DB LV Opening NYC Store amid Boycott Call

Be Beers LV’s New York City store is scheduled to open today on the city’s Fifth Avenue. The long-awaited opening of the diamond jewelry store is encountering however an un-luxurious reaction from an NGO that plans to picket the store and is calling for a boycott.

The opening of the NYC branch of the De Beers – LVMH joint venture has been a long time coming after the opening of the flagship store in London in December 2002 and several locations in Japan in September 2003.

But this is hardly the happy ending the partners were hoping for. Survival International, a non-government organization that has been trumpeting the cause of Kalahari Bushmen, is reportedly planning to picket in front of the store and is calling on celebrities to boycott the store altogether.

The NGO is alleging that two Bushmen tribes in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) have been relocated due to diamond exploration activities.

The battle took a group of Bushmen to protest at the United Nations and in London last year, and it was rumored this issue was behind African model Iman's decision not to extend her contract as DB LV spokeswoman.

But according to De Beers’ Lynette Hori, the De Beers Group “has neither sought, nor requires, the removal of anyone from the CKGR. There is no mining activity – current or planned – in the CKGR,” she told IDEX Online.

De Beers and other companies were granted prospecting licenses in the CKGR, but the company insists that even if a viable diamond deposit was found and mined successfully, “there would be absolutely no need arbitrarily to remove or resettle any communities.”

De Beers is not mincing its words when it comes to the NGO. “Survival International’s misleading and dishonest claims are based on supposition and hearsay,” says Hori.

“They have failed to attract any significant, internationally recognized, support from other civil society organizations, and De Beers challenges them to provide any credible evidence to support their claims. Even Survival International’s own legal counsel has reportedly cast doubt over their allegations: “I am not saying mining is the cause of the relocation.” This view is confirmed by many who have visited the area, including eminent members of the British Parliament,” she says.

Botswana's President Festus Mogae did not mince his words, either, at last month's Mines to Market international diamond conference in Mumbai where he described Survival International as a group of "dodgy outsiders".

Meanwhile, De Beers LV has its own issues to confront. It is not the great financial success it was hoped to be, and it has not yet gained the kind of brand recognition necessary for a luxury item. Hopes are lying now on the New York store to turn this around, ahead of the planned 150 stores the retailer said it plans to open in the coming decade.