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From: wasaunders@watdragon.UUCP (Alec Saunders)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.college
Subject: Re: South African boycotts
Message-ID: <258@watdragon.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-Jan-86 11:14:17 EST
Article-I.D.: watdrago.258
Posted: Thu Jan 23 11:14:17 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Jan-86 08:38:54 EST
References: <1298@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Reply-To: wasaunders@watdragon.UUCP (Alec Saunders)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 23
Keywords: Diamonds, De Beers, Russia, Australia
Xref: watmath net.politics:13120 net.college:1008
Summary: Why it's silly to boycott diamond purchases 

I don't think you should bother feeling guilty about buying SA diamonds. Now
before anyone gets really angry with me let me explain.

Recently (I don't know how recently), the Australians have discovered diamond
pipes in the outbacks - diamond pipes that make the SA pipes look like sand
boxes. De Beers when it heard this attempted to negotiate a deal wih the 
Aussies to the effect that they would buy all the Australian diamonds mined.
The same thing happened in Russia also not too long ago. The Russians agreed
to this, but the Australians didn't. The Australians will sell SOME of their
diamonds to De Beers, but not all. Economically Australia has De Beers over a
barrel because if they decided to flood the market De Beers wouldnt have the
resources to prevent it. I read recently that De Beers has gone from having
in excess of 1.5B dollars in their coffers in the mid '70's to a $1B debt
today, just buying the worlds excess diamonds to keep the market artificially
inflated. 

In summary - firstly I wouldn't buy a diamond because they're too expensive. 
Secondly, if you do decide to buy one don't kid yourself that you're hurting
any poor south african black - the diamond itself was probably mined in
the Soviet Union or Australia, and those two countries are doing far more
damage to the diamond industry that you or I could by not buying one.

                           Alec Saunders