Word: angola
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THEY ARE CALLED GARIMPEIROS, A Portuguese word for a prospector or trafficker in illegal treasure. Lured by the promise of quick wealth, an estimated 50,000 Angolans, Zairians, South Africans, Belgians and even a few Americans have surged into Angola's remote Lunda Norte province. From the air, they look like a colony of ants tunneling aimlessly into sunbaked moonscape. On the ground, the diggers, shirtless, sometimes laboring with a pistol in one hand and a shovel in the other, are scrambling to get rich...
...dream come true for the garimpeiros, but it has turned into a nightmare for De Beers. The South African group, through its London-based cartel, the Central Selling Organization, controls 80% of the world's rough-diamond trade. In the past 17 months, largely illicit diamonds from Angola and elsewhere have been flooding the market, threatening to provoke a price collapse and forcing De Beers to spend so far upwards of $200 million to keep the gems out of circulation by buying them...
...immediate cause of the problem is beyond De Beers' control: political instability in some of the planet's richest diamond regions. Although the Angolan drought made alluvial-plain diamonds easier to find, Angola's rush was triggered mainly by the chaotic aftermath of civil war. Thousands of demobilized soldiers with no job prospects began scratching around for easy money. Legislation enacted in November permitting Angolans to trade in uncut diamonds was intended to soak up rough stones that people had illegally hoarded down through the years. Instead, because the move made it vastly easier to unload illegally dug diamonds...
...Angolan government that will emerge from last week's elections will see the wisdom of stanching the illegal trade. The main cause for concern remains Russia, because its huge diamond production coincides with deteriorating economic conditions. Russian production in 1991 was an estimated 13 million carats, compared with Angola's 1.5 million. "Angola is like a wasp," says Oke, "but Russia is like a bear stomping around...
...Angola's Olympic debut was unlikely, consider those of Lithuania and Croatia. Neither team existed last year. Their countries, new to the conjugation of nations, exist only perilously and amid great hardship. But on the court, Lithuania and Croatia do honor to their homelands. Lithuania is led by Marciulionis, whose favorite painter is Hieronymus Bosch. Most N.B.A. players do not have a favorite painter or would not know Bosch from Beethoven, but they all know Marciulionis. This past season as the Golden State Warrior's sixth man, he was fourth in the N.B.A. in points scored for minutes played...