Return to Transcripts main page
INSIDE AFRICA
U.S. Navy Rescues Somali Refugees; Life in the New Zimbabwe
Aired May 30, 2009 - 19:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ISHA SESAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, and welcome to INSIDE AFRICA. I'm Isha Sesay. On the program this week, the U.S. Navy rescues Somali refugees fleeing a surge in violence. And from digital film to metal tapestries, African art draws noses in Los Angeles.
We begin with Zimbabwe.
Just over 100 days have passed since sworn enemies Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai formed a unity government. At that time, daily life was a desperate struggle for most ordinary Zimbabweans. Store shelves were empty, hunger was rampant, a cholera epidemic was spiraling out of control. So, how does the picture look right now? CNN is still banned from reporting inside Zimbabwe, but our Canadian partner network, the CBC, was recently given rare access. Here now is a fresh progress report from the CBC's Adrienne Arsenault.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ADRIENNE ARSENAULT, CBC CORRESPONDENT: No one is quite sure how much Ashley Chiroto (ph) still remembers, but all Zimbabweans who have heard his story know he saw too much.
He was there last year when Robert Mugabe's thugs burst into his home, grabbed him and his mother, tortured her while he watched, burned the house and killed her. Ashley's father says strangers found the little boy on the road and he started to talk.
EMMANUEL CHIROTO: He said they stuffed some papers in her mouth, and they were breaking her arms, and then they went in the forest. That's his explanation. They took mommy out. And mommy was left lying on the ground.
ARSENAULT: Emmanuel Chiroto says the killers were actually looking for him. He'd just been named mayor of Harare and wasn't home. He says losing his wife that night destroyed his personal life, but his political convictions were strengthened.
It was at the peak of post-election violence. President Robert Mugabe refusing to cede power to Morgan Tsvangirai, who technically won. Dissenting political voices were viciously silenced. A nation was terrified, and increasingly impoverished to the point of illness and desperation. Chiroto and others wouldn't give up, stood by Tsvangirai and pushed until a deal was struck. A unity government where power between two men who loathed each other would be shared. It wasn't and isn't perfect, but it's a start.
CHIROTO: It's getting better, and for the first time there's light at the end of the tunnel.
ARSENAULT: Robert Mugabe is still president, but Morgan Tsvangirai, the man who last year was an opposition leader so threatened by Mugabe loyalists we had to meet him in hiding, now proudly wears the title of prime minister. Theoretically, he and Mugabe make decisions together.
(on camera): Do you actually work together? Do you sit in a room with Mugabe?
MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, ZIMBABWEAN PRIME MINISTER: Oh, yeah, yeah. I do. Every Monday I go to him, and we sit to discuss about the cabinet, the cabinet agenda, the issues that we need to tackle. I'll tell you what, it's an extraordinary experience. You must understand that we're not sworn upon it -- we're actually sworn enemies, and that accusations against each other degenerated to personal (inaudible). Now that we have committed ourselves with together, I'm committed to it.
ARSENAULT: And already there are changes. The image of kids simply going to school is a sight as unreal and sweet as a mirage. For months under Mugabe's rule, teachers didn't earn enough to even show up. New, modest salaries have brought them back.
And Harare is swollen with pride.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: Is the tide really turning in Zimbabwe? We'll bring you part two of Adrienne Arsenault's report.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SESAY: Welcome back to INSIDE AFRICA. Let's continue now with Adrienne Arsenault's in-depth report from Zimbabwe. Before the break, we were starting to see some positive developments, perhaps a real turning point after years of abject misery.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARSENAULT: Remember the horrific inflation? The great stacks of useless Zimbabwean bills, the block-long lineups at banks to withdraw just enough to buy bread? The lineups are gone, because the Zimbabwean currency is gone, and the once empty store shelves -- look at them now. Everything is there, if you have the American or South African cash, the only currencies that count now.
(on camera): Most of the stores looked like this for all of last year?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, in fact most of the stores, they were like this. It is a new Zimbabwe, it's like we're actually having food on the table now.
ARSENAULT (voice over): So, is this a new Zimbabwe? Well, there is no question the seeds of optimism are there. There is no question the feel of this country has shifted a bit, but there is also a sense that something more substantial than the mood has to change quickly. If not, this brand- new inclusive government does not stand a chance.
Behind the broad smiles of those who believed in Morgan Tsvangirai, believed he could make life better, is a growing frustration. These women wanted us to see the (inaudible) around their homes. In a neighborhood devastated by cholera, this was supposed to be repaired. Only the new government says it does not have the funds for that. A woman named Trust (ph) is losing it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When a building has been disrupted to its foundation, you know, it takes time to build it again. We're not very much disappointed, but we thought about this time many things would have been changed.
ARSENAULT: And look again at that store. People don't actually buy much from it. Goods stay on the shelves. Unemployment in Zimbabwe is still 94 percent, and the prices are out of reach. The store security guard can't afford to shop here.
