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INSIDE AFRICA
2007: Year in Review, Part II
Aired December 29, 2007 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FEMI OKE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Femi Oke. Thanks for joining us for this special edition of INSIDE AFRICA.
Now, this week, CNN correspondents look back at some of the major stories they covered on the continent this year. So, we'll hear from Robyn Curnow on a frightening emergency at a South-African gold mine. Nic Robertson talks about the toll of the Darfur refugee crisis in neighboring Chad. And Richard Quest reflects on his trip to Cameroon for a special on the environment.
We start our review of 2007 in August. That was when the U.N. Security Council authorized the deployment of 26,000 peacekeeping troops to Sudan's war-torn Darfur region. The bulk of that force is expected to arrive in early 2008. As the U.N. estimates, the conflict has killed 200,000 people and displaced 2 million over the last four years. Earlier this year, Nic Robertson hosted a special edition of INSIDE AFRICA from neighboring Chad, where about 240,000 Darfur refugees live in dangerous camps. He took me behind the scenes of that assignment.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We wanted to tell the story for the refugees, what was happening inside Darfur, and really the closest we could get was to go to Chad. But of course, Chad is affected, very much affected by what's happening in Darfur, but the violence and the ethnic cleansing, if you will, or cleansing of the villages that's happening inside -- inside Darfur is also happening along the border with Chad. It's a very unstable area. So going to the border with Chad instead of going to Darfur was another way for us to try and get closer to that story.
About two hours drive away, in a camp for displaced people, Muqta Haroon (ph), an elder from the villages and his nephews explain not only did the Janjaweed attack them, but also Chadean rebels.
"The Janjaweed came riding camels and horses," he said. "They attacked at five o'clock in the morning. At seven o'clock, the rebels came with big trucks. They had heavy and light weapons, and they helped the Janjaweed."
OKE: You were traveling and working your way around Chad at the beginning of the rainy season. There is one particular journey where you're heading to a northern village, where you kind of came unstuck with the weather. What happened?
ROBERTSON: We got to one of these riverbed roads. We were trying to film as we drove through that area. There was just a little bit mud on the road; it didn't look like very much. I mean, we were in four-wheel drive jeeps, two four-wheel drive jeeps, and both the vehicles came absolutely bogged down, completely stuck. It took us almost an hour to get the vehicles out, and by the time we did, the camera had been so bounced around on these muddy, dirty, slippery tracks that the camera had stopped working. So when we got to this burnt-out village, which was the heart of the story, the key place to get to, our camera wasn't working, and we didn't have time to hang around and try to fix it, because it was dangerous.
So we had to film everything in this village that was sort of the centerpiece of telling how people have been burned out and chased out of their homes by these armed militia, we had to film it with a cell phone camera, do our interviews with the UNHCR official using the cell phone camera, do a standup, you know, the on-camera piece on the cell phone, using the cell phone camera, and record what had happened in that village.
OKE: What goes through your mind when you're in the middle of Chad and you don't have a camera, and you know you have to do this story, and maybe there might be some militia very nearby. What's ticking around in your brain?
ROBERTSON: It's very spooky. You're going around. Some of the huts are burned. There are pots lying there, there are cooking utensils lying there. There are arrowheads, spearheads that we found lying around as well. And it's as if the population of the village has just suddenly in a flash upped and left. And that is essentially what had happened there, but all the time you're looking around to see if there is any movement, anyone coming in.
And we didn't have any weapons with us to protect us. As journalists, we don't do that. The UNHCR doesn't carry weapons, so they weren't able to protect us if any armed groups came along. They didn't have -- we didn't have armored vehicles. So we knew we were at the mercy of the situation, and whatever was going to happen around us.
And of course, that's the reason why the displaced people can't go back to their villages, because they have no idea if they will be safe there from one minute to the next.
OKE: It was a refugee camp right on the edge of the Sahara desert. Tell me about getting that story?
ROBERTSON: Well, what we wanted to focus on was the difficulty in getting water for all those refugees, tens of thousands of them inside that camp. And this aid organization has just dug a well and just got down to that sort of hard bedrock as far down as they can go, about 12 meters.
So I got in this oil drum bucket of the well, and the guys who were making the well sort of winched me down, with this sort of heavy metal cable that's tied off to this little half an oil drum, and it lowered me down in. And I was trying not to think about the situation I was putting myself in. If this thing tipped over and I cracked my head, or, you know, something -- there were no hospitals around us, so I tried to put that out of my mind.
I guess in the final analysis, it actually wasn't that dangerous. It just felt that way to me, and I do think it was a good way to show the audience, you know, just how hard it is to get water there, and just how desperate the situation is for all those refugees. They are relying on our help, on international help, not just to feed them, not just to help them with shelter, but ultimately to help their governments resolve the problems there. And that's what we're trying to do is to shine a light on this, so that -- so that our audience can see that and can understand it.
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OKE: And that was Nic Robertson, who I'm now going to refer to as adventure man. And Nic reported on the estimated 240,000 refugees who have fled to Chad from Darfur, and about 180,000 Chadeans who've been internally displaced in the southeast by violence that began back in 2005 and flared up again this year.
