Denver Isaacs
29 July 2008
AN international campaign calling for a boycott of all Lev Leviev businesses will not have any notable effect on the company's Namibian interests, Lev Leviev Diamonds (LLD) Namibia MD Kombadayedu Kapwanga said yesterday.
Speaking to The Namibian on the campaign led by New York-based Palestinian rights group Adalah-NY, Kapwanga said the group's mention of current labour unrest at LLD Namibia's polishing factory was simply a political tool and failed to respect the local realities at play.
Adalah-NY yesterday reported that its activists attended a variety of "major jewellery industry events" in New York this past weekend, where they called on US jewellers to stop doing business with Jewish billionaire Lev Leviev's businesses because of alleged violations of human rights principles by the international jewellery trade .
Among the group's activities was the handing out of flyers depicting teardrop-shaped LLD diamonds with the caption 'More Teardrops Courtesy of Leviev'.
"Lev Leviev's unethical business practices taint the entire jewellery industry.
In keeping with their own codes of conduct, industry members should cease doing business with Leviev companies until they end their abuses in Angola, Namibia and Palestine.
Some attendees at the Jewellers Association award dinner and the summer show have been receptive to our call," Adalah-NY's Riham Barghouti alleged yesterday.
Kapwanga said the Namibian company, while monitoring the situation in the US, did not have any business with jewellers there, as it only supplied LLD's head company in Israel.
"Diamonds only account for about 15 per cent of the group's holdings," he said, referring to Leviev's other business interests which include real estate, media and telecommunications.
"I think they're just trying to use this (the Namibian situation) to further their cause.
But that's all fine.
It's just that what's happening here has nothing to do with what's going on there.
It's totally irrelevant.
But such irresponsible things can actually affect the shareholders," he cautioned.
Adalah-NY has highlighted the fact that more than 200 workers at LLD Namibia's diamond polishing factory in Windhoek lost their jobs following a wildcat strike last month.
The workers were suspended when they went on strike on June 18 and were later called back to work to face disciplinary action.
Many did not heed this call and were dismissed two weeks ago.
Many of them are appealing their dismissal with the help of the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) and the Mineworkers' Union of Namibia (MUN).
Adalah-NY further accused LLD in Angola of torture, sexual abuse and even assassinations that allegedly happened last year.
The group describes itself as a "grassroots strategic alliance" made up of various organisations and individuals based in New York, which calls for an end to what they call US-sponsored Israeli aggression in the Middle East.
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