United States feminist Gloria Steinem was among a small group of protestors on Wednesday who sought to take the sparkle out of the gala opening in New York of South African diamond giant De Beers’ first US showroom.
The protest, organised by the lobby group Survival International, picketed celebrities like Hollywood starlet Lindsay Lohan as they arrived at the event at the new store on Manhattan’s swanky Fifth Avenue.
The charity, which campaigns on behalf of tribal peoples, has called for a boycott of De Beers, accusing the company of involvment in the eviction by the Botswana government of bushmen from their homes in the Kalahari game reserve.
”We encourage De Beers to pressurise the government into reversing its disastrous policy,” said Survival International director Stephen Corry. ”We will not stop our campaign until the bushmen are allowed back onto their land.”
In a statement issued on Tuesday, De Beers said it had no mining activity, ”current or planned” in the Kalahari reserve and labelled the charges levelled by Survival International as ”misleading and dishonest”.
”They have failed to attract any significant, internationally recognised support from other civil society organisations and De Beers challenges them to provide any credible evidence to support their claims,” the statement said.
De Beers also accused Survival of threatening to inflict ”untold damage on one of Africa’s success stories, dependent on its diamond revenues for the fight against HIV/Aids”.
For her part, Steinem said the De Beers’ denials were ”patently untrue” and said the joint policy of the company and the Botswana government threatened the cultural survival of the Kalahari bushmen.
”It’s a form of cultural extermination,” she said. – Sapa-AFP