Mined out town to De Beers: ‘Our suffering is forever’
A small South African community 300km north of Cape Town is taking on De Beers over the diamond giant's plans to sell its 970 square km Namaqualand properties to a much smaller outfit already operating in the area.
Locals say Trans Hex, which will assume responsibility for rehabilitation, has a poor track record in the area, lacks financial clout and the environmental management programme put together by De Beers already falls far short of what is needed to clean up almost a century of opencast mining in the biodiversity hotspot. In a video (after the jump) community spokesperson David Markus says a diamond may be forever for De Beers, but for his people, "it’s the suffering that’s forever."