Zimbabwe’s parliament has summoned former President Robert Mugabe to provide proof a few declare he made about huge-scale diamond theft.

Mr Mugabe accused overseas mining corporations of “swindling” and “smuggling” in an interview on state-run TV in 2016.

“The businesses have just about robbed us of our wealth,” he stated, including that the treasury had seen little of about $15bn (£11bn) that they had earned.

It’s not clear if the 94-year-old will agree to look earlier than the committee.

He was pressured to resign final December within the wake of a navy takeover, and nonetheless has the privileges of a former head of state.

• Africa Stay: Extra on this and different tales
• Robert Mugabe – hero or villain?

In the meantime, the UK has stated it might “strongly assist” Zimbabwe’s return to the Commonwealth group of countries, following talks in London between UK International Secretary Boris Johnson and his Zimbabwean counterpart Sibusiso Moyo.

Gen Moyo is the person who introduced the navy takeover in November, which led to Mr Mugabe’s resignation.

Though Mr Johnson stated that Zimbabwe nonetheless had to make sure that this yr’s elections have been free and truthful, his assertion was condemned by opposition politician David Coltart, who stated he was “appalled”.

Zimbabwe left the Commonwealth in 2003 after it was criticised for human rights abuses below Mr Mugabe.

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Will Mr Mugabe seem earlier than parliament?

Throughout his final decade in workplace, a number of corporations, together with the military, police and a Chinese language state firm, got huge tracts of concessions to mine diamonds on the wealthy Marange fields within the east of the nation.

Themba Mliswa, who heads parliament’s mining committee, advised Zimbabwe’s state-run Herald paper that the panel had interviewed former Marange mining executives in addition to the police, military and intelligence providers.

He stated the committee had resolved to ask the previous president “to elucidate the disappearance of the $15bn value of diamonds”.

“Now we have set 9 Might because the date on which he’ll give proof.”

Nevertheless, final month Mr Mugabe stated he was not clear the place the determine of $15bn had come from.

“I used to be on condition that by some officers, that determine had been circulating round, however actually it was not confirmed,” he advised the privately-owned Zimbabwe Impartial.

If Mr Mugabe does seem earlier than the committee, it might be his first public look since his resignation.

Marange diamonds: A controversial historical past

In 2006, greater than 20,000 unlawful diggers descended on the Marange fields.

Studies adopted of large-scale killings by Zimbabwe’s safety forces to cease the smuggling, prompting Marange diamonds to be banned in 2009.

A Panorama investigation present in 2011 that within the Marange fields, the police and navy recruited civilians to illegally dig for diamonds for them.

In 2012 a marketing campaign group stated a minimum of $2bn value of diamonds had been stolen from the Marange fields. Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) stated the “theft” had enriched Zimbabwean officers, worldwide gem sellers and criminals.

Police brutality
Co-composer Obie Benson was a member of the Motown vocal act, the 4 Tops. In Could 1969 their tour bus arrived in San Francisco the place he noticed police attacking a crowd of hippies over a disused city lot referred to as Individuals’s Park. He described the incident to music author Ben Edmonds within the 2001 e-book, What’s Going On: Marvin Gaye and the Final Days of The Motown Sound:

The police was beatin’ on them, however they weren’t bothering anyone. I noticed this, and began questioning what the fuck was occurring. What is going on right here? One query results in one other. Why are they sending youngsters so far-off from their households abroad? Why are they attacking their very own kids within the streets right here?

These questions translated right into a music Benson wrote with Cleveland, an in-house Motown composer. However his fellow members within the 4 Tops weren’t serious about protest music. Luckily, Gaye was very eager. Benson stated:

Marvin already felt like this. He was a insurgent, and an actual religious man.

Impressed by the harrowing tales instructed to him by his youthful brother Frankie over his Vietnam battle experiences, Gaye would ultimately make the music his personal. He added lyrics and, in keeping with Benson:

Once you heard that music, you could possibly see the individuals and really feel the harm and ache. We measured him for the go well with and he tailor-made the hell out of it.

Nearly by no means launched
However “What’s Going On” was virtually by no means launched. This was a time when Motown was cautious of selling songs of a political nature. The label’s boss, Berry Gordy, was on vacation within the Bahamas when an excited Gaye phoned him in regards to the new protest music.
As music author Dorian Lynskey described it in his wonderful e-book on protest music, “33 Revolutions per Minute”:

Gordy responded like a father whose favorite son had simply rejected an Ivy League scholarship to turn out to be a Yippie. ‘Marvin, don’t be ridiculous. That’s taking issues too far’.

When Gordy heard the music he referred to as it “the worst factor I’ve ever heard in my life”. Nonetheless, Motown was determined for brand spanking new music from Gaye and launched it to large important and industrial acclaim.
The album was equally profitable – it was later described by music author Peter Shapiro as having “modified the form and route of pop music”.

The singer behind the music
Born in Washington DC, on 2 April 1939, Marvin Pentz Homosexual Jr grew up in a non secular family. His deeply conservative father, Marvin Sr served as a church minister of a Pentecostal church. His mom, Alberta, was a home employee.
He didn’t have a contented childhood. He was continuously overwhelmed by his abusive father. As a approach of escape, he would discover solace in singing. He went on to turn out to be one in all common music’s most admired singers and songwriters.
His life got here to a tragic finish on 1 April 1984, a day earlier than his 45th birthday, when he was shot and killed by his father after an argument.
The context of the music
“What’s Going On” was launched on the time the Vietnam Warfare was nonetheless raging in 1971. Three years earlier than, the black civil rights chief, Martin Luther King Jr had been assassinated. In 1969 Richard Nixon was elected as America’s 37th president.
America was in a state of turmoil – protests in opposition to the Vietnam Warfare resulted in widespread violence and police brutality.
“What’s Going On” was a response to a battle that claimed the lives of over three million individuals – greater than half of them Vietnamese civilians. The music not solely referred to as for an finish to the battle. It additionally served as a critique of 1970s America. Medicine, racism and poverty had been crippling most interior cities.
The music’s relevance as we speak
“What’s Going On” stays related as we speak. Even now its plaintive lyrics converse eloquently a couple of post-9/11 world that’s the wrong way up, with sabre-rattling leaders comparable to Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un grabbing the headlines. Regional wars proceed to assert numerous dwell and drive thousands and thousands to flee their houses.
“What’s Going On” permits us to suppose – but once more – about whether or not battle is important:

We don’t must escalate
You see, battle isn’t the reply
For under love can conquer hate.

Stewart Maganga, Lecturer, Catholic College of Malawi
This text was initially printed on The Dialog. Learn the unique article.

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