(on camera): A roll of toilet paper?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
ARSENAULT: It's 50 cents?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. It's too high. Can't afford this.
ARSENAULT: So, what do people do?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (inaudible), they just, just one, one, one, one. They can't -- most of them they can't afford it.
ARSENAULT: Zimbabwe is officially broke. International goodwill has filled some of the financial gaps, but investors are nervous and don't want to contribute yet, because they don't see stability. Instead, they see Mugabe still pulling too many strings and Tsvangirai letting him. He knows some Zimbabweans are privately using the word "betrayal".
TSVANGIRAI: I say to them, how have I betrayed you? You are the ones who were on your knees, literally, with no food, with nothing, right? And we listened to your cries to do something about it. And this is how we have resolved the crisis. So how can you turn back and say I've betrayed you?
ARSENAULT: Even those who've fought alongside Tsvangirai now have nagging doubts. Last year on election day, in the fields outside Harare, we encountered MDC candidate Theresa Makone, battling against blatant fraud from the Mugabe regime.
One year later, it's a new Theresa Makone. She is now a minister in a unity government, happy for her job, but worried for the future. She says hard-liners close to Mugabe are trying to sabotage the new government.
THERESA MAKONE, MINISTER: They create havoc. And they make it practically impossible for the rest of us to function the way we should.
ARSENAULT (on camera): And you are still doing it?
MAKONE: Yeah, we are still doing it. And I hope that when they see how well this government is working, how the ministers actually relate to one another, they will soon see that they -- they are irrelevant. That they have been outpaced by events.
ARSENAULT: Time to retire?
MAKONE: It really is. It really is.
ARSENAULT (voice over): But the old guard won't disappear easily or quietly. Tsvangirai's idea -- make it easy. Offer them immunity from prosecution for their corruption and violence if they step back.
TSVANGIRAI: One needs to make sure that what you do is not a reminder of possible prosecution for their past deeds. What you want to do is to provide a basis of moving forward.
ARSENAULT (on camera): I mean, are we sitting in a new Zimbabwe yet?
TSVANGIRAI: Absolutely. You are experiencing a new Zimbabwe.
ARSENAULT (voice over): Perhaps not yet. Not in the wounded home of Ashley and Emmanuel Chiroto. Here, the very idea that those who killed his wife and so many others would escape prosecution makes him doubt his old friend Morgan Tsvangirai.
(on camera): What will be the day when you know that this is a new Zimbabwe?
CHIROTO: Honestly speaking, it's the day that the people who murdered my wife and were out to kill me have been arrested and brought to justice.
ARSENAULT (voice over): Justice matters and Zimbabweans crave it, but they also crave safe, normal lives. Healing this nation will take compromises, and there are no guarantees there won't be dark times ahead.
Adrienne Arsenault, CBC News, Harare, Zimbabwe.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: Signs of hope in Zimbabwe. We'll be on the lookout for more.
New photos come to light of the U.S. Navy rescuing dozens of Somalis at sea. We'll check in with our Pentagon correspondent about what's driving these refugees to such lengths.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SESAY: You're watching INSIDE AFRICA. Welcome back.
Last week, we took you inside Somali refugee camps in the Kenyan town of Darem (ph). Conditions are horrendous, mostly due to overcrowding. Many Somalis are also trying to escape the violence back home by fleeing across the Gulf of Aden, an extremely dangerous undertaking. Well, recently the U.S. Navy rescued 52 Somalis who'd been adrift in a small boat for seven days. I asked our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr about the surge in violence that is forcing scores to risk their lives for a shot at some safety.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A U.S. Navy helicopter flying over the Gulf of Aden came across this boat of about 52 Somali refugees, men, women and children. They've been on this boat on the water stalled for about seven days. You can see some of the pictures. These people were in very rough shape, suffering from severe dehydration, exposure to the elements, no food, it was -- it was very bad. And it took a while to get rescue forces to them, because the nearest Navy ship, even after the helicopter spotted them, was some 30 miles away. So they got there just as fast as they could, beginning by, of course, trying to rescue the small infants that were stranded there with their parents, get these infants to safety first, get the small children onboard the navy ship, the women and of course the men.
While it's a humanitarian crisis beyond proportion, really, it's -- it's still a security crisis in that region, as you know. Tens of thousands of people displaced in Somalia by the years and now decades of fighting. Isha?
SESAY: Absolutely, Barbara. The situation -- just when you think it couldn't get worse, it seems to take another dip. What is going on right now? Why this surge in the fighting on the ground, Barbara?
STARR: Well, by all accounts, the Al-Shabab, this network of Islamic fighters that the U.S. says is a terrorist network and says does have links to al Qaeda is making another stand to fight government forces in Somalia, albeit very weak forces. They're trying to fight back. They have very little in the way of equipment and support. The Al-Shabab is said to have a lot of financial backing, and the big concern beyond the humanitarian crisis, of course, is the security situation. To what extent is all of this fighting, all of this unrest making Somalia an even bigger safe haven for al Qaeda than it may already be?