Still ahead on INSIDE AFRICA, an accident reminds the world about the dangers of mining. After the break, Robyn Curnow tells us about covering the rescue of 3,000 South African gold miners. Stay with us.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Making business news in Africa this week. A prominent investment banking firm puts the net worth of Kenya's Safaricom at almost $3.5 billion. Morgan Stanley is part of a consortium advising the Kenyan government on Safaricom's planned initial public offering. The government owns a 60 percent stake in Safaricom, which is Kenya's leading mobile network service provider.
Zimbabwean banks were closed on Christmas Day, despite promises by the government that they would stay open to dispense new currency. Many customers were unable to travel or shop for the holiday. Earlier this month, the Central Bank issued higher denomination notes, in an effort to ease the nation's currency shortage. The cash crunch, a result of Zimbabwe's skyrocketing inflation rate, estimated to be 10,000 percent a year.
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OKE: Hello again. South Africa is home to some of the deepest mines in the world, which makes them some of the most dangerous. In October, a major accident put the international spotlight on those dangers. More than 3,000 miners spent about two days trapped over a mile underground in a gold mine outside of Johannesburg. A pipe had broken loose and fallen down the main shaft, blocking their way out. Robyn Curnow and her photographer rushed to the scene in the middle of the night, and as the world watched to hear news about the miners, they brought us the story.
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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: OK, after receiving that initial phone call, I got up knowing that I wasn't going to get any sleep for the rest of the night. I made a few telephone interviews with CNN International and CNN USA on the telephone.
These are huge mines. In a way, they are a bit like an underground city. There are trains and trucks and cars, and I mean, it really is a bustling, vibrant underground world. So they're not trapped in small little tunnels; it's more like huge cavernous spaces. But of course, very dark and very, very deep underground.
And then my cameraman, Shavon Rasin (ph) and I, got into our car and we started driving towards Carletonville.
As dawn was breaking, we managed to have these pretty dramatic pictures of these miners coming out of -- of the shaft, and I found it quite an astonishing thing, because to be trapped two kilometers underground, with very little oxygen, with absolutely no food and a little bit of water -- I mean, I would be very traumatized. I think anybody would be. But these miners -- what really struck me when they came out of that mineshaft after 12 hours and then later after 24 hours and 48 hours underground, they were incredibly stoic. Most of them sort of emerged into the light and brightness of the day, and they just walked out, and just quietly took a sandwich and a bottle of water, and just filed through, many of them just saying, you know, I just want to go home and get some sleep. They were tired.
But mostly, I was struck at how stoic, how quiet and how dignified these miners were. And also how incredibly strong they were. Because out of more than 3,000 miners, there was only one real issue over health, and that was somebody who was feeling a bit faint, and he was the only one that was carried out on a stretcher.
What also struck me was how many women miners there were that were trapped underground. And it was quite funny, because I thought perhaps all the women would be coming out first. But there was absolutely no chivalry. I mean, they're treated as equals, as miners down there, and the women were coming out in dribs and drabs over the 48 hours that the men were. And these women were also incredibly stoic and incredibly strong and incredibly dignified. And I found this a very enlightening thing, just to see, A, how many women there were and how they carried themselves.
There was one woman in particular who I found quite a charming character.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because we're thinking, that, you know, we're going to die. But I'm happy because now we are out and everything is OK.
CURNOW: She had a little bit of a cry, but it wasn't any great weeping or tears, and I was struck by A, what a likeable person she was, how she had kept her sense of humor, and how she really just managed to tell the story of being underground with an ease and a natural sense of stoicism, again. And that was quite remarkable.
When we first heard that over 3,000 miners were trapped underground, we feared the worst.
PETER BAILEY, NATIONAL UNION OF MINEWORKERS: It was fortunate that none of the workers were in the immediate vicinity of the cage (ph). Otherwise we could have had one of the largest mining disasters in South Africa.
CURNOW: But many (inaudible) here, including the mining minister, of the dangers to these men.
We thought we were dealing with the tragedy, we were dealing with the potential of a huge mining disaster, but the wonderful thing was that by the end of the day, it turned out to be one of the, you know, most heartwarming good news stories, you know, I've covered this year.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: That was Robyn Curnow. Earlier this month, more than half of South Africa's miners staged a one-day strike to demand better safety standards. It was the first national miners strike since the end of apartheid in 1994.
Coming up on INSIDE AFRICA, Richard Quest goes to Cameroon for a show on the environment.
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RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Awww.
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OKE: And spends some time communing with nature.
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OKE: Good to see you again. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA.
Richard Quest was in West Africa earlier this year filming a special program about our changing environment. Now, "Quest for the Environment" took him to Cameroon, where he had several encounters with wildlife. Those encounters, not all of them pleasant, provided many excellent television moments that could probably only happen to someone like Richard. He gave us some of his personal reflections, along with some cautionary tales.
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QUEST: These are cute little chimps. Gorgeous! Gorgeous! Gorgeous! Gorgeous! Until -- and we're taking pictures at the -- hello, hello, hello, little chimpie, hello, little chimpie, chimpie. And all of a sudden ...
