Bushmen lobbyists seek to dim De Beers' sparkle.

(From The Financial Gazette)

Byline: Reuter

JOHANNESBURG - Campaigners for the Kalahari bushmen have vowed to intensify protests against diamond giant De Beers, which they say forced the tribe from its potentially diamond-rich desert homeland.

Survival International, a non-governmental organisation that aims to protect tribal people, alleges De Beers and the Botswana government have evicted some 3 000 Gana and Gwi bushmen from their ancestral lands in the Kalahari desert.

The group alleges the bushmen were moved because De Beers holds an unexploited diamond concession in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana. Both the government …