SMUGGLING OF MARIJUANA RIFE ON ZAMBIA ZIMBABWE BORDER

Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe Standard, June 21, 1998) - Smuggling of marijuana
and diamonds by Zambians and their Zimbabwean counterparts has reached
alarming proportions along the border.

Police from both countries have failed to control the crossings of smugglers
of diamonds and marijuana (mbanje) into Victoria Falls where most of the
buyers are found. According to Zimbabweans who travel to Zambia regularly on
business, the Zambian smug-glers brave crocodiles on the Zambezi River and
deadly anti-personnel land-mines planted by retreating Rhodesian soldiers
during the liberation war.

The Zambian smugglers cross into Victoria Falls under the cover of darkness,
to avoid going through customs check points. They transport bags of
marijuana every week using wooded boats made by Tonga villagers who live
near the Zambezi River where their serpent God, 'Nyaminyami' lives.

The Tonga villagers, who say they have muti to protect the smugglers from
being molested by the crocodiles, are paid good money by the Zambians. The
Zambian smugglers are said to be highly skilled in the illegal trade, and
also very dangerous especially if you try to stand in their way. Tonga
villagers on the Zimbabwean side of the Zambezi River say the boats they
loan to Zambian smugglers are the same used by Joshua Nkomo's Zipra
guerrillas who had military bases in Zambia during the liberation war.

But some Tonga villagers denied during recent interviews with The Standard
that they helped Zambian marijuana and diamond smugglers to cross into
Victoria Falls. They also denied that they used to give assistance to
Zambian poachers of rhinos and elephants in Zimbabwe's largest national
park, Hwange.

"We have never helped the smugglers because we did not benefit at all from
their business," said one of the Tonga tribesmen at a village called Sianchimbo.

It is suspected that the Zambian diamond and marijuana dealers have a
well-established market in Victoria Falls where good and evil now meet.
Sources say Zambians always meet their buyers in Victoria Falls. Most of the
deals take place in the spacious hotels of the resort town. When the dealers
check into the hotels in the town, hotel employees usually do not suspect
them of any evil dealings and they are taken as genuine tourists from the north.

The diamonds which the Zambians sell to buyers at Victoria Falls are bought
from poverty-stricken Angolans who cross into northern Zambia every week, to
escape regular skirmishes between Unita rebel fighters and Fapla government
soldiers. The Angolan refugees steal the diamonds from abandoned mines in
eastern Angola, which is inhabited by the Ovimbundu ethnic group of Jonas
Savimbi, the opposition leader in that country. I shared a four-roomed
cottage with two Zambians who told me smuggling was no longer regarded as a
serious offence in their country.

For many Zambians, it is an acceptable way for a poor man to make a living.
"I don't think even God can punish smugglers because they are just earning
an honest living. I have never killed a God-created creature in my life,"
one of the Zambians told me. If you are on the Zambian side of the Victoria
Falls and you mention the word 'smuggling', nobody gets surprised, unlike in
Zimbabwe. Zambian teenagers trade in all types of currencies in the open.

The Zambian currency, kwacha, is now worthless, but Zimbabwean travellers
and second hand clothes dealers exchange it for dollars when they get to
Livingstone, the once prosperous town 15 km from the border with Zimbabwe.
"Zambians will do anything for money," said a Zimbabwean resident in
Chinotimba township, Victoria Fans. Many Zambians were killed by Zimbabwe's
anti-poaching units at the national parks while poaching rhino. The Zambians
were being promised up to $50,000 for a single rhino horn by rich people
from Asia.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett