Harare — THE Chiadzwa diamond field is a major national asset, yet the authorities have been reluctant to use their full powers to protect and exploit this wealth for the benefit of all.

To this end, we welcome the proposal by police for the relocation of the Chiadzwa families to curb abuse of the resource and boost investor confidence.

Legally there is no ambiguity, no doubts.

Mineral rights on all land in Zimbabwe belong to the State.

The Southern Rhodesian settler government bought them from the BSA Company for cash a few years after the company surrendered the administration of the country in 1923.

The BSA Company had acquired them by treaty and conquest, but there has never been any argument that in pre-colonial societies the ruler of a territory -- king or chief -- had ultimate control of the mineral rights, and far more control than he might have had over land rights.

So at no stage have the residents of an area of land owned the minerals under that land.

This is the same position as in Zambia, where the State finally gained the mineral rights from the BSA Company only at independence, but different from the position in South Africa where the landowner owns the minerals under the land, although the government has been talking about changing that law.

Zimbabwean mining law is built around this State ownership of mineral rights.

Prospectors have to be licensed by the State, have to register their claims with the State and have to obey a mountain of regulations.

For generations, land owners or land holders who find they are on top of large mineral wealth have had to face the fact that they must move.

Private land owners sold out to the mining company that was licensed to exploit the mineral and who found that the only realistic way to mine was to own or lease the land on top of the minerals.

Generally, a land owner would get at least as much as his farm was worth and usually managed significantly more to alleviate the nuisance value he had. So he was fully compensated by market forces.

Where minerals were found under communal land, the people were moved and in later years proper compensation was paid.

Generally speaking, mining and farming do not mix well and since mining is so much more valuable, the farmers have to move. This is fine, so long as they are properly compensated.

Diamonds, especially deposits near the surface, can only be properly mined if the whole area of a diamond field is protected and non-miners are kept well clear.

Namibia, Botswana and South Africa all use this system of fencing off the diamond fields and allowing the mining company -- whether state-owned, partly state-owned or private -- to control totally who is allowed onto the field and who is not. Usually state forces are available to help keep the field clear.

Zimbabwe needs to follow this system to bring order to the Chiadzwa field.

Constant raiding to move out illegal traders and buyers does not work.

The only way, as the other three Southern African diamond producers have found, is to not let them on the field in the first place, and, in fact, ban entry to the field to anyone who is not legally allowed to be on the mines.

The people who live on the diamond field need to be moved. There is no need to be cruel or unpleasant about this. They have a moral and legal right to full compensation and the Government should be imaginative about how this will be done.

With hyperinflation raging, cash compensation is not useful. But what can be done is to resettle the people as close to Marange as possible, building decent houses, fencing fields, building schools and generally ensuring that the community, even if it has to split up a bit, has family and community facilities at least as good, and preferably better, than those they are forced to abandon.

The cash for this compensation and settlement can be recovered from those licensed to exploit the field and, since it is well overdue for Zimbabwe to charge royalties on mineral extraction, as Zambia is now doing, a percentage of such royalty payments can be earmarked for the communities moved, possibly in perpetuity.

It can also be made clear that members of the moved community will have first preference when labour is recruited on the mines, and it should be possible, with surface deposits, to allow a section of the field to be mined by members of the community although in conformity to the mining law.