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INSIDE AFRICA
2008 in Review
Aired December 20, 2008 - 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 ANCHOR: A year in review. One of the world's great statesmen turns 90. South Africa and the world honor Nelson Mandela on his birthday.
Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe presides over a country in ruins.
And in Kenya, a violent political divide, and then celebration after historic American election.
In this special edition of INSIDE AFRICA, we look back at the big stories of 2008.
Hello, I'm Isha Sesay. Welcome to INSIDE AFRICA. As 2008 draws to a close, we're going to take stock of some of the key moments on the continent through the eyes of our correspondents there. First, the iconic Nelson Mandela marks his 90th birthday this year, with celebrations in South Africa and abroad. Our Robyn Curnow covered the festivities and she sat down for some rare interviews with Mandela and some members of his family. She shares with us some of her reflections.
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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When I started working on the Mandela birthday special, I really wanted to give our viewers a sense of what makes Mandela tick. I mean, we all pretty much know the history, and it is, of course, a remarkable history. But I wanted to give a sense of what the personality is behind him, behind the icon. Who is Mandela, what does he do every day, his personality essentially, what makes him Nelson Mandela.
And I -- I think I've got that, and that was what was so exciting about it, just the little things about how he's very disciplined, but at the same time he's a simple guy. He likes his simple food, he likes his routine. He likes doing exercise. He also has a great sense of humor. I knew that because I had covered him for a number of years. I covered his presidency, and he was often willing to give reporters like me a little hug or, you know, he'd crack a joke during a press conference. So he's very warm to be around, and of course he's incredibly warm around children.
So he just exudes this incredibly happy persona, and I think that is the key to Nelson Mandela. He's intrinsically a happy person.
When I spoke to his wife, Graca Michel, she said he was probably one of the most contented people in the world, that he was very happy with who he was, he was very self-confident. He has very few regrets, and I think that comes out. The decisions he's made about his life sit comfortably with him. He doesn't worry about what happened in the past, and I think that's important. He comes across as somebody who's supremely self-confident, but not arrogant.
I ended up interviewing a lot of his grandchildren, and what struck me about the interviews -- and I didn't expect it -- was how open his granddaughters particularly were. Tukwini and Indialerka (ph), some of -- two of his older granddaughters -- gave me this wonderful interview. They were very open about how Mandela came out of jail. His grandchildren and his family found it difficult to get to -- to know him.
TUKWINI MANDELA, MANDELA'S GRANDDAUGHTER: I remember, you know, saying to my mother, you know, sometimes I'll be talking to granddad, and I feel like he's not listening to me. My mom said, no, he's listening to you, but you know, in prison he ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had to learn to detach.
TUKWINI MANDELA: He had to learn to detach and not show his emotions. And now he's come out and he has to relearn all of that stuff again, so you have to give him time, and spend as much time as you possibly can with him.
CURNOW: It must have been very difficult for all of you to try and maintain some sort of relationship.
NANDI MANDELA, MANDELA'S GRANDDAUGHTER: It was, and I think it was even much more difficult when he came out of prison, because he had 27 years of seclusion from his entire family. He tried to reach out, but I guess at the beginning, he didn't know how. OK. Because he'd been separated from the family, and it's a very unusual situation. And -- but he gave it his best, and we also had to meet him halfway.
CURNOW: My favorite aspect of the seven months of preparing this Mandela birthday special was actually being at his 90th birthday in Qunu, at his house in the Eastern Cape. Now, you do wind up seeing him a lot at press conferences, he often makes appearances, but it was -- it was really nice just sitting there and chatting with him. It wasn't a long interview, but it was special, and I think the important thing to take out of -- for me to take out of that interview was the sense that he has no regrets. He's 90.
NELSON MANDELA: I'm sure many people, that is their wish, and I also have that wish, that I spend more time with my family.
CURNOW: So, is that a regret of yours?
