Zimbabwe was nearly suspended from the Kimberley Process (KP), the world diamond supervisory body, last year because of an army clampdown on illegal panners at Chiadzwa in 2008. Human rights groups say 200 people were killed.
Government officials promised the KP in Namibia in November that they would comply with its regulations.

The regulations include getting a KP monitor to inspect shipments of diamonds before they are exported.

Admitting that diamonds were being airlifted from Chiadzwa to Harare without police or KP supervision, an official from the state-run Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) said: "There is work that has to be done to meet the KP standards." The MMCZ is Zimbabwe's only licensed diamond seller.

Masimba Chandavengerwa, MMCZ's acting head of marketing told a parliamentary committee on mines and energy this week: "At the moment, the airlifting is being done without our knowledge."

Experts estimate that Chiadzwa can yield between £2.5 million and £6m per day, a fortune to a country that can only afford to pay cabinet ministers and soldiers £100 per month.

The firm behind the airlifts is Mbada Diamonds, a shady venture between Zimbabwe's bankrupt state mining company and a Johannesburg-based scrap metal dealer. In August 2009, the authorities announced that Mbada had been selected to mine Chiadzwa, along with the equally little-known Canadile Miners.

That was despite the fact that the LSE-listed African Consolidated Resources Ltd (ACR) already owned the claim.

Mbada's chairman, Robert Mhlanga, is believed to have links to the military, and officials have refused to tell parliament who else sits on the board.

Mbada has spent millions developing the Chiadzwa field, despite a High Court ruling in September ordering all diamonds mined there to be handed over to ACR.

In December, Mbada announced that an airstrip was being built at Chiadzwa.

The strip will "facilitate safer and faster movements of supplies and transportation of the diamonds," Mbada said.

The 2,000-yard strip is still under construction, so it is not clear how the diamonds are being flown out.

MDC officials in Mutare suggest that helicopters might also be used.

"The obvious assumption is that the high-value diamonds are disappearing," Doug Palframan of ACR said.

"Ten per cent of the diamonds carry 90 per cent of the value: it's very easy for them to disappear."

By Jane Fields - New Scotsman