Pubdate: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 Source: Africa News Service Author: Thabo Kunene 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