NELSON MANDELA: I don't regret it, because the things that attracted me were things that pleased myself. So I don't regret it.
CURNOW: And I think to somebody who is not particularly nostalgic about the past, I think that was a wonderful way for Nelson Mandela to sum up his own life.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: Next, to an African leader scorned, but still clinging to power. We look back at the year of misery for Zimbabwe, with a CNN reporter who went into the country despite a government ban. Also, political upheaval in Kenya. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA's look back at 2008.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Zim dollar continues to depreciate at such a staggering rate, many store owners now trade in foreign currency. 80 percent of the population is unemployed, and even with a job, life is tough in Zimbabwe.
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SESAY: Welcome back. Zimbabwe stayed in the headlines for much of this year, with disputed elections, economic freefall, political violence, and then a cholera epidemic. CNN is banned from entering the country, but our Nkepile Mabuse crossed into Zimbabwe twice at great personal risk. She described for us what she saw there.
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NKEPILE MABUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daily life in Zimbabwe is a huge struggle. Everywhere you go in the capital Harare, there are queues for everything, not only money, but there are queues for food, there are queues for petrol. It really, really is tragic. And also, I mean now there's a huge outbreak of cholera.
Raw sewage from burst pipes spews like a fountain, contaminating everything in its path, including wells and streams where many Zimbabweans are now getting water.
Robert Mugabe's government says it does not have enough chemicals to clean water. It has simply stopped providing it in some areas.
29-year old Joy Kabada (ph) died of cholera last month. His family says cholera took his life in a matter of hours.
Despite this, many here, including the Kabada family, continue to use wells and other risky ways of getting water, because they simply have no choice.
Doctors worry about this woman from Mashwinga (ph) in Zimbabwe. Eight months pregnant, she maybe too weak to give birth to a healthy baby.
And of course, they can't really get much help from the hospitals, because most of the main hospitals in Zimbabwe have shut. They don't have the resources, they don't have the personnel. Scores of Zimbabwean nurses and doctors have fled the country because it is just too difficult to live in that country.
CNN is banned from reporting inside Zimbabwe, but we managed to sneak into two of the country's largest hospitals to witness the conditions for ourselves. Inside, patients wait for hours to get help, because doctors and nurses have left the country's collapsing public healthcare system in droves. We're told there is only one doctor available at a time to admit the sick, and an eight-hour gap every day where there's no doctor at all in the emergency ward. In the 15 minutes that we were in this ward, the disease claimed yet another victim.
At the moment, what's happening is aid organizations are equipping clinics to try and treat the outbreak of cholera. You know, one Zimbabwean put it simply to me. He says if you are sick, if you get sick in Zimbabwe and you don't have money, you die.
Since CNN and other news agencies are not allowed to report in Zimbabwe, if the authorities would have spotted me, I would have been arrested. How long I would stay in prison is anyone's guess, really. I mean, in Zimbabwe, the police and the system there can do whatever they please with a human being.
They push shoppers trolleys for tips in the day, and at night entertain destitute Zimbabweans just like them, who had come to South Africa to seek a better life. Their short comic skits make fun of the daily hardships in their battered country.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No job!
MABUSE: The children act out how unemployment, food shortages and a collapsed economy have forced many to jump borders, often with the help of corrupt officials.
At age 15 and 14, brothers Tafu and Matias Malunga (ph) traveled to South Africa on their own in late October and are living in an open field, with close to 1,000 other Zimbabwean refugees. They're not the youngest members of this destitute community.
Here I saw many heartbreaking things in Zimbabwe. I spoke to people who were truly, truly suffering. But one image that will stick in my mind is when I was leaving Zimbabwe, I gave a waiter $20 U.S. dollars as a tip, and this man just started crying. And he said to me that, you know, he had been trying to save money for months to get a passport so he can leave the country.
