VI. Human Rights Abuses by the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (October 2008 to June 2009) The Zimbabwe government’s decision in October 2008 to deploy the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF)—which comprises the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) and the Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ)—to the Marange diamond fields appears to have been a response to the lawlessness and chaos in the fields and the police’s inability to control it. It may also have been intended to end illegal mining or diamond smuggling by the police. Instead of creating law and order, however, Human Rights Watch found that the army has committed numerous and serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, beatings, torture, forced labor, and child labor in Marange. The first three weeks of the operation were particularly brutal—over the period October 27 to November 16, 2008, the army killed at least 214 miners.77 The army has also been engaged fully and openly in the smuggling of diamonds, thereby perpetuating the very crime it was deployed to prevent. On Monday, October 27, 2008, elements of the Zimbabwe National Army, the Air Force of Zimbabwe, and Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) agents from the Office of the President launched Operation Hakudzokwi (No Return) in Marange district. More than 800 soldiers drawn from three army units—Mechanized Brigade and No. 1 Commando Regiment based in Harare and the Kwekwe-based Fifth Brigade—carried out the operation under the overall command of Air Marshal Perence Shiri, commander of the AFZ, and General Constantine Chiwenga, commander of the ZDF.78 Under Zimbabwean law, the ZNA cannot undertake civilian operations, such as removing illegal miners from Chiadzwa and providing security at the diamond fields, without a formal request from the police commissioner general and authorization by the commander in chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, President Mugabe.79 The police made no such request. The legal authority or justification for the army’s presence and operations in the diamond fields in Chiadzwa thus likely came with the knowledge and approval of Mugabe as commander in chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.80 77 Human Rights Watch interviews with villagers V.J., D.Z., K.C., S.M., and P.C., Marange, February 20, 2009; with medical officer E.M., Mutare, February 7, 2009; and with medical personnel B.K., A.C., and M.C., Mutare, February 7, 2009. See also “Blitz flushes out 35 000,” The Herald, December 11, 2008. 78 Human Rights Watch interview with soldiers C.R., S.R., and B.G., Harare, February 2, 2009. 79 Constitution of Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Defence Act [Chapter 11:02]. 80 Human Rights Watch interview with police officer S.M., Harare, February 26, 2009. Diamonds in the Rough 28