There's no camera!
The hand -- and I was like this --- the hand came through the bars and grabbed. And it was gone. This thing ran up the tree, I mean ran. Whether the chimp knew what this was, I don't know.
She's taking a picture!
So the chimp then gets the camera, and on the tree goes boom, boom, whoosh. And I (inaudible) with the camera, the camera is hitting the bark every single time, and then it goes ah-ah-ah, boom, boom. And we cannot get this camera.
Excuse me, can I have my camera back, please?
And I'm finally -- they're distracted with a banana. But the chimp is still not going to give up. So, without a struggle. Doesn't just come down and hand it. No, no. Camera goes up, lands on the ground.
Interestingly, the chimp never took a picture.
We'd been warned. Be careful. I mean, that there was bars and all that sort of stuff, but these -- they will throw things. These bars -- what's he going to throw? He can't get to me. You know, what's he going to do? And then all of a sudden, it happened.
Awww.
The gorilla -- and it does it like a cricket throw -- grabbed a rock -- I actually don't think it was a rock. I think it was a stale bread bun. And he picked up this thing, and -- and it went right into my groin. I mean, this was -- this was.
Wild life always scares the bejebus out of me. I'm not saying I'd prefer to see them behind bars in the zoo, but when you see wildlife in the wild, you realize it is wild. And this is not a Disney movie, where it is suddenly going to roll over and go -- it is not going to happen.
We were in this camp, and all of a sudden, an elephant walked in. Now, again, this was not Dumbo elephant, "Hello, I come to say hello." It had come to feed.
So we set up a camera to -- a nighttime camera -- to get pictures of the elephant. And we all went out to see what was going to happen.
We were -- we were quite a ways away from the elephant. I'd seen elephants before, you know when they're going to charge. An elephant does not suddenly decide -- the ears go, it does a mock charge, it will do a bit of this before it finally -- and I think because it was dark, we didn't see any of these signs.
But by golly, we certainly saw it when it came to charge us. Had it been a full (ph) charge, I suspect we wouldn't be here now. I'd still be in plaster. But he did a mock charge to basically say to us, "I know you're there and I'm not happy that you're there. So I suggest that you take your equipment and you get the hell out of here."
You know, your initial thought is, when that happens, yeah! Yeah! We got something that we didn't bargain for, and everybody's safe! And then you look at the tape, you know, have we got it? And that's the moment when you really think -- did the elephant -- did the elephant move out of shot as he charged, or did he stay within the frame? Luckily, he stayed.
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OKE: We have much more with the inimitable Richard Quest when INSIDE AFRICA returns. And he will tell us if he actually changed the purpose of his trip. See you soon.
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OKE: You're watching INSIDE AFRICA. Welcome back. As we're showing you today, Richard Quest had a number of wildlife encounters while shooting "Quest for the Environment" in Cameroon this year. And there was one in particular he and his producer had really hoped to have. But as their trip drew to a close, they began to lose hope. So let's pick up where we left off with Richard just before the break.
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QUEST: The silverback gorilla was quite important, because we -- the reason we had gone -- the reason we had gone to Cameroon was because my producer, Nat (ph), wanted to go and see the silverback gorilla. But we also knew that there was a chance we wouldn't see a silverback gorilla. And as we went longer and longer and longer in the rainforest -- we could hear them. That's a very bad impersonation of a silverback gorilla, I promise you, but you hear this -- you heard this screech, and you'd stop. And the guy from the local village would say, "it's a long way away," or (inaudible).
Sitting in the road was a silverback gorilla. I don't want to get all religious on you, or spiritual on you, but at that moment, you can't help feeling that some thing somewhere, someone has said, "oh, God! They've come to see a silverback gorilla, give them a silverback gorilla, for crying out loud, just give them one." You know, head of gorillas brackets, northern region, brackets, had clearly sent an email saying, "they want a silverback -- it's your turn. Go out and stand in the road. Give them 30 seconds, and get them on their way, and get them out of here. Bloody nuisance, the whole lot of them."
So, the first thing we did was get the camera rolling, get the camera rolling, just get it rolling. And it had to be outside the windscreen, because we knew that this gorilla was so sensitive, it could -- it could feel us. It could feel us, it could hear us. And even if we weren't doing anything in the car, in the jeep -- and then it scampered off as we tried to get out of the vehicle and get a better shot of it.
But you know something, you don't care about that. You've got it. Would I have liked in my na‹ve, addled brain to have the gorilla come up and go -- of course I would. But that's not real.
How did I learn that it's the wildlife on the wildlife's terms? A bread roll in the groin. A broken camera from a chimp. An elephant that nearly destroyed all our equipment. And a silverback gorilla that gave us what we want. That's how you treat the wildlife.
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OKE: So there you have it. Richard and his crew got their silverback sighting, and learned a few valuable lessons about wildlife without anyone getting seriously hurt.
And that's our show for this week. Thank you for letting INSIDE AFRICA be your window to the continent in 2007. We will look forward to seeing you back here next year.
I'm Femi Oke. Until the next time, take care.
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