By JONNY HOGG
Associated Press Writer

19 November 2007
ILAKAKA, Madagascar (AP) - Everyone plays for high stakes in Ilakaka. You can get rich or you can die. Even for experienced gamblers, the odds of getting killed are high.

This city at the heart of Madagascar's sapphire mining industry is estimated to produce at least 30 percent of the world's sapphires -- worth at least $30 million a year. And in the Wild West lifestyle of shady casinos and banditry that swaggered into town on the tail of the fabulous mining wealth, speculators are dropping dead at an alarming rate -- with up to 30 murders a year in a town of 20,000.

One of this year's victims was Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law. Muhammad Jamal Khalifa was gunned down in January, presumably because of his sapphire business.

The latest victim was a Madagascar businessman shot dead in September whom police identified only by his first name Ernest. He had just bought a sapphire worth $30,000.

"He was in his hotel room at seven in the evening when the bandits attacked. Bang, bang, bang and it was finished," said mine owner Jean Noel Andrianasolo.

Madagascar, a former French colony set in the Indian ocean far off Africa's southeast coast, is one of the world's poorest countries -- but Ilakaka is booming due to its famous pink and blue sapphires.

Mining consultant Tom Cushman said it's difficult to know exactly how much money Ilakaka's sapphire industry generates because some of the best stones leave the island "in people's pockets."

Big business has driven development. Ten years ago, Ilakaka was no more than a collection of huts. Now, since the discovery of major sapphire deposits in 1998, it is a thriving town with a riot of makeshift homes and ramshackle casinos, bars and shops which spill onto the road and jostle against gleaming new offices where the gems are bought and sold.

"People are going to Ilakaka with a suitcase full of money and leaving with a briefcase full of stones," said Cushman, who consults for the World Bank.

"All of the money goes straight back into the community and gets circulated again and again. It's maybe a better development opportunity than all the aid projects in the country put together."

But banditry, corruption and insecurity are a major obstacle to further development.

"Of course we have a big problem with insecurity," said Andrianasolo, who was among a handful of people willing to speak on the record to a reporter, noting that even that could get him killed.

People are reluctant to say who the bandits could be. Some insist police are helping them or committing banditry themselves.

"There are lots of policemen here, lots of army too. It's full. So why haven't they captured the bandits? That is the question," said Andrianasolo.

Philibert Andrianony, the young and energetic head of Ilakaka's police force, said he is determined to stamp out the violence. But he agrees with Andrianasolo that police are not preventing, but causing, some problems.

"It exists, it exists," he said. "Police salaries are very low and we cannot stop policemen who decide to work with the bandits."

He also noted that despite their visible presence, police are ill-equipped to deal with crime. They don't have radios or much needed four-wheel drive vehicles. And the bandits are more heavily armed.

Andrianasolo said the violence means people are coming to Ilakaka in smaller numbers, put off by the danger.

"People have a choice; they can stay at home and have no money or they come here and risk their lives."

But dreams of making a fortune still attract poor miners.

"I know all about the violence here and the people who do it," said Fensoa, a miner who would give only his first name for fear of retaliation. "I am afraid, but I must stay here despite my fear."

With just one lucky find, Andrianasolo said, a miner could make $10,000 in a country where most people earn less than a dollar a day. Fensoa makes two dollars a day, even if no sapphires are found at the mine where he works.

Ilakaka, which sprang up on Madagascar's rocky interior plain, exudes a ramshackle energy. Attracting gem buyers from around the world, it has a cosmopolitan feel. Sri Lankans, Thais and Indians control much of the market.

There are strange contradictions in its development.

This key business center has no airstrip, no bank and is not on the national power grid. Most of the town is powered by generators. Yet it's possible to watch French satellite TV in one of its bars.

Andrianasolo employs 60 people at his mine, a great trench 12 meters deep and 20 meters wide (40 by 66 feet), snaking through the baked orange earth. The perils of the backbreaking work under a scorching sun are compounded by the risk of bandits attacking the mine site.

It is getting more difficult to find sapphires on the surface, but even children are in on the rush. Some returned from a swim in the river clutching handfuls of precious stones scooped from the water.

