Protesting the cost of DeBeers diamonds

by: Amber Nolan

Outside the National History Museum.
PHOTO: peace news ,

London: Survival International continued to support the Bushmen in their fight for their land at the opening of a diamond exhibition at London’s National History Museum on 6 July. As guests walked the red carpet to the opening, protesters gathered outside the museum to inform people about exhibition sponsors De Beers’s mining on the Bushmen’s ancestral lands.

The Bushmen are a hunter-gatherer tribe who lived in the area known as the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in southern Africa. That is, until the government of Bostwana evicted them and placed them at resettlement camps, using the excuse that the Bushmen could benefit from schools and health services. However, many people believe that there are other reasons for evicting the Bushmen that have nothing to do with the government’s concern for their well-being.

The Game Reserve is now being mined by Debswana, the diamond company in which De Beers, and the Bostwanan government each own 50%. In fact, as quoted on their website in 1997 Vice President of the Republic of Botswana, Mr F G Mogae said "The partnership between De Beers and Botswana has been likened to a marriage. I sometimeswonder whether a better analogy might not be that of Siamese twins." http://www.debswana.com/company/coIntroduction.asp

Many Bushmen have begun to move back onto their land, although the government has banned hunting, their main form of survival on the Reserve, even though the game that they hunt is not in danger of extinction. There have now been reports of Bushmen who have been tortured by police and wildlife officials after being caught hunting on land, which historically, is rightfully theirs.

In June, Survival reported that seven Bushmen were severely tortured; of these some were beaten in the groin and one was tied upside down and had petrol poured into his anus. One Bushmen was unable to urinate for three days, and then urinated blood. After being tortured, two of them - Kganne Kgadikgadi and Meno Tshiamo - were charged with hunting without a licence.

Survival International continues to make the mistreatment of the Bushmen heard around the world, by protesting against events sponsored by De Beers, and diamond store openings, most recently in New York and London.

Survival urges celebrities not to attend the events, and several of them have listened. Supermodel Lily Cole, previously “the face” of De Beers, has now refused to work for them. And at the National History Museum opening, screen icon Julie Christie was on the other side of the red carpet, joining protesters and reminding both De Beers and visitors that “The Bushmen aren’t forever.”

Survival International http://www.survival-international.org