How the people of South West Cameroon resisted sell-out leaders, corrupt politicians and land-grabbing businessmen. For six years, the people and nobles of South West Cameroon have been resisting efforts by local officials and businessmen to sell their land to American palm oil company Herakles. Chief Bisong Etahoben kept a diary. SUNDAY NOVEMBER 2, 2008: Chief Agbor Robertson of Okoroba village visits me in Yaounde to tell me that a certain Dr Isidore Nse Timti, a former manager of the Cameroonian...
How the people of South West Cameroon resisted sell-out leaders, corrupt politicians and land-grabbing businessmen. For six years, the people and nobles...
Investigative journalists in southern Africa can often not investigate the state, since there isn’t any. The man standing in the thin shade of a traffic sign in the blazing midday sun explains why poaching rhinos is not such a bad thing. “It’s our living. Some people in my village have big and expensive houses because of hunting. Poaching bosses have started trucking and construction companies with the money they made. Some city councillors’ houses and municipal offices have been funded by them.”...
Investigative journalists in southern Africa can often not investigate the state, since there isn’t any. The man standing in the thin shade of a traffic...
Landing a rich sugar daddy has been a way out of poverty for women, and some men, since time immemorial. Very few people have never seen a young woman walking next to, smiling lovingly at, or getting in the car of, a clearly loaded and seemingly unrelated older guy. It is such a cliché precisely because it occurs so often, though the phenomenon is naturally more prevalent in poorer than in more comfortable places. In the Netherlands, most young women nowadays thankfully have many options to secure...
Landing a rich sugar daddy has been a way out of poverty for women, and some men, since time immemorial. Very few people have never seen a young woman...
Charity claims that ‘babies’ are snatched away by ‘pimps’ from desperate ‘young girls who are forced into prostitution’ in South Africa. True? The former Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund branch in the Netherlands, now renamed ‘Children’s Fund Mamas’ (Kinderfonds Mamas)(1), is raising funds for adoptive services for babies whose mothers, it says, are ‘young girls’ who are ‘forced into prostitution’ in South Africa. Reason: ‘the pimps take the girls’ babies away when they get pregnant and they...
Charity claims that ‘babies’ are snatched away by ‘pimps’ from desperate ‘young girls who are forced into prostitution’ in South Africa. True? The former...
It’s always nice when a new initiative is warmly greeted, but the way our focus group (of publishers, photographers, journalists, fellow media and general acquaintances) responded to the trial issue of ZAM Chronicle was beyond expectation. Meant as no more than a first taste of our plans, and sent to only 150 close individual partners and friends, articles from The ZAM Chronicle 0 were positively reviewed and even reproduced by such diverse entities as an agricultural institute, a corruption...
It’s always nice when a new initiative is warmly greeted, but the way our focus group (of publishers, photographers, journalists, fellow media and...
What Mandela once tried to tell the Middle East may still inspire the solidarity movement today. It was almost like in the old days of the struggle against apartheid. A mass march in Cape Town against an oppressor whose discourse was racial; who regarded people of a different ethnicity as alien, dangerous and in need of containment. An oppressor who invaded peoples’ living areas with military might; bulldozed their houses; arrested people in the streets, beat them and humiliated them, often in...
What Mandela once tried to tell the Middle East may still inspire the solidarity movement today. It was almost like in the old days of the struggle...
Even if blander than the book, 'Half of a Yellow Sun' movie is a gripping tale of sisterhood and war. Since its publication in 2007, Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun has emerged as one of the most beloved and critically acclaimed works of contemporary African literature. Set in Nigeria in the decade starting at independence (in 1960) and including the Biafran war (1967-1970), the novel offers a sweeping portrayal of the ravages the war wrought on families and friendships, humans and...
Even if blander than the book, 'Half of a Yellow Sun' movie is a gripping tale of sisterhood and war. Since its publication in 2007, Chimamanda Adichie’s...
The winners of the photography contest POPCAP14 depict secluded young mothers, traditional elders, war survivors and children playing in the canals of a diamond mine. The individuals with scars on their faces in Joana Choumalis photographs are all old, which is why her series of portraits is called “The Last Generation”. ‘Writing’ on skin, as ritual scarification is called in Burkina Faso, used to allocate dignity and respect to the scarred person. But the practice is dying out. “This last...
The winners of the photography contest POPCAP14 depict secluded young mothers, traditional elders, war survivors and children playing in the canals of a...
Fourteen investigative journalists from ten African countries have come together to market their stories to international media. A veritable A-team of investigative journalists in West, East and southern Africa have come together to form a publishing collective that plans to knock on the doors of international media. “This is about creating a platform for our investigative stories”, says multi-award winning initiator Idris Akinbajo, from Nigeria. “There is no scarcity of news and opinion about...
Fourteen investigative journalists from ten African countries have come together to market their stories to international media. A veritable A-team of...
Lumumba's Widow is one of 200 masterpieces in Marlene Dumas new exhibition. The long awaited exhibition of Marlene Dumas has opened in Amsterdam. It is presenting around 200 of her works! We were deeply touched by ‘The Widow’, inspired by a picture of Patrice Lumumba’s widow attending the funeral of her murdered husband. Read about the making of this work here Marlene Dumas is a staunch supporter of ZAM. In 2008, she gave ZAM permission to produce and sell 250 copies of her ‘Portrait of a young...
