Addressing Zimbabwe’s parliament in response to questions about killings in Marange, the minister of mines stated that the police had assured his ministry that the military and police had not killed anyone during the “special operation in Chiadzwa that is still on-going,” but that instead, “the police say there were murders among the illegal diamond diggers as they scrambled for control of pits, stones and as they robbed one another.”172 However, as noted earlier, evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch points to wide-scale abuses—including the killing of more than 200 people, beatings, torture, and forced labor—committed by the army since October 2008 and by elements of the police since 2006. 172 Mines Minister Obert Mpofu’s response in Parliament of Zimbabwe, House of Assembly, March 25, 2009, http://www.parlzim.gov.zw/cms/House_Of_Assembly_Hansards/25_March_2009_35-25.pdf (accessed April 20, 2009). Diamonds in the Rough 52