"Violence is the reality here," Andrianasolo said. But "Ilakaka will continue to grow because there are still sapphires."

FT REPORT - WATCHES & JEWELLERY 2007

By MARIA DOULTON

10 November 2007
Surveys WJC1
Page 18
With a US embargo on Burmese diamonds, horror stories of "dirty gold" and the forthcoming film Blood Diamond , in which stones are the currency of war, shopping for a trinket this Christmas could be tricky for the well-intentioned.

Unlike chocolates or coffee, there is to date no "fair trade" certified jewellery.

But the good news is that the industry has been working hard to improve its social, ethical and environmental impact.

This is not easy with a product with a supply chain ranging from large-scale mining operations to "one man, one pan" outfits, often in the poorest parts of the world, and which takes in a complex web of dealers, cutters, sorters and traders.

Fair Trade announced this summer that TransFair USA, a Fair Labelling Organisation member, is undertaking a feasibility study for Fair Trade certifying jewellery and working on a pilot scheme for gold.

The single most important step is the Kimberley Process (set up by NGOs, the diamond industry and governments of diamond producing nations adopted since November 2002) that certifies that batches of diamonds are conflict-free, perhaps the most alarming issue for the jewellery industry.

There is a clear demand for jewellery with a certified seal of approval, says Martin Rapaport, founder of the Rapaport Diamond index, in his paper, Fair Trade Jewels. "The combination of jewellery and social responsibility in one product is a luxury market category killer. My thesis is that fair trade jewellery has the potential to become the ultimate luxury product of our century."

Several small operations at grass roots level are providing "green" though not yet Fair Trade certified gold and coloured gemstones.

Pioneer Greg Valerio, founder of Cred Jewellery, is working with co-operatives such as "Oro Verde" in Colombia that pan or mine gold with minimum impact on the environment and a fair divvying up of profits. Mr Valerio aims to have on the market a third party certified "green gold" by 2009. Early adopters such as Katharine Hamnett are using his gold for her jewels.

Coloured gems are a more complex issue. Marcia Lanyon, the London-based dealer explains: "Diamond mining is a higher value industry with fewer people involved, so it's easier to trace. (With coloured gems) we are dealing with so many different materials and places that it is virtually impossible to guarantee everyone in the chain is getting a fair deal."

Ms Lanyon cautions against a simplistic approach. "Low wages are probably the biggest problem for the miners," she says, "but they are probably not lower than the national average of the countries they work in."

But she says it is also not ethical, to, for example, avoid Burmese rubies: "I have been to Burma and seen how poor these people are, so not buying their rubies, even though a percentage goes to the generals, will make it worse . . ."

Eric Braunwart, based in Vancouver WA, founder of Columbia Gem House, the largest suppliers of "fair trade" coloured stones (the company is not Fair Trade certified) is working on ways to improve the supply chain.

Ohio-born Tom Cushman, adviser to the Institut de Gemmologie de Madagascar and consultant to the World Bank, has spent the past 17 years working to help the Malagasy better understand and price their resources by educating them to classify, sort and cut stones rather than simply export rough.

London-based jeweller Pippa Small encourages indigenous communities in dire straits. Her most recent project has helped the Kanu tribe in Panama create jewellery for sale in chic European boutiques.

And it is not all small-scale attempts. The Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices was founded in London two years ago with the aim of promoting responsible, ethical, social and environmental practices.

By January 2008, there will be for the first time a set of global industry standards. "It is a challenge, as the jewellery industry is so fragmented, but we are going to make it work," says CRJP spokeswoman Peggy Jo Donahue.

One notable case is Tiffany & Co, whose commitment to knowing where its materials come from is the result of good management and circumstance. When the company went public in the late 1980s, the expansion of business sense meant it to produce most of its jewellery internally. The resulting vertical integration gave more control of the process, from mining to smelting.

The overall direction towards "fair trade" seems clear, even if progress is faster among retailers than further up the supply chain.

"I see this as a mega-trend that will become mainstream in five to 10 years," says Vivien Johnston, founder of Fifi Bijoux in Edinburgh, which makes and sells "ethical" jewels.

