ZIMBABWE’S military has begun to withdraw from a contentious diamond field as private investors move in, the head of a South African mining company investing in the area was quoted as saying yesterday.

The State-controlled Herald newspaper cited David Kassel, chief executive of Johannesburg-based New Reclamation, as saying that his company had hired 200 private security guards to replace the military around the field in eastern Chiadzwa.

The military is alleged to have killed several people in a violent crackdown last year on wildcat diamond diggers operating in the field, which the government seized from British-owned African Consolidated Resources (ACR) in 2006. The government denies there were any killings.

Zimbabwe narrowly escaped having its Chiadzwa diamonds banned from certified world trade earlier this month.

Inspectors from the Kimberley Process (KP), the international body of governments that screens for “blood diamonds”, recommended that Zimbabwe be suspended from the diamond trade after visiting the area in July and receiving reports of killings, rape, torture and forced labour by soldiers. The KP later decided to stay Zimbabwe’s suspension on several conditions, including that the military pull out of the area.

New Reclamation, a scrap metal company in which SA’s Old Mutual has a small shareholding, is one of two companies that have entered into a joint venture deal with the Zimbabwean government to exploit the field.

The controversy over the field was compounded by a high court ruling in September declaring the government’s seizure of the Chiadzwa claim as illegal. The court declared ACR the legal owner. ACR chief executive Andrew Chadwick has warned that anyone buying Chiadzwa diamonds is buying stolen property. — Sapa-DPA