If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113.

Hatari

by Ernie Palamarek; co-published with Trade Winds Productions

305 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-2203; ISBN 1-4120-1826-9; US$26.00, C$29.95, EUR21.50, £15.00

Hatari, Palamarek's fifth romantic adventure novel, features the somewhat-jaded-but-dashing Rune Erikson, whose desperate search for slave children leads him into the diamond fields of steaming equatorial Africa.

Read more!

about the book      about the author      excerpt      catalogue info

About the Book Jambo! Experience deepest, darkest Africa! It's the beautiful but dangerous setting for this shocking saga of one Sudanese family's staggering adversity that mirrors present-day Africa. Decimated and put into iron-clad slavery, the family is split apart and sold to the highest bidders in West Africa. Rune Erikson becomes infatuated with a beautiful South African UN worker. The seductress pulls him into a vortex of slavery and blood diamonds. Hatari, the fifth novel in a series, features the somewhat-jaded-but-dashing Rune Erikson, who desperately searches through diamond fields from Canada's frozen Arctic to steaming equatorial Africa. Rune rides camels through the shifting sands of Timbuktu, then treks through the muddy diamond pits of Congo, the beautiful port of Cape Town, the wild bushveldt of Johannesburg, the zealotry of Zimbabwe, the intrigue of Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, and Mombasa, the nonsentient streets of Nairobi, and is initiated into the ways of the colourful warriors of the Masai Mara. Braving marauding lions, snorting hippos, stomping elephants, and soul-sapping jungle humidity, Rune fights African warlords and diamond smugglers in his quest for justice. Coloured by romance and spiced with eroticism, this adventure lures Rune off his sailing ketch, Valhalla, in Victoria's Fisherman's Wharf into the soft arms of a sizzling South African Dutch enchantress, becoming embedded in the myths and legends of tribal Africa. "Ernie Palamarek's Thundersea is an exciting debut from an author who obviously knows a thing or three about adventure." - Chapters.ca The Secret Temple of Kintamani: "I couldn't put it down!" "It was a good read!" - Reader's Domain Along Came A Swagman: "He sure has a way of using words to paint a picture." - WAMC New York's Environment Show. Amazonia: "I liked it . . . I liked it a lot!" - Reader's Domain

---

About the Author Ernie Palamarek has appeared as a guest on New York's WAMC syndicated weekly, The Environment Show, reading from his novels to global audiences of over fifty million people. He has had feature articles and photos published in national magazines and is the author of the Rune Erikson series of mystery novels which bloom in Canada and burst forth in exotic locations around the world. Having spent his youth growing up in the saddle on the Alberta cattle ranching prairie, he has a keen appreciation for nature's wondrous beauty and its amazing resiliency which balances the eggshell fragility of Earth's environment. He has worked in public relations for a major newspaper, in a research and development laboratory, in his own businesses, and in the service of a federal government agency. Combining his eye for detail with a vivid imagination, he continues to wander the world searching for adventure while trying to fortuitously sidestep danger - to observe, to listen, and to talk to wonderfully-different people in strange and fascinating exotic lands. He experiences the adventure and journeys through life with his wife, Sharon, a published photographer in her own right. She has a keen eye for style, colour and composition, and shares his passionate quest for adventurous travel. The author has lived in Victoria, British Columbia since he was twenty years old. Vancouver Island, a temperate rainforest off Canada's west coast, is his retreat in the Pacific Ocean. HATARI is Palamarek's fifth novel.

---

Excerpt from Chapter Eighteen:

"He thought that you got lost in the mansion."

"Not at all. I simply got a bout of sneezing from the dust and the dankness. I had to return rather quickly. In any case, I am here now so you can tell Wouter that he can relax."

"He asked me to see that you aren't inconvenienced any more."

"I'm touched! Such a fine gesture from such a busy man."

The doorman at the gate announced yet another diplomatic couple arriving for the garden party barbeque: His Excellency Jaap Van der Volden, Ambassador of the Royal Netherlands Embassy , and Mrs. Hilda Van der Volden.

"By the way, that's quite the bracelet that you have on your wrist, Dan."

"Yes, isn't it? I especially like gold and diamonds. I think they are a strong combination, don't you think so?"

"The diamonds are unusually blue, are they not?"

"Yes, they are. They were gifts mostly from my former girlfriends. They kept adding blue diamonds to the bracelet. I like to keep my memories of them close at hand. As you can see, there is room for many more gifts," he bragged.

"You are a sentimentalist?"

"One could say that. Once I become infatuated with a woman, it's hard for me to let go," he declared with an undisguised glint of evil in his eye.

I did a double-take until I realized that the glint in his eye was the gleaming reflection of one of his diamonds thrown off by the