Since about 1900, DeBeers has controlled the international Diamond Market. Diamonds are NOT that rare, but given DeBeers control (they even worked with the Soviets when South Africa did not even had an embassy in Moscow, to keep Russian Diamonds under DeBeers Control).
Most industrial Diamonds are man made:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond
As to natural Diamonds, Russia is the main producer today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALROSA
It is now claiming that since 2009, Russia and DeBeers are no longer working together:
In 1963, the first sales contracts between the USSR and De Beers group were signed. In 2009 this cooperation was brought to an end as contrary to European Union competition laws in compliance with a decision of the European Commission. Now ALROSA independently distributes its rough diamond production on the world market.
And that this has been ongoing since 2000:
In 2000, the De Beers business model changed[35] due to factors such as the decision by producers in Canada and Australia to distribute diamonds outside the De Beers channel,[13][34] as well as rising awareness of blood diamonds that forced De Beers to "avoid the risk of bad publicity" by limiting sales to its own mined products.[36] De Beers' market share of rough diamonds fell from as high as 90% in the 1980s to 33% in 2013,[37][38] because of a more fragmented diamond market with more transparency and greater liquidity.[39]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_BeersBack to the Arkansas Diamond mine. The story is that DeBeers did NOT want to open a mine in the US, for that would bring it under US Anti-trust laws, something DeBeers did not want to happen for it has always been an illegal monopoly. Thus DeBeers purchased the mine and gave it to the State of Arkansas as a park, so that no one could open it as an actual Diamond mine. As A diamond mine, in the days the US actually enforced its Anti-Trust laws, it would have broke DeBeers Monopoly, either by cutting the price of Diamonds so the monopoly becomes worthless, or by permitting US Anti-Trust laws to apply to DeBeers as DeBeers tried to use its tactic of buying diamonds it did not control, to keep them out of the Market.
Thus, the Mine in Arkansas can be profitable, but DeBeers never wanted it to even exist, let alone actually produce Diamonds. It was a ingenious move by DeBeers to make it a Park and then let people keep their diamonds. That meant you had a group of people who wanted to keep the mine open for themselves, thus would lobby to keep it a park. As to investors who wanted to buy the mine, DeBeers offered them better deals elsewhere. Thus no one wanted to close the park to open it as a mine. It was a brilliant move. Now Canada and Australia decided after 2000 NOT to sell their diamonds through DeBeers, and the monopoly is slowing ending. Russia's decision to follow the EU ruling on its sale of Diamonds appears to be the last straw, but I would NOT count DeBeers out, they may have another trick up their sleeve.
Given DeBeers history, Mugabe's take over may be on the suggestion of DeBeers, for DeBeers no longer see those mines as profitable with the Russians increasing their sale of Diamonds since 2000.
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