SOS Bushmen

International pressure to boycott mining giant De Beers' diamonds is continuing.

Last week the small indigenous community of San or Bushmen people won a two-year legal battle against the government of Botswana to be allowed to live in the park.

The court found the removal from the CKGR was involuntary and unconstitutional, and they should be allowed to go back to their ancestral ground.

All three presiding judges of the High Court also ruled, however, that diamonds had nothing to do with the community's removal.

The judges said they had investigated sites where prospecting had taken place in the past and found them to be deserted, with no preparations made to take up mining in those areas again.

Judge Unity Dow pointed out that even if diamond mining in the specific area was an option, there would have been no need to move the San people, as the area could easily be fenced or closed off.

Now an organisation called "Boycott-de-Beers" has repeated previous calls for consumers not to buy diamonds from De Beers, the world's largest producer of the precious gem.

De Beers exports all of Botswana's diamonds under a 50/50 partnership with that country's authorities.

According to the Boycott- de-Beers website, the multi-national organisation's trade in "conflict diamonds" has led to the Bushmen's destruction.

While the site does not clarify who runs it or who owns it, the information on the Bushmen's plight is exactly the same as a Survival International fact-sheet on the Bushmen and diamonds.

London-based NGO Survival International, which has been footing the bill for the San's legal battle, have maintained all along that diamonds played a key part in the community's removal from the CKGR, and they confirmed yesterday that they are behind the boycott campaign.

De Beers have repeatedly said their concessions in the CKGR are not economically viable in terms of mining, and that if they were, there would be no need to resettle any communities in order to mine there.

So why do they try to pay the judge in the Bushmen trial?

Why are they paying some mercenaries to "protect their interests" in the reserve?

So many questions, and no answers...