Zimbabwe's blood diamonds

Zimbabwe is supposedly enjoying political stability under the coalition government formed in 2008. However, according to the UK's Channel 4's Unreported World programme, which Channel 4 describes as a "critically acclaimed foreign affairs series offering an insight into the lives of people in some of the most neglected parts of the planet", the reports from Zimbabwe are of a country still "gripped by terror and violence."

Reporter Ramita Navai and Alex Nott filmed undercover to investigate claims that gems from one of the world's biggest diamond fields are being used by Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF party to entrench their hold on power by buying the military's loyalty. (Navai is the same reporter whose story on the escalating violence in South Sudan I wrote about on this blog in November of last year). The current reports from Zimbabwe are against the backdrop of human rights abuses, which victims say are being perpetrated by the military and the police.

Filming covertly and secretly, (footage that was broadcast during the programme Friday evening), the team discovered a climate of fear reminiscent of the pre-coalition Mugabe years. Almost everyone Navai and Nott met was too terrified to talk about the diamond fields, including several members of the MDC party, which forms part of the coalition government. We see some people speak out, albeit at great personal risk. They detail stories of beatings, killings and rape connected to the diamond area. There were suggestions that powerful individuals within the government oversee and control these activities.

A military insider told the Unreported World team about how different Zimbabwean Army units are allowed to rotate through the fields to make profits from the diamonds in exchange for loyalty to president Mugabe. The serving officer claimed that syndicates of civilians are used by soldiers to mine illegally and they then sell the gems to middlemen. (In June last year, Human Rights Watch reporting on the same issue wrote about forced labour, torture and military massacres in the Marange district in Eastern Zimbabwe where the diamond fields are located. Click here for the HRW report).

The team followed the diamond trail, showing how smugglers move precious stones from the Marange fields across the border to the boom-town of Manica in neighbouring Mozambique. Filming secretly, they showed how the stones are purchased no questions asked, by Arabic speaking buyers who claim to be Lebanese. We are then informed that Manica, once a sleepy rural Mozambique village, is now buzzing with diamond buyers from around the world chasing after the flush of Marange diamonds from across the border. Its impossible to track the diamonds once they have been purchased from the smugglers, usually for meagre sums. From Manica the diamonds are absorbed into the international market and sold in upmarket and high street stores across the world.

The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) a UN-backed industry watchdog has been tasked with ending the sale of conflict diamonds. Its function is to ensure that diamonds are not used by rebel movements to finance wars against legitimate governments. It is thought however that this definition is narrow and doubts have been expressed as to the effectiveness of the KPCS, as in this BBC report of June this year. For sure, the KPCS has not prevented the reported widespread looting and human rights abuses connected to Marange and there is the suggestion that it has failed to deal with the unfolding crisis.

Next month in Tel Aviv, Israel, the members of the KPCS meet for their annual summit to decide what to do next. The State of Israel is the current Chair. The Unreported World reporters indicated that at the time of filming, there were fears that the situation in Zimbabwe could precipitate the end of the Kimberley Process itself, as internal politics and in-fighting about how the watchdog should proceed may tear it apart. (This caught my attention and is something I will be investigating further).

vast natural resources found in the Marange district of Zimbabwe could potentially change the fortunes of a country whose economy has hit hard times. These reports however, despite the coalition government, confirm that Zimbabwe is a country still plagued by corruption and violence, a serious warning of what is to come ahead of the 2011 elections.

For those in the UK, Unreported World series 10 episode 15 'Zimbabwe's Blood Diamonds' is available on the Channel 4 website for the next 29 days. Click here to watch.

Westerners no longer swallow my story, says Kagame

In this video posted on YouTube by Olivier Nyirubugara a Rwandan journalist and PhD student in The Netherlands, we hear Rwanda's President Paul Kagame commenting on the increasing divergence of views between his administration and its Western partners, formerly known to be "unconditional supporters".

On this and on that

Some weeks ago I walked away from my job. I had endured the job for long enough and the time came when I'd had enough, and I acted almost on impulse. Walking out felt good, as if it was the right thing to do. It was exhilarating knowing that I would no more have to put up with what had caused me to be unhappy with the job in the first place. And although I knew not what I would be doing thereafter, I left anyway, trusting my instinct.

Since then a lot has happened. I have now reverted to my former employment status, self-employed. My professional regulatory body will not allow me to practise on my own, since I'm facing some disciplinary action brought on by the actions of my erstwhile partner at my former firm, which is now defunct. However, I've been able to work out a fee-sharing arrangement with a different firm that allows me to do my own work, (through the firm of course). Giving up half of one's fee cannot be easy for anyone, as you probably can imagine. But it is necessary that one should pull one's own weight within a firm in order to have some clout. Also when one considers the firm's overheads, contributing my bit can only be a good thing.

