Tawanda Kanhema

Tawanda Kanhema is a Zimbabwean investigative journalist based in Missouri, United States. His news stories and pictures have appeared on ITN Channel 4 News (UK), The Statesman (Ghana), Beeld (South Africa), Republikein (Namibia), ZWNEWS.COM, ELEPHANT NEWS, MINING EXPLORATION NEWS, RAILPAGE AUSTRALIA, LANDMINE MONITOR, GLOBAL ANALYSIS, ROSNOR ENERGO, DRUM MAGAZINE South Africa, EIN NEWS, The Herald, The Southern Times and Informante.

Kanhema’s stories on uranium mining and nuclear energy in Africa have been cited by the Washington based Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Project on Nuclear Issues, which was conducted by the the center’s Nuclear Scholars Initiative http://csis.org/images/stories/poni/090108_2008_nuclear_scholars_text.pdf.

In the past five years, Kanhema has done a number of investigative stories on immigration in Southern Africa, human trafficking of refugees from the Great Lakes region into South Africa through Zimbabwe, the smuggling of Zimbabwean foodstuffs into Mozambique and money laundering within and outside Zimbabwe.

Kanhema wrote extensively on the social and economic impact of the discovery and illegal mining of alluvial diamonds in Marange district in eastern Zimbabwe on the border with Mozambique.

Since May 2006, when industrial diamonds were discovered in Zimbabwe,a sub-economy run by senior politicians, errant police and army officials, businessmen and dealers emerged, perfecting the art of mineral smuggling and leaving very little room for official exploitation of diamonds. Kanhema has worked in Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Botswana as the Zimbabwe Bureau Chief of The Southern Times, a Namibian based regional weekly.

Worked as News Editor for for Informante, a Namibian investigative weekly newspaper and is involved in independent research and production of news documentaries on a wide range of subjects including money laundering and mineral smuggling throughout southern Africa.