There are concerns on both the Ethiopian border and the Kenyan border right now about the possibility of free flow of refugees. Both Ethiopia and Kenya already, as well as Djibouti, of course, in very tough straits with Somali refugees flowing into their countries for the last many years, and they really want to try and clamp down on those borders. So across this region of the Horn of Africa, a good deal of unrest, and as we see in these pictures, it's these men, women and children that -- whether they are trying to escape Somalia or simply trying to move around inside these camps, inside Mogadishu, looking for some measure of safety, it is the civilians, of course, as always, that are really caught in the crossfire.
SESAY: A really, really desperate situation. Our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, great to have you on the program.
STARR: Thank you.
SESAY: Changing gears now. We'll tour two African art exhibitions in one museum.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SESAY: Welcome back to INSIDE AFRICA. Two African art exhibitions are drawing art enthusiasts to the University of California at Los Angeles. Transformations brings together contemporary sculpture, prints and what one artist called metal tapestries. Continental Rifts uses video and digital film to explore the concepts of globalization and fragmentation. South African artist Georgia Papageorge and Fowler Museum curator Polly Nooter Roberts took INSIDE AFRICA inside the art.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
POLLY NOOTER ROBERTS, FOWLER MUSEUM CURATOR: Currently at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, we have two exhibitions about contemporary artistic production in Africa. They are very different, but complimentary. The first is Continental Rifts, contemporary time-based works of Africa, which is an exhibition featuring five artists, all of whom are exploring through video, film and related photography shifting notions of identity, concepts of Diaspora, nostalgia, longing. These are all artists who have very complex relationships to the continent of Africa.
So, Georgia, this is the room where we've featured your work. As you can see, it's the first room you enter in the exhibition Continental Rifts. And as you know, as I've told you, your work was the inspiration for the entire exhibition.
GEORGIA PAPAGEORGE, SOUTH AFRICAN ARTIST: I've been very, very, interested for the last 14, 15 years in the whole idea of using ancient geological rifts and seeing how they transform into contemporary social setting (ph). So I started thinking about the idea of the rift between South America and Africa, which is well proven scientifically. You can see how they fit together as a puzzle. I was particularly interested in the point of rift, where Africa and South America first started to break apart. Around 130 million years ago is where I'm taking back, and I decided to mark it with a cross and divide it with the continents into an upper V and a lower V. I then spent a year experimenting with banners to see where they would be -- could be big enough to be seen from the air.
My daughter is the reason why I'm an artist. She died of cancer of the liver at the age of 2. I was totally devastated, totally broken, but I knew I had an option. I had to decide, was I going to become embittered, was I going to go down, or was I going to transcend?
The museum people have told me, when people watch it, they don't go -- they say very often with contemporary video, people will watch it for half a minute, and then they'll move on. People don't do that with this video. They just sit. They watch it.
This is the result, and it has been incredibly well received in your country and I've been immensely grateful.
I'm just immensely privileged and grateful that that is the response that I get.
I'm exploring not only geological rifts, but the inner rifts within our soul, the thoughts within our soul as human beings. And that brings in a kind of universality, how -- and with the death of my daughter, I wanted to heal. I wanted to heal the rift of a continent. I wanted to heal the rift between human beings. I'm South African. I've come out of a rifted society, and I'm very, very interested in that idea, that you can take a physical and geological divide, and conceptually close it, and heal, heal people, heal yourself.
ROBERTS: We're entering an exhibition entitled Transformations, recent contemporary African acquisitions here at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, and the works that you're seeing behind me here are by El Anatsui, a wonderful artist who was born in Ghana but has lived in Nigeria for over 30 years, and you're seeing these extraordinary walls that he makes of these recycled materials that he draws from liter bottles, primarily. His work is about renewal, recreation, and transformation.
All three of the works that you see from this one in the center of the room to this large work called "Things on a Wall," and the third one called "Composition" are by another of Africa's leading lights, named Viye Diba, who is a Senegalese artist. Like El Anatsui, Viye is also working with concepts of recycling and recuperating. An example of this incredible use of creativity and recycling can be seen in the work of Moussa Tine. He's still, even now, as a much more kind of abstract artist, uses auto parts as the elements of his works, which are always partially sculptural and partially painting.
What Yelimane Fall has done in this beautiful work called Perfection is to reinvent the Arabic alphabet of 28 letters as an African script. There are several works by South African artists as well in the exhibition, including the work of Durant Sihlali, who very sadly passed in 2006, but is one of South Africa's leading artists. He takes shredded computer paper and transforms it into paper pulp, which he then applies to the surface of handmade paper.
A lot of people don't realize the extent to which this kind of contemporary work defines Africa today. And yet it's such an important part of contemporary existence. And the artists in this exhibition, through their transformations, are really evoking and expressing this kind of ethos of creativity and innovation that infuses urban life today in Africa.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: And there we must leave it. I'll be back with a brand new INSIDE AFRICA next week. Thank you for watching.
END
