| An Island
With Sapphire Fever |
| Madagascar's
Hidden Wealth |
| Madagascar
is a wonderful, tumbledown Indian Ocean island where people laugh at
hardship. The laughter is quieter in the highlands than on the coast, especially
in the north, where it seems as natural as the days and nights of equal
length the trade winds that blow off the ocean. The people of northern
Madagascar are aware of their land's individually. The tip of the island
is remote yet privileged.
The temperature
averages a balmy 77°F, freshwater is plentiful and anything grows
in the fertile soil. But the Tsaratanana mountain range, which cuts the
north off from the rest of the country, can be crossed only during the
dry season, and the population has mistrusted the central government and
the long-dominant highland ethnic groups for ages. With the Indian Ocean
on one side and the Mozambique channel on the other, the north is open
to the world. |
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The cosmopolitan
population includes Afro-Malays, Arabs, Comorians, Creoles, Indians,
Pakistanis and Chinese -a human brew that fosters a bemused skepticism.
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The harbor
of Diego-Suarez, named
after two Portuguese explorers who "discovered" Madagascar, is on the island's
northeastern end. Shaped like a four-leaf clover, the 300 square-foot natural
body of water is lined with beaches, mangroves and cliffs. It is considered
one of the world's most beautiful harbors. Merchants, traffickers and buccaneers
from around the world have found refuge in Diego. |
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| A century
before the French Revolution, a ragtag handful of pirates lorded by a Provencal
gentleman and a defrocked Italian monk - Mission and Caracole - founded
a multi-national, multi-racial, egalitarian republic, out of reach of the
world's powers. Libertarian, as they called it, had a constitution, a parliament
and a freely elected president.The adventure quickly ran a ground,
but the dream is still alive. An account in Daniel Depoe’s General History
of the Most Famous Pirates is the odysseys only written trace.
Mission and
Caracole recognized that Diego was strategically located and easy to defend.
They were also aware of Madagascar's potential wealth. The French came
to the same conclusion when they showed up uninvited two centuries later.
The colonizers cleared the land for export crops, prospected for minerals
and fortified the natural harbor at Diego. Diego is primarily a port. |
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Offshore
Resources Gallery
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| The city itself,
a chaotic outgrowth of the harbor, is in dire need of planning. Turn-of-the
century postcards show an eclectic mix of beautiful Indian mansions and,
already, jumbled, ramshackle shanties made of wood and two Foreign Legion
regiments. There was a ball every night, beer flowed like water, CFA francs
were plentiful and men in French uniform were everywhere.
Eventually,
the contrast with the indigenous islanders' poverty reached the breaking
point. In 1972, student riots toppled the pro-French Tsiranana regime.
Three years later, young nationalists seized power, bent on ending neo-colonialism
and turning Madagascar into a Socialist-leaning republic with a third-world
outlook.
At first, the
intelligentsia and most of the population backed the "revolution",
but the country changed course at a critical moment. The oil crisis had
rocked the world economy and prices of raw materials were plummeting on
international markets. By the late 1980s, the huge foreign debt forced
the government to adopt free-maket policies. It was in this context
that the amazing news broke two years ago: south of Diego, that people
were scooping up sapphires by the shovelful. |
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| In 1995, farmers
on an illegal wood-cutting expedition in the Ankarana forest reported seeing
fistfuls of blue stones. At first they thought the gems were worthless.Then
the truth came out.The sapphire rush was on. Like many Madagascan names,
Ambondromifehy is hard to pronounce (for the foreigners).
The crowded
village consists of several thousand traditional houses clustered on either
side of the highway. For several miles the main street is nothing but a
bazaar where everything is up for grabs. Ambondromifehy must be the best
supplied outback market in Madagascar. Small tables and braided mats lying
on the ground are cluttered with plates of blue pebbles, beam scales and
calculators.
These stones,
that is, the more valuable gems are traded openly in the street. |
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Offshore
Resources Gallery
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| People walk
with their elbows raised, their forearms vertical, their hands at eye-level,
pinching something small between the thumb and index finger. The stones
are palmed around with everyone taking time to look. The bargaining is
fierce, but from time to time, a deal is struck and a stone changes hands.
It can change hands several times, for there is no lack of middlemen at
the gem market. Gem merchants acquire them for clients in Diego or Nosy
Be and major dealers come from Antananarivo or from other African countries.
Prices depend on quality and need. At first, inexperienced merchants were
selling three-gram stones for 10.000 francs a piece. Today they are worth
over two million.
A huge vacant
lot sits at the village's entrance. Here, dozens of shanty houses were
burned down the night before. At Tombolaza, the village council president
says, "We were lucky". "The fire broke out at one in the morning,
when there was no wind. If it had started three hours later, half the village
would be gone."
Fire is not
what really worries the leader of this community, which grew from 50 inhabitants
two years ago to 15, 000 today. "It's like the wild West here",
he says. "People do what they want, build where they want, dig anywhere.
We gave permission to dig east of the road, not west, where the rice paddies
find their source of freshwater and where Ankarana forest, a protected
reserve, is located. Today almost everyone digs on the west side. People
flock here from all over the island.
That's natural
because at home they don't have enough to live on, and the land is for
all Malagasy people. But they should at least register and obey the rules.
"Most prospectors take a trail from the village center, on the "wrong"
side of the road. It leads to the oxbow lakes, sacred to the people of
Ankarana, where they wash in the traditional manner. The trail rises through
the forest, where most of the pits are in operation today.
At first, sapphires
were found right on the ground; now they are buried at least 15 feet deep.
We
pass a line of prospectors on on the narrow trail. Bags tossed over
their shoulders contain the ore, which they are on their way to wash. The
next day the village is bubbling with excitement.
The "authorities"
accompanied
by a few police with rifles slung over their shoulders, have arrived. Announcements
are made over loudspeakers and leaflets handed out. From now on, everyone
must register and possess an identity card. It is against the law to dig
on the "wrong" side of the road, and to build less than 40 feet from it.
Illegal houses will be torn down within two weeks. Here and there, a few
groups discuss whether the measures should be taken seriously. Some tension
is in the air, but most of the remarks are wisecracks. Everyone knows tomorrow
the police will be gone.
Useful Addresses
Hotel de la
Poste, PoBox 478, rue Joffre, E-mail : hoteldelaposte@simicro.mg
Hotel Le Colbert
email : hlcdiego@dts.mg
Ramena nofy
at Ramena Beach, tel. 261 20 82 223.64, Sixteen bungalows.
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