Soldiers to market diamonds, gold

Zimbabwe's defence minister was quoted by official media as saying his country's and Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) defence forces plan to set up a joint diamond and gold marketing venture to help finance Laurent Kabila's war against rebel forces. Moven Mahachi reportedly said the operations need a capital injection of US $52 million to get going and would bring millions of dollars to the two armies annually. Mahachi said: "We saw this as a noble option. Instead of our army in the DRC burdening the treasury for more resources, which are not available, it embarks on viable projects for the sake of generating the necessary revenue." According to the reports, the two armies have registered a company called Osleg, which would work with Comiex, a private company owned by the DRC army, to pursue their business interests in diamond and gold trade. Mahachi added that the joint ventures would be allowed to buy diamonds and gold worth US $4.7 million a month from small-scale producers and sell them at the Kinshasa Precious Mineral Market, either by public tender or by auction. The armies were also considering the possibility of running their own mines and at leasing Chibwa, a diamond mine owned by Kabila's government.