Scores of South Africans have joined the scramble for diamonds in Angola, reports John Liebenberg
South Africans who are plundering Angola’s diamond fields have no respect for the country’s laws or Angolan sovereignty, according to officials in Luanda.
Eighteen South Africans were imprisoned for eight days due to an “unfortunate mistake” by the Angolan government over their visas and the mining equipment they had imported, the group’s leader, Cicero Combrink, said on their return to Johannesburg International Airport on Wednesday night.
Combrink said the charges against them had been dropped, and this was confirmed by Angolan diplomat Jorge Morais. Combrink said he planned to return to Angola in “10 days” to continue mining in northern Angola.
There are unconfirmed reports that another 10 South Africans are being held hostage by Angolan soldiers at a diamond concession on the Chicapa River in northern Angola.
South African miners, like many others, have been lured to Angola by the promise of untold wealth contained in the fabled diamond fields of northern Angola. According to a statement by the Angolan government, the 18 were rounded up as part of Angola’s “Cancer Two” operation, which is intended to halt the illegal arrival of South Africans and their equipment.
They were originally charged with illegally importing mining equipment, illegally working in the country and three of contravening flight regulations.
Combrink, from Vereeniging, was formerly a part-owner of an unregistered South African company called the Esperanze Group, which went bankrupt earlier this year. Combrink was trading under a new company called Cacom Diamonds, at the time of his arrest.
According to his wife, Anel Combrink, Combrink had earlier this year mined a concession under the name of Esperanze at Dundo in Lunda Norte, in a venture with partners he eventually sacked. Lunda Norte, which borders Zaire, and Lunda Sul, are known as Angola’s “diamond provinces”.
The concession yielded few diamonds and Combrink abandoned the project and his equipment, and returned to South Africa, where he formed the new Cacom Diamonds company with four directors, one of them himself and one his wife.
His wife said this week that Cacom Diamonds had recently formed a partnership with an Angolan company called Sicofal, which owns diamond concessions in Lunda Norte. One of Sicofal’s directors is an Angolan general.
Combrink left South Africa early this month with 14 employees and investors for the Angolan border. He crossed into Angola from Namibia but got no further than Ongiva in Kunene province, 30km from the border, where he was arrested by the Angolan authorities.
According to Anel Combrink, their troubles began after her husband provided information about a former partner, Malcolm McAlpine, to the Angolan embassy in Pretoria.
The Angolan authorities have now refused permission for McAlpine, who is well-known in diamond circles, to enter the country.
Thousands of foreigners, including many South Africans, have taken advantage of ineffective government controls to illegally enter the country, often using light aircraft.
An estimated 2 000 foreigners have been expelled in the last eight weeks, their warehouses closed and goods worth millions of rands confiscated.
According to a Johannesburg-based diamond miner who was employed by Combrink as a diver (many of the gems are recovered from Angola’s diamondiferous riverbeds), who asked not to be named, South Africans often put up the costs for the expensive mining equipment that is needed and go into partnership with Angolans who are legally able to obtain mining rights.
The diver said South Africans seeking the riches of Lunda Norte often entered the province with a 30-day temporary visa, but were always forced to surrender their passports on arrival by border authorities. He said they were then approached by Angolans and promised permanent work permits which invariably failed to materialise.
The diver said that sooner or later the South African miners were forced to leave Angola either because they lacked the correct immigration documentation, ran out of funds, or their equipment was seized by the authorites.
“The South Africans are like the Russians in Kinshasha and have little regard for Angolan sovereignty and common law,” claimed Paulo Carmo, Angolan airlines’ operations manager in Johannesburg.
He said the prospective miners often flew into Angola with false flight plans, then faked emergency landings at airfields near remote mining towns. Once on the ground, Carmo claimed the pilots offloaded their cargoes, often without paying tax or customs duty.
According to new legislation, all aircraft will now have to report to Luanda before travelling further in the country.
Back in Pretoria there is little sympathy for the plight of South Africans who venture illegally into Angola in the search for diamonds.
A Foreign Affairs Department representative said that South Africans often did business in Angola without informing the department of their whereabouts or business intentions.
He added that the South African authorities only heard from the miners when they got into trouble.
Although many would-be investors have accused the South African government of not warning them about the difficulties of operating in Angola, the representative said, “how can we if they do not tell us they are there?”
Not all South African diamond miners ignore Angolan laws or go broke. Three of them — Brian Atwell, Leon Gerber and Piet Cronje — are reportedly doing well on their concessions on the Luachimo River, 100km south of the Zairean border.