I know blood diamonds are all about war but there is no war in my country – except for a government that fights its own people. Unemployment and starvation lead you to do desperate things, to put your life on the line. Diamonds, gold, drugs… anything to get by and keep your family alive. In Zimbabwe there is no right and wrong any more, there is eating and starving – even now, when the West claims everything is good again. This is a lie.
– Mutseti Savo, Zimbabwean diamond miner
The survived the copters, they survived the landmines
But the ’47s claimed their lives
And I found myself at the age of nine
Being sent to work at the very mine
Where my parents would dig from dawn to dusk
To deliver the prize that would deliver us
From a world of abject poverty
In a highly resource blessed country
But Mugabe and friends were of different minds
And decided to take all that we could find
To pay the staggering debts of the ZMDC
They took over the mines and now they’ve taken me
Oh, Kimberley don’t you see? Your rules just don’t apply to me
Torn from school to work as a government slave
Dawn to dusk we tear at the lands
So a bride can proudly extend her hand
Unaware of the dogs and the torture and rape
Holes to dig on either side
One for the bodies and one for the mine
Under cover of darkness we would blindly dig
To find a ticket out among the rocks and twigs
But the soldiers won’t tolerate any losses
Got to build up a stack to pay their bosses
Unless a pebble or two should happen to slip
Beneath the flap of a sack between their belt and hip
In hopes of finding deportation to a nearby Kimberley authorized nation
Away from the eyes of Robert Mugabe
(n)E(g)LECTed leader of Zimbabwe
Who lives with dis-Grace so exhorbitantly
Oh, Kimberley don’t you see? Your rules just don’t apply to me
Torn from school to work as a government slave
Dawn to dusk we tear at the lands
So a bride can proudly extend her hand
Unaware of the dogs and the torture and rape
Down in a hole deep inside of the Earth
Searching for diamonds of natural birth
That could be made quite conflict free
In the safe confines of a laboratory
Of equal beauty and composition
Without the need for ammunition
But the brides and grooms feel better knowing
That their gems were many centuries growing
In a veritable ancient garden
Of slowly growing crystal carbon
Where symbols of love are naturally born
In lands that must be cleared and torn
And guarded by men in uniform
Oh, Kimberley don’t you see? Your rules just don’t apply to me
Torn from school to work as a government slave
Dawn to dusk we tear at the lands
So a bride can proudly extend her hand
Unaware of the dogs and the torture and rape