We have to keep telling the Zimbabwe story. I mean the fact that Robert Mugabe does not want international news agencies in there is because he's trying to hide from the world what is really unfolding in that country. It is a huge humanitarian crisis that we need -- as journalists, it's our responsibility, especially on the continent -- to keep telling the world exactly what is happening in Zimbabwe, so that something can be done for the people of that country.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: Kenya falls apart, then comes back together again. Coming up on INSIDE AFRICA, Zain Verjee and David McKenzie have both sides of the story.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Making business news in Africa. London-based mining company Anglo American delayed expansion for its platinum procurement operation in South Africa. The company says it has not assessed the effect the delay will have on jobs.
Meanwhile, Pretoria-based Kumba Iron Ore Limited, controlled by Anglo, plans to cut fourth quarter output and slash 2009 capital expenditures by a fifth.
And Nigeria's National Petroleum Corporation is reportedly close to entering a joint venture with African Petroleum PLC to construct an oil refinery in Lagos. It's expected to get under way next year, and it would help to ease Nigeria's longstanding problem of getting its oil to distributors nationwide.
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SESAY: You're watching INSIDE AFRICA. Welcome back.
Like Zimbabwe, Kenya was traumatized by disputed elections and a rash of political violence this year. Thousands were displaced and about 1,000 were killed. CNN's Zain Verjee grew up in Kenya, and she covered the story for us. I asked her what it was like watching your country, which was once a beacon of stability, descend into chaos.
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ZAIN VERJEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was probably one of the most difficult and dangerous stories I've ever covered, Isha, simply because of the kind of story it was.
With our landing in Timboroa, as we've come here, we've seen areas that are completely devastated, homes burnt down.
The ethnic tensions, the ethnic bloodshed in the country really pushed toward the brink of collapse. That was the greatest fear. And on the other hand, it's home. My parents live there. I've been born and brought up there. It was difficult to see a country that most people know for safaris and amazing wild game and beautiful beaches of Mombasa and Lamu, suddenly places that became synonymous with danger and threats and bloodshed.
SESAY: How did you go about trying to really get across the complexities of what was really taking place?
VERJEE: Just to explain to people that there are more than 40 different tribes in Kenya, and most of the time the tribes have gotten along pretty well. Understanding the colonial history and what happened to make -- make a situation this difficult that where the (inaudible) could really be fueled by politicians that were looking for a fight, because at the end of the day, people don't necessarily have on a fundamental level, every single tribe, a fight with each other. Some of them do have legitimate differences, but it's always been relatively contained.
But this was a fight for power, between politicians of different tribes, and they really fueled in large part a situation that almost got out of control.
So, they burned the house yesterday, and she's just been sitting here since.
SESAY: One situation which clearly was spiraling out of control, and you found yourself in the midst of it was when security officials were approaching, and you got hit by teargas canister, and then you became the story, Zain.
VERJEE: Yeah, that was a really strange place to be. That was another layer on top of just sort of the obvious chaos and personal shock that I was going through.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you OK?
VERJEE: Yes, it's OK. I'm standing.
I really, though, Isha, just looking around at that moment, it was -- just became really aware that while that had happened, the biggest story was what was happening around me. And that was -- I remember this old woman selling tomatoes being just beaten up by the paramilitary forces, and, you know, and being targeted, the country going up in flames, villages and towns that I'd known just utterly destroyed.
SESAY: Did the story make you question the whole notion of objectivity?
VERJEE: I think more than objectivity, I would say that I could give perspective. I could draw on my experiences as a Kenyan, on my experiences of the different tribes and how they've lived amongst each other. It was a really important factor to explaining this situation, and to also explaining the psyche of the Kenyan people, which, as you know, when we cover stories, it's not what we just see on TV, isn't what the entire country thinks and what's happening in the entire country.
SESAY: It was an American election watched closely right around the world. Perhaps nowhere more so than in Kenya, that's straight ahead. Stay with us.
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DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The wave of Obamamania began when he visited his grandmother in western Kenya in 2006, and drew huge crowds. The presidential race has taken it to another level. You can buy CDs of Obama's speeches, wear Obama t-shirts, and even eat Obama cake.