While all this was happening, I came down with the worst flu I've ever had, with a chest infection and sinusitis to boot, causing the worst one-sided headaches I've ever suffered. In fact on one occasion, I was forced to pull up on the busy motorway for about half an hour, not trusting myself to be able to summon the concentration necessary to navigate safely home through the traffic. I had a fever, and the severe headache refused to go away despite having overdosed on Cocodamol. But since I desperately craved my bed, I eventually had to brave it and forge ahead until I clambered up the stairs of my building and staggered through my front door.

You're probably wondering what I was doing driving around when I was so sick. Well, I am no longer an employee, so it is impossible to call in sick to the office. Also, I still had to attend for all of my client appointments, attend court, attend meetings and so on, even while coughing, sneezing and wheezing..and of course spreading the germs around. The good news though is that at the time of this writing, I feel a lot better, even if I can't help thinking that the effects of the illness would have been considerably less had I the luxury of being able to afford to take a week off work.

Then the Commonwealth Games in Delhi came along and provided us with some comfort in the evenings. Thank goodness for the BBC Red Button. I was particularly interested in the athletics. Now, bad publicity is something that we Nigerians are perfectly familiar with, (not that being accustomed to it makes it any less unpleasant). So it didn't come as a surprise the hullabaloo over the winner of the 100m women, Nigeria's Oludamola Osayomi being disqualified and losing her gold medal, having tested positive for Methylhexanamine a nasal decongestant, which only made it into the list of banned substances for athletes in the summer of this year.

That Osayomi was awarded the gold medal in somewhat controversial circumstances anyway, meant that its loss was not as painful as it might have been otherwise. My main concern was to see that Nigeria won more medals than Kenya at the Games. So I was terribly glad to see that despite the loss of Osayomi's gold, Nigeria was placed 6th versus Kenya's 7th place on the Medals Table, although I must admit that I always looked forward to seeing Kenya's Ezekiel Kemboi and Vincent Koskei on the track... PS. Well, the Commonwealth Games medals table has changed. Kenya is now placed 6th with 12 gold medals and Nigeria is at 9th place with 11.

And then there is the story of the Chilean miners, a story that has been making it onto the news for months now, usually as a side story about what for most of us, would have seemed like a mishap that befell some unfortunate people in a far off place. Last night I got out of bed in the middle of the night. Sleep failed to find me for some reason, although my guess is that the culprit was my persistent worrying about the financial side of things, (now that I do not receive a regular wage). Anyway, there I was at 2.35am perched on the sofa, turning on the TV, mug of lemon tea cupped in my hands. The pictures on the screen were of a paramedic (I later learned he's in fact a mine rescue expert) being strapped into the Fenix capsule before it began its first manned journey down into the bowels of the Earth at the San Jose copper and gold mine in the Chilean Atacama. I noted that all the major news channels were showing the same pictures, so I selected one, sat back and watched.

It would have been quite unnatural not to have become transfixed on the screen as I was for the next four hours, as watching miner after miner being pulled out. The Chileans, I think, have done a marvellous job in organising this feat, albeit with technical assistance from abroad. What strikes me most is how media-savvy the Chile government has demonstrated that it is, streaming live pictures from the cavern inside the Earth where these miners have been entombed for all of 69 days, the country's mining minister Laurence Golborne tweeting constantly about the rescue operation as it progressed (click here for his Twitter page). I think it is ingenious for the Chile authorities to have arranged for the orchestrated reunions of the rescued miners with their families to take place in the full glare of klieg lights and TV cameras.

As I type this, 15 miners have already been rescued, and with much of the rest of the world I am greatly impressed with the way this rescue operation has progressed. It was only a few days ago that in casual conversation with some friends, I was saying that if those miners had died when the mine collapsed in early August, none of us would be talking about them now. Instead, they are now expected to become celebrities, recipients of substantial pay-outs in compensation.

And then of course I've recently received an invitation from Rolex to participate in a two-day event to honour the first five winners of their Young Laureates Programme taking place at one of Europe's leading institutions Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland on 9-11 November 2010, where I am informed some of the world's foremost scientists, explorers, environmentalists, doctors and educators will be gathered. Interestingly, two of the young laureates are Africans, one a Nigerian. And I am still scratching my head, wondering if I really should accept the invitation and go over to Lausanne, Switzerland, unsure if I am deserving of this honour.