpofu, quoted in Newsday, 21 September 2012 (online edition) http://www.newsday.co.zw/2012/09/21/jailed-gold-panners-to-be-released/, accessed 19 August 2013.

⁴⁰Ibid.

⁴¹Sunday News, online edition, www.sundaynews.co.zw.geo.webdev.co.zw/index.php?...gold-panning, accessed 15 August 2013

⁴²Midlands Observer, 24 October 2001.

⁴³ Interview, son of a small-scale miner, 2 July 2007.

⁴⁴ The area is too rocky for crop cultivation, and rainfall patterns are poor.

⁴⁵ Clifford Mabena, ‘Mining with a “Vuvuzela”: Reconfiguring Artisanal Mining in Southern Zimbabwe and its Implications to Rural Livelihoods’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 30, 2 (April 2012), pp. 219–33.

⁴⁶Gold Trade Act [Chapter 21:03], 1940 (last amended, 2006).

⁴⁷ Interview, anonymous miner number four, 3 July 2007.

⁴⁸ Interview with anonymous miner number three, 3 July 2007.

⁴⁹Ibid.

⁵⁰Ibid.

⁵¹ Follow-up interview with an anonymous Totororo miner, Chegutu, 11 February 2009.

⁵² Anonymous Sidhakeni police officer, 8 June 2007.

⁵³ Interview with anonymous miner number one, 2 June 2007.

⁵⁴Newsday, 1 October 2012.

⁵⁵ Interview with Silas, 8 January 2013.

⁵⁶Mail and Guardian, 12 January 2012, http://mg.co.za/article/2012-01-10-mugabes-zanupf-moves-in-on-gold-deposits, accessed 20 August 2013.

⁵⁷ See also Shumirai Nyota and Fortune Sibanda, ‘Digging for Diamonds, Wielding New Words: A Linguistic Perspective on Zimbabwe's “Blood Diamonds”’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 38, 1 (2012), pp. 129–44.

⁵⁸Midlands Observer, 16 March 2007, p. 1.

⁵⁹ Interview with anonymous miner number one, Totororo, 2 June 2007.

⁶⁰ In what could be a case of accumulation rivalry in ZANU(PF), the mining commissioner was once arrested for corruption on the awarding of mining claims certificates. He was released and later transferred to Masvingo.

⁶¹ Anonymous Totororo gold buyer, 4 June 2007.

⁶² David Towriss, ‘Buying Loyalty: Zimbabwe's Marange Diamonds’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 39, 1 (2013), pp. 99–117.

⁶³ Follow-up interview with an anonymous Totororo miner, Chegutu, 11 February 2009.

⁶⁴ Anonymous Sidhakeni police officer, Totororo, 8 June 2007.

⁶⁵Ibid.

⁶⁶Midlands Observer, 3 October 2003.

⁶⁷Midlands Observer, 7 November 2003.

⁶⁸Midlands Observer, 7 May, 2003.

⁶⁹ Interview with anonymous miner number one, Totororo, 13 September 2007; follow-up interview with an anonymous Totororo miner, Chegutu, 11 February 2009.

⁷⁰The Times, February 28–March 6, 2003.

⁷¹ The paper has been accused by ZANU(PF) supporters and war veterans of being pro-MDC, and the editor was threatened with unspecified action in June 2008, according to allafrica.com, http://allafrica.com/stories/200806021526.html, accessed 20 August 2013. The ownership of the paper could not be established at the time of writing.

⁷²Midlands Observer, 13 April 2007.

⁷³ Interview with anonymous miner number three, 9 July 2007.

⁷⁴ Lloyd Sachikonye, ‘Diamonds in Zimbabwe: A Situational Analysis’, Resource Insight 1 (Braamfontein: Southern Africa Resource Watch, 2007).

⁷⁵Midlands Observer, 14 February 2003.

⁷⁶Midlands Observer, 1 March 2005.

⁷⁷Zimonline, 14 May 2007.

⁷⁸Midlands Observer, 24 October 2003.

⁷⁹ Interview with anonymous miner number two, 3 July 2007.

⁸⁰ The high rate of inflation and exchange rate make this figure vague. With a July 2007 parallel rate of Z$15,000 = R1, 36 million is reduced to R2,400, and 3.6 million is reduced to R240.

⁸¹ The tunnel at St George hospital was left after its owner committed suicide. Sakala, the deceased owner, is said to have been directed to the abandoned mine by a German national whose grandfathers operated the mine long ago. Sakala was making a fortune until he committed suicide after being tricked of 1 kilogramme of gold by some Nigerians. He had even managed to electrify Chief Samambwa's home. Interview with anonymous miner number three, 3 July 2007.

⁸² Anonymous 3, interview, 3 July 2007.

⁸³ War Vet, Kwekwe, in The Midlands Observer, December 2 2005.

⁸⁴ IRIN Africa, 16 April 2007, accessed at http://www.irinnews.org/report/71631/zimbabwe-crackdown-on-illegal-mining-has-unforeseen-consequences on 20 August 2013.

⁸⁵ The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Monetary Policy Statement: The Second Quarter to 30 June, 2004, issued by the Governor, Gideon Gono, in terms of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act Chapter 22:15, Section 46, July 2004.

⁸⁶Ibid., p. 20.

⁸⁷Zimbabwe Independent, 13–19 July 2007.

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Showers Mawowa

Showers MawowaSchool of Built Environment and Development Studies (BEDS), University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. E-mail: [email protected]