In 2005, the biggest disaster in Zambia's industrial history took place at Chambishi when an explosion at an NFCA-linked Chinese explosives factory (aptly named BGRIMM) incinerated an unknown number of Zambians; their unrecognizable body parts are buried in a makeshift cemetery just outside of the mine's main gate. The Zambian government has never released any findings on the cause of the incident, which local experts attribute to a heavy reliance on unskilled casual workers. A year after the blast, a riot by Chambishi workers ended in five dead. Nobody was prosecuted, and whether the shooters were Zambian police, Chinese managers, or a Chinese security firm isn't known. "Zambia is a festering wound for China," says Corkin.
I decide to visit Chambishi to find out why the mine has developed such an atrocious reputation -- far worse than that of the big mines here owned by Australian, British, Canadian, Indian, and Swiss investors. I arrange a meeting with the Zambian head of human resources at the mine, Wigan Mumba. It is a deeply frustrating encounter, during which he admits he is unable to give me any reports or documents about the operation and that only senior Chinese managers are authorized to talk to the media -- and probably wouldn't talk to me.
On my way out of the compound, I notice the Chinese and Zambian flags flying together over the main headquarters building. By the compound's gates, I spot a white bus letting off Zambian workers. I snap a photo and am immediately challenged by a guard who approaches my car. "What are you doing taking a picture?" he yells. "No pictures here. Next time ..." he slaps his wrists together to demonstrate how I'd be arrested. On the highway just outside the gate, a giant billboard reads, BGRIMM Explosives -- Turning Your Rocks Into Gold, even though the factory has been defunct since the blast.
Not far from the mine, in the heart of what is called the Chambishi Township, lies a boundless slum that is home to many of the mine's workers and their families. At the Future Inn, a listing shack selling local beer to a Bob Marley sound track, it didn't take long for about a dozen miners to surround me, each jabbering louder than the next about how much they hate the Chinese owners. I ask Lennon Nsofwa, 37, a "blaster," why he is barefoot. "How can I have shoes?" he replies. "I have a $200-a-month salary, and I'm a father of three."
The Future Inn sits alongside a pit filled with rubbish, a common sight in the township. Since the government rarely collects the trash here anymore, the residents have taken to digging these craters and tossing it themselves. That has brought a big increase in flies and mosquitoes, as well as their attendant diseases. More than 25% of annual mortality in the Copperbelt is due to malaria; one in five people here has HIV. In the township itself, where parasites proliferate alongside the desperate prostitutes, the numbers are even worse.
Francis Bwalya is the elected councillor for one of the wards near the Chambishi mine and was a safety coordinator at the mine when I visited. "We only have portable fire extinguishers, which are not for big fires," he complains. Bwalya says that in the event of an underground inferno, the Chinese depend on another local mine to put it out. "Their main interest is making money," he says. "They are overlooking the safety of employees."
Peter Mwale, a geological foreman, produces a pay stub that shows he makes $250 a month -- a salary that experts in the region say is probably the lowest paid by any company in the Copperbelt to a foreman. (One Western mining executive in the area says a foreman should be earning five times that amount.) I crush a cigarette underfoot. When I move my shoe, one of the workers bends over, scoops up the crushed butt, and relights it.
Martin Soteli, 28, a laboratory science analyst at the plant, offers to spend a few hours the following morning showing me a nearby settlement called Zambia Compound, where many miners live -- a dangerous place for an outsider to visit alone. The compound is a maze of feculent alleys; a four-inch layer of dirt kicks up as we walk, creating a fog that renders everything in slow motion. There is no relief from the poverty. "White man!" someone shouts, as I pass through the center of the village. Little children yell, "Chinese! Chinese!"
"When they see Chinese in this compound," Soteli says, "sometimes they throw stones." We approach the one-room house of a man in a bright yellow shirt with rotting gums who says his name is Happy. He is a casual worker at the Chinese mine, which means he is employed for a three-month period without benefits or a contract, which the law allows. "I'm working more than six months and I'm still casual," he says. "Look at my house. No electricity. One seat to sit in, for me and my wife."
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Recent Comments | 10 Total
June 20, 2008 at 2:09am by Elliot Noteware
Wow what an intereting read, we will be tapped out soon.