As moviegoers flock to view the new Hollywood blockbuster "Blood Diamond," the Kalahari San people of Africa's largest diamond producer, Botswana have just won a major judicial victory. Unlike Sierra Leonne, where the film is based, Botswana and its inhabitants have a rather different history with diamonds. On December 13, 2006 a three-judge panel in the country's high court ruled that the eviction of the San indigenous communities from their diamond-rich game reserve was illegal. Regardless of the merits of the case, this decision is significant insofar that it dispels the cynicism which many Western populations harbor about judicial systems in Africa. The court parted ways with the government in ways that defy the common perception of judicial cooptation by the ruling elite. More than a thousand San who were moved to urbanized camps reminiscent of Native American internments are now free to move back to their ancestral lands. The government's case for removal was predicated on grounds of education, health and acculturation that mirrored many of the justifications given by the US and Canadian governments in the nineteenth century. Yet, the court in Botswana has averted the forced acculturation predicament whose legacy continues to haunt many Native Americans.

The desolate Kalahari desert that inspired the cinematic cult classic "The Gods Must be Crazy," has been at the crossroads of conflict between environmental conservationists, miners and indigenous rights activists. While the outcome of the case in favor of the San is laudable, the conflation of these various conflicts has generated more heat than light on resource policy in Africa. To environmentalists, the Kalahari San epitomized the image of a "noble savage" being driven to the periphery by modernity and consumerism. An easy target for activists was the diamond giant DeBeers that holds sizable shares in Botswana's lucrative diamond mines. The checkered history of DeBeers in South Africa and its involvement in antitrust litigation in the United States (which was only resolved in 2005), made the accusations compelling. However, there was little connection between the San removal and diamond concessions. Indeed, as Nicholas Oppenheimer, the chairman of DeBeers argued in a rare article for The Ecologist, having a local San work force would have helped the company if diamonds were to be extracted across the game reserve. Linking the San case to diamonds was a useful strategy to gain public sympathy but in the long-run it may lead to further confusion about the role of minerals in development.

The allure of diamonds as a fatally precious commodity has been attractive to journalists and must be considered with trepidation. Lootable alluvial diamonds have fueled conflicts in Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leonne. However, industrial diamond operations such as those in Botswana tell a rather different story. The discovery of diamond deposits transformed Botswana from one of the poorest countries in Africa to one of the wealthiest. While the country has its share of challenges, such as extremely high HIV prevalence of 22%, there is no questioning the positive impact of diamonds on the country's development trajectory. The literacy rate is over 80% and the per capita income which tops $6000 is the highest in Africa. Due to its high income and educated establishment, the country was the first to provide comprehensive nation-wide antiretroviral therapy. It is also a leader in biodiversity conservation of rare ecosystems such as the Okavango delta.