Lumumba's Widow is one of 200 masterpieces in Marlene Dumas new exhibition. The long awaited exhibition of Marlene Dumas has opened in Amsterdam. It is...
On Saturday 1 November 2014 members of the ZAM promotional team will be present at the annual Afrika Dag (Africa Day) of the Evert Vermeer Stichting in Amsterdam. More than 800 participants are expected and receive this new, intriguing postcard from ZAM.
On Saturday 1 November 2014 members of the ZAM promotional team will be present at the annual Afrika Dag (Africa Day) of the Evert Vermeer Stichting in...
Production started! The feature 'How do you want me to look?', published in the ZAM Commemmorative Issue about Nelson Mandela, will be turned into a small exhibition. The exhibition will contain of portraits of Mandela by Dutch photographers Kadir van Lohuizen, Daniel Koning and Sander Veenemann. To be launched at Arti, the HQ of South African documentary filmmakers at IDFA.
Production started! The feature 'How do you want me to look?', published in the ZAM Commemmorative Issue about Nelson Mandela, will be turned into a...
In the aftermath of a seminar about African investigative journalism held in Amsterdam, Tobore Ovuorie and Kassim Mohamed visited ZAM. Both are acclaimed for their daring work and we were in awe listening to Kassim about his undercover work amid armed gangs in Nairobi and his investigation into the smuggling of small arms in the East African region. The world was outraged and saddened by the terrorist attack on the Nairobi Westgate shopping mall last year, but how did the arms enter Kenya? Check...
In the aftermath of a seminar about African investigative journalism held in Amsterdam, Tobore Ovuorie and Kassim Mohamed visited ZAM. Both are acclaimed...
Kenya | Traditional families in ‘little Mogadishu’ reform their ‘westernised’ children by force. A moral majority campaign is sweeping through ‘little Mogadishu’, the Somali district of Eastleigh in Nairobi, Kenya. Families force girls to wear hijab and get circumcised; boys get beaten until they at least renounce the ‘evil spirits’ that led them either to crime, drugs or same-sex relationships. Even Somali families based in the West send ‘wayward’ children home to be forcibly ‘returned to the...
Kenya | Traditional families in ‘little Mogadishu’ reform their ‘westernised’ children by force. A moral majority campaign is sweeping through ‘little...
At African Investigative Journalism Conference. Photo by Sanne Terlingen It is cold in Johannesburg, but so refreshing to see old faces. We catch up, exchange banters and briefly summarise our individual experiences in the last one year. Some of us have won journalism awards; some have done new great stories; some have moved to other media. Investigative journalism remains tough, but when you manage to publish and even begin to receive acclaim, it’s all worth it. The keynote was riveting today....
At African Investigative Journalism Conference. Photo by Sanne Terlingen It is cold in Johannesburg, but so refreshing to see old faces. We catch up,...
Together with Sabine Luning (Leiden University) ZAM editor Bart Luirink discussed recent developments in Burkina Faso and its impact on African autocracies on Dutch Radio 1 on Tuesday 4 November 9h00 PM. Listen here!
Together with Sabine Luning (Leiden University) ZAM editor Bart Luirink discussed recent developments in Burkina Faso and its impact on African...
ZAM’s investigative reporter Theophilus Abbah reports on his second day at the African Investigative Journalism Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. I was curious to know how one can use radio to do an investigative story and was therefore happy to listen to Daniel Ohman from Sweden, who showed a smart approach. Having received some classified documents on an illegal weapon factory deal between Sweden and Saudi Arabia, Ohman contacted government officials who signed the documents and recorded...
ZAM’s investigative reporter Theophilus Abbah reports on his second day at the African Investigative Journalism Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa....
In a mailing to our Chronicle readers we announced that we had three books of America/Nigerian author Teju Cole's new book ‘ Every Day is for the Thief ’ to raffle and we would now like to congratulate the winners. The winners of this giveaway are: Teun de Laat, Els Willems and Marga Vintges. ZAM will send the winners a copy of the book by snail mail. If you don't want to miss future raffles, please like our Facebook and subscribe to the Chronicle newsletter. Read a review ( in Dutch or in English...
In a mailing to our Chronicle readers we announced that we had three books of America/Nigerian author Teju Cole's new book ‘ Every Day is for the Thief ’...
Dutch Sierra Leonean Babah Tarawally has lived in fear of the Ebola virus for the past seven months. This is his diary. March 18, 2014 “Patient zero was identified as a two year old boy. He died on December 6, 2013 in Gueckedou in south-eastern Guinea. A week after his death his mother died, then his 3-year-old sister, then his grandmother. All had fever, vomiting and diarrhea, but no one knew what had sickened them.” It is an entry on a Facebook page that catches my attention. I know Gueckedou: I...
Dutch Sierra Leonean Babah Tarawally has lived in fear of the Ebola virus for the past seven months. This is his diary. March 18, 2014 “Patient zero was...
Photography, belief and truth merge at LagosPhoto How do unshakable conviction, truth and photography interact? The fifth edition of Nigeria's influential photography festival currently presents the work of forty photographers from Africa and the rest of the world. The motto: ‘Staging Reality, Documenting Fiction.’ Allowing diverse disciplines such as conceptual art, installation and theatre, the creators explore the limits that traditionally define photo-journalism. The results are gripping and...
Photography, belief and truth merge at LagosPhoto How do unshakable conviction, truth and photography interact? The fifth edition of Nigeria's...