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SESAY: Welcome back to INSIDE AFRICA. 2008 got off the terrible start for Kenya. The country narrowly avoided a civil war, and began to collect itself. But Kenyans found cause for celebration when one of the descendants of a native son was elected the president of the United States. Our David McKenzie covered the story from the hometown of Barack Obama's father, and he shared some of his experiences with us.
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MCKENZIE: As a reporter, I was initially just taken by surprise how excited people were about the Obama phenomenon.
Kenyans woke up a little bit early this morning to catch Barack Obama's historic speech from Denver. Because of a time change, it happened way before dawn here, so people had to set their alarm clocks just to catch as much as they could.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've been following everything from the TV to the newspapers to the magazines, because I think -- because he comes from my country, he originally is from here, he decides to be the U.S. president.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a young person, he shows me that there is possibilities for the young people around the world.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I watched it, and I thought it is a good thing, and people are coming together, and we want all the people in the world to know that America is together, it doesn't matter what your color is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Basically, yes, part of it -- part of it, but Obama, I think he's on the right track.
MCKENZIE: On the streets just walking around, doing this story or that story, people would stop us and say, hey, David, you know, we were watching CNN until 3:00, 4:00 in the morning to try and get the latest news of the Obama campaign, and that's not something I even do as someone who watches U.S. politics closely. So it's been quite extraordinary to follow this building momentum, that built from the primaries all the way to the election campaign with John McCain, and then, of course, finally that election night, which was quite a special time to be here in Africa.
I feel very privileged, and I think our whole team feels lucky to have been there in Kogelo. I mean, this isn't even a real village by even Kenyan standards. There is no shop, there is no main street, as it were. There is a school, obviously named after Senator Obama and now President Obama, and then there is the Obama household.
So at the time, there were more SUVs and pickup trucks than there were residents. There were journalists from all over the world doing live shots all night. It was quite a strange scene. We were, in fact, getting stuck in the mud pushing our vehicle through the streets of Kogelo at 2:00 in the morning. We spent the night outside Sarah Obama's house getting ready for that big moment, if Barack Obama would win. I particularly spent a lot of time with Malik Obama, Barack Obama's half-brother. He was there, just opened this house up, in true African fashion, to friends, families, even journalists -- anyone who wanted to watch CNN on the TV there that was hooked up to a generator that played all night, the results trickling in.
The actual moment was at first a bit of a letdown, because it happened early in the morning, everyone had been up all night. And it really took a bit of momentum to build, and when it built, the preacher got up and said, you know, "God bless Kenya, God bless Obama."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... in the name of Jesus Christ.
MCKENZIE: Then really the party started. And people were running through the streets with -- with branches that they pulled off the trees in a traditional Kenyan celebration, and they just stormed the house of Sarah Obama, and basically it's been a party in Kenya ever since, and an excitement about what Obama might mean for this continent.
So, what Obama really means is hope. It means that anything is possible, that people here, their son, their grandson, as he so eloquently put it, could be the president of Kenya, could even be the president of the United States. There is that sense of pride here and a sense that maybe this presidency will mean a more open-minded view about Africa.
President Bush is relatively popular in sub-Saharan Africa because of his strong AIDS policies, but like the rest of the world, there is this excitement here in Africa about a president who has international roots and particularly African roots, and no one is going to put those Obama T-shirts away any time soon, or in fact stop drinking Senator beer, which they've renamed Obama beer.
Let's give it a try. It's pretty good.
It's very strong, and it's very cheap, so obviously it's popular here in Kenya.
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SESAY: And there we must leave it. I'll be back next week, when we'll hear much more from our correspondents about covering some of the biggest stories on the continent in 2008, including the growing threat posed by pirates of Somalia waters and the parting of Mama Africa, Miriam Makeba. Thank you for watching. Bye for now.
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