ZIMBABWE'S military, controlled by President Robert Mugabe's political party, violently took over diamond fields in Zimbabwe last year and has used the illicit revenue to buy the loyalty of restive soldiers and enrich party leaders, a Human Rights Watch report says.

The party, Zanu-PF, has used the money from diamonds — smuggled out of the country or illegally sold through the Reserve Bank — to reinforce its hold over the security forces, which seemed to be slipping last year as the value of soldiers' pay collapsed with soaring inflation, Human Rights Watch researchers said.

Zimbabwe's Government denied the contentions in the report, which cited visits by the group's researcher to the diamond fields and interviews with soldiers, miners and other witnesses.