Survival launches Botswana diamonds boycott with protest at De Beers

Survival International today launched a call for the boycott of Botswana diamonds over the government's treatment of the Kalahari Bushmen.

The tribal peoples' rights organisation held a protest outside De Beers's flagship diamond store in London, and will hand over a letter at the De Beers San Francisco store later today. DeBeers is part-owned by the Botswana government.

Survival is also urging the public to boycott tourism to Botswana.

''As jewellers we have for years made sure that we do not use blood diamonds.  Now we also need to boycott Botswana diamonds until the Bushmen are allowed to live and hunt freely on their land,'' said celebrated jeweller, Pippa Small.

Gillian Anderson, Quentin Blake, Joanna Lumley, Sophie Okonedo, and Mark Rylance are amongst the celebrities who have pledged not to travel to Botswana or wear its diamonds until the Bushmen are allowed to live on their ancestral lands in peace.

In 2002, the Bushmen were illegally evicted from their ancestral lands to make way for diamond mining, Survival said in a statement.