34 ground, over 800 soldiers were ferried to Chiadzwa in seven large trucks and an army bus. From the helicopters, the soldiers fired live ammunition and tear gas into the diamond fields and into surrounding villages….” 145 A military officer who took part in the operation told HRW “that his regiment received a ‘signal’ or directive from the Joint Operations Command (JOC) ordering an immediate deployment of his regiment to Marange for a ‘swift, ruthless and secret’ operation to permanently remove unlicensed miners.” 146 Several villagers who witnessed the operation told HRW that soldiers “fired their AK-47 assault rifles indiscriminately, without giving any warning. In the panic, there was a stampede, and some miners were trapped and died in the structurally unsound and shallow tunnels.” 147 In another incident, a miner reported that “soldiers had marched them at gun point … and had ordered them to collect the bodies of dead miners whom they had shot”. They were ordered to dig a grave and bury the bodies. ‘We buried 72 bodies in that grave’.” 148 During the three weeks of the military operation, a local headman told HRW that Chiadzwa had resembled ‘a war zone in which soldiers killed people like flies’.” 149 16.4 Soldiers speak out on the massacre Former soldiers and paramilitary police interviewed by the BBC Panorama crew in 2011 said they were racked with guilt over their own actions. In advance of Operation Hakudzokwi, “the military had laid a string of mines and then stationed armoured vehicles, mounted soldiers and an infantry battalion in a circular pattern around the 2.5km area. ‘In the end there was no way out,’ said an officer who was directly involved in laying the trap”. 150 145 Human Rights Watch, ‘Diamonds in the Rough’, June 2009, pg 30: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2009/06/26/diamonds-rough 146 Human Rights Watch, ‘Diamonds in the Rough’, June 2009, pgs 29 and 30: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2009/06/26/diamonds-rough 147 Human Rights Watch, ‘Diamonds in the Rough’, June 2009, pg 30: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2009/06/26/diamonds-rough 148 Human Rights Watch, ‘Diamonds in the Rough’, June 2009, pg 30 and 31: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2009/06/26/diamonds-rough 149 Human Rights Watch, ‘Diamonds in the Rough’, June 2009, pg 31: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2009/06/26/diamonds-rough 150 BBC Panorama, ‘Soldiers tell of Zimbabwe massacre’, 8 August, 2011: http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_9556000/9556242.stm