The law was known as the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA). It barred the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the African Development Bank from giving financial assistance to Zimbabwe. It also imposed travel and economic sanctions on Zimbabwean President Mugabe and his lieutenants.

Section 6 of the act specifically instructed the United States president to: “identify and share information regarding individuals responsible for the deliberate breakdown of the rule of law, politically motivated violence, and intimidation in Zimbabwe; identify assets of those individuals held outside Zimbabwe; (and) implement travel and economic sanctions against those individuals and their associates and families”.

But barely a year after the act came into force, a company jointly owned by the World Bank affiliate, the International Finance Corporation, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme was bailing out River Ranch Diamond Mine, a company owned by Zimbabwe’s former army commander, Solomon Mujuru, husband of Vice-President Joyce Mujuru.

Joyce Mujuru had somehow managed to convince Mugabe that one of the vice-presidents had to be a woman, something that nearly wrecked the party leading to what is now known as the Tsholotsho Declaration – a smart coup that was meant to stop Joyce Mujuru from becoming vice-President.

Saudi billionaire

Solomon Mujuru was invited to join the company by Saudi Arabian billionaire Adel Aujan on April 26, 2004. Four days later, police ordered Bubye Minerals which was running the mine and had been Aujan’s partners to leave the mine. In November 2004, African Management Services Company (AMSCO) seconded five managers to help the company though the Mujurus were both on the United States and European Union sanctions lists.

This was the start of an interesting but very controversial relationship which also raised a lot of questions, the main one being that: Was the bail out a move by the Bush’s administration to try to topple Mugabe from within by helping Solomon Mujuru so that his wife could take over?

While this is very difficult to prove, a number of arguments seem to support the theory. After all, the Bush administration might have been disenchanted by the failure by the Movement for Democratic Change to remove Mugabe in the 2000 and 2002 elections.


*There was deafening silence about the takeover of the mine which was grabbed from Michael and Adele Farquhar. Armed police officers gave the Farquhars hours to leave the mine. This was a replica of how war veterans had taken over farms from white commercial farmers. But no one raised an eyebrow in the case of the Farquhars.

*A United nations-owned company whose principal shareholders the United States President had instructed not to bail out Zimbabwe or any of Mugabe’s lieutenants was doing exactly the opposite. According to ZIDERA, this could only be done with Bush’s approval. Was this the case?

*AMSCO went out of its way to accommodate George Kantsouris, Aujan’s personal assistant, though he was not qualified to be one of AMSCO’s experts? Why did everyone turn a blind eye to this? Why for example, did authorities not ask why AMSCO when it was bailing out a company which was 89-owned by a billionaire who was not even African when AMSCO was founded to help small and medium African-owned companies?

*The selection of companies that AMSCO was helping in Zimbabwe also seemed to support this argument.

It was helping Bindura Nickel Corporation which is owned by Mwana Africa. Oliver Chidawu is board chairman of Bindura and whispers say he is a close associate of Mujuru.

AMSCO’s interest

AMSCO was also helping Innscor in which one of Mujuru’s close associates, Ray Kaukonde is a director. Kaukonde is also on the US and EU sanctions lists.

Was all this just a coincidence? Why did it appear as if AMSCO was only interested in companies with a high potential to generate foreign currency?

What was more puzzling about AMSCO’s involvement with River Ranch was that the mine was not allowed to sell its diamonds because of the ownership dispute with Bubye Minerals. So why was there so much interest in a company that could not trade?

How was AMSCO paid its fees because it says it was paid?

Christopher Dell, the States ambassador to Zimbabwe at the time, who the local media claimed had been deployed to Zimbabwe to do a Milosevic after ousting the former Yugoslav leader, ignored requests to investigate the AMSCO-River Ranch relationship.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who had labelled Zimbabwe as one of the Axis of Evil also ignored requests to investigate the relationship.

Was there more to it?

If Dell and Rice knew about this questionable relationship, did Bush not know about it? If he did, why did he not do something about it?

The only answer could be that it was part of the plan to oust Mugabe, so nothing could stand in the way.