"The retailers get blamed but they are powerless. Once the big mining companies are behind it, things will really be different."

By Saleem Ali and Michael Cohen

 http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/commentary/data/peace_park

We are once again at the brink of a Middle East peace conference and Syria's attendance remains unlikely. U.S. and Israeli policy makers continue to speculate about the sincerity of Syrian involvement, and consequently the Syrians have dismissed the forthcoming meeting as a "waste of time." The most significant point of contention between Syria and Israel remains the disputed mountainous region of Golan, which Israel has occupied since 1967. In order to have meaningful engagement from Syria, creative solutions to the Golan conflict must be on the agenda of the proposed Annapolis meeting that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is planning.

...

This confluence of interests makes the region an ideal case for implementing a novel dispute-resolution strategy known as environmental peace-building. The strategy involves transforming disputed border areas into transboundary conservation zones with flexible governance arrangements. Such territorial arrangements are increasingly called peace parks. To some realist commentators this term may suggest idealistic or naive notions of conflict resolution, but it is championed even by military officers, such as retired Indian Air Marshal K. C. "Nanda" Cariappa, a former POW who has called for such a strategy to resolve India and Pakistan's dispute over the Siachen glacier.

Earlier this year an old proposal for resolving the Golan conflict was resurrected by Syrian-American negotiator Ibrahim Suleiman and former director-general of Israel's foreign ministry Alon Liel. They met with the Israeli Knesset's Foreign Relations and Defense Committee to develop a plan to establish a jointly administered peace park between Syria and Israel in the Golan. The proposal was initially motivated by Robin Twite's work at the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information during the 1990s. Now the strategic plan for the effort has been laid out in detail and the momentum is there to move forward on this solution, which is feasible in the Golan given the demographics of the region. According to the plan, Syria would be the sovereign in all of the Golan, but Israelis could visit the park freely, without visas. In addition, territory on both sides of the border would be demilitarized along a 4:1 ratio in Israel's favor.

...

This understanding of the dynamic opens up possibilities for a new scenario whereby a third party is involved. In addition to the peace park proposal, it is also possible to set up a Druze Autonomous Area that is neither Israeli nor Syrian but jointly administered by a commission. Similar proposals have also been initiated by Friends of the Earth Middle East along the Jordan River, and there is, at least on paper, a marine peace park between Jordan, Israel, and Egypt in the Gulf of Aqaba (which was established as part of the first round of Oslo negotiations). The Golan proposal is geographically much more significant in terms of its joint-management potential and also as a means for instrumental conflict resolution between two states that currently do not recognize each other.

... 

Putting a Golan Heights Peace Park on the Annapolis conference agenda may help garner wider support among Arab states and also facilitate stabilization in Iraq since Syria is a significant player on that front as well. Territorial bargaining with environmental factors in mind has proved successful in other conflicts, such as between Ecuador and Peru in the Cordillera del Condor region in the 1990s. The establishment of a jointly managed conservation zone was instrumental in resolving that dispute, which was mediated by the United States twelve years ago. It is high time that we consider ecological solutions in the Golan conflict, which is demographically and spatially configured for green diplomacy.

Saleem H. Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont's Rubenstein School of Environment and editor of the new book Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (MIT Press). Rabbi Michael Cohen is the director for special projects at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Israel.

16 November 2007
BBC Monitoring Africa
Text of report by Radio France Internationale on 16 November

In Madagascar, 12 peasants have been sentenced to death for not wanting to leave lands on which they had been living for years. Six others were sentenced to 12 years to hard labour.

In August 2006, about 100 residents of the village of Ankorondrano [rural commune in Antananarivo] had clashed with policemen who had come to remove them. Three were killed including two officers of the security forces.

It worth noting that the villagers were not the owners of the land they were farming. But they settled there after the French left. A wealthy real estate developer wanted to buy the land to build an amusement park. This is not an isolated occurrence, the big island is experiencing many land problems which they inherited from the colonization period.

Source: Radio France Internationale, Paris, in French 0730 gmt 16 Nov 07