Africa Investigates - Fool's Gold

With the price of precious metals surging on the world market, Ghana is experiencing a new gold rush as more people try and get access to its most famous export. Unfortunately, much of that effort revolves around unlicensed - and hence illegal - mining operations, known locally as galamsey, which are often funded by foreign speculators and criminals. The potential profits are huge but few if any of the groups and individuals involved will spare a thought for the environmental destruction illegal mining causes or for the safety of workers they hire, on pitiful salaries, to extract the gold on their behalf.

As Ghanaian investigative reporter, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, has been discovering, the consequences of this indifference can be tragic. In June 2010 for example, one galamsey operation near Dunkwa-on-Offin, in central Ghana, went disastrously wrong when the mine flooded and 150 people were killed. It devastated the local community, but it was by no means an isolated incident. Often accidents occur when miners build unstable river dams to create a large pool of water, which they can then drain to allow digging down into the soft exposed soil. Unfortunately, the dams can burst and the miners are trapped in oozing mud without any means of getting themselves to safety. Or it can result in widespread local flooding, which devastates local communities.

Galamsey also causes serious environmental problems and water pollution. Many mining operators are now focusing their efforts on the rivers themselves, using specialist imported machinery to suck up mud from the river bed. This is then treated with chemicals, including poisons such as cyanide, lead and mercury, to extract the gold before the waste is deposited back into the rivers. Aside from the dreadful consequences this has for aquatic life, the toxins are absorbed by humans because fish is a necessary food source and the rivers are often the only source of water for drinking and bathing. Dozens of people have died and hundreds more have been poisoned because of the after effects.

The problem of illegal gold mining has become so serious in some parts of Ghana that President John Atta Mills has said that he will take whatever steps are necessary to stop it. But somehow, despite the best efforts of the authorities, who occasionally launch high profile raids to shut the galamsey operations down, illegal mining continues to thrive. Indeed, as this investigation reveals, the operations have proved so lucrative that in parts of Ghana, a wave of Chinese speculators has moved in to provide the funds to hire the workers and import the necessary machinery. At one point Anas goes undercover to work in an illegal mine run by one of these groups, for less than $6 a day, and finds that children are being employed too and in the most primitive conditions.

Anas also discovers, the single most important reason for all this activity, aside from the promise of big profits for the mining operators, is that corruption is allowing it to flourish, even among those who are supposed to be stopping it. At one point, posing as a would-be mine operator who wants to bring in boats and machinery to dredge a river for gold, he finds it is distressingly easy to bribe local police officials to look the other way.

Video documents carnage in Ivory Coast

(CNN) -- A video posted online documents in chilling, graphic detail the transformation Thursday of a peaceful demonstration in the Ivory Coast city of Abidjan to a slaughter by what appear to be forces loyal to self-proclaimed President Laurent Gbagbo.

U.S. officials said Friday that the attack left seven women dead, but Gbagbo rival Alassane Ouattara put the death toll at 12, including a child, with 110 more people wounded.

The video was broadcast widely on opposition television in the Ivory Coast. CNN staffers familiar with Abidjan said the video appeared to have been recorded in the city.

The video, about eight minutes, is posted on YouTube. In it, hundreds of people, most of them women dressed in brightly colored garb, are seen smiling, chanting, playing horns, blowing whistles and dancing. Many of them are carrying signs with slogans written in French that refer to Gbagbo as "assassin" and "robber of power." One of them holds a poster declaring Gbagbo's rival, former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, as president. None of them appears to be carrying a weapon.

Dark clouds hang low.

But the chanting soon stops, replaced by an eerie quiet, as the hand-held camera turns away from the crowd and focuses on the approach of a convoy of three camouflage-painted armored vehicles, one of them bearing the word "Police."

Without any apparent warning, a volley of three bursts from a heavy-caliber gun pierces the quiet, followed by screams as the marchers, including whoever is holding the camera, run from the street, leaving behind pavement littered with flip-flops, clothing and tote bags.

To a soundtrack of wailing, the camera then makes its way toward individual mounds of flesh on the pavement, each steeped in a pool of red. One woman appears to have been decapitated; another has suffered a deep wound in the neck; yet another a deep wound in the back. The latter, her torso soaked in red, tries to raise her head from the pavement but soon gives up, lowering back down.

A spokesman for Gbagbo, Sylvere Nebout, said in a telephone interview that he knew nothing about the video, but added that this is "as usual, a manipulation from the opposition."

He forwarded a statement from army spokesman Col. Hilaire Babri Gohourou, which aired Friday night on television. It denied involvement of defense and security forces. "These charges are necessarily false and without any ground," he said, adding that no security and defense forces had been in the area of the attack -- the Abidjan suburb of Abobo -- on Thursday.

"I'm in a state of shock," said Youssoufou Bamba, the U.N. ambassador to the Ivory Coast and a supporter of Ouattara. "Having watched that video now, I'm quite depressed."

He accused Gbagbo -- a southern Christian -- of seeking to foment the nation's descent toward civil war. "Actually, he's conducting an ethnic cleansing because the people who have been killed have been killed along ethnic lines," Bamba said, referring to the mostly Muslim people from the northern and central parts of the country and from neighboring countries.

He called for the United Nations to be given "a robust mandate" for its peacekeeping operation in the country. And the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, should step in and protect the civilians," Bamba said. "Otherwise, as long as this crisis lasts, people will be killed." He put the death toll in the past three months at 600.

The United Nations has said that at least 365 people have been killed since the crisis started in December.

In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that the United States "strongly condemns Laurent Gbagbo's acts of violence perpetrated against the people of Cote d'Ivoire, including his security forces' attack yesterday on unarmed women demonstrators that left seven dead. Gbagbo and his forces have shown a callous disregard for human life and the rule of law, preying on the unarmed and the innocent. He should step aside immediately in the name of peace."

She called for an immediate end to the violence. "Military leaders, regime officials, and others responsible for directing or committing violent acts against civilians will have to answer for their actions," she said.

In early December, Ivory Coast's Independent Electoral Commission declared Ouattara the winner of the presidential election but the Constitutional Council refused to validate the results. The head of the CC is an ally of Gbagbo.

The IEC says Ouattara received 54.1% of the runoff vote, but Gbagbo said results from a northern region were fraudulent.

The U.N. Security Council and international powers endorsed Ouattara.

Both men have named their own Cabinets and are claiming the presidency. Ouattara has been working from a hotel and has been protected by U.N. peacekeepers.

The French Foreign Ministry also condemned the attacks and called on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to "establish an inquiry commission which will be credible, independent and impartial under the U.N. auspices."

The ministry also called on the "Ivorian Laurent Gbagbo-controlled media to stop spreading messages of hatred and violence."

Since the clashes began, hundreds of thousands have fled their homes, with about 200,000 leaving the Abidjan area alone.

The United Nations refugee agency warned Friday that it is becoming impossible to maintain access to people in need of urgent humanitarian aid due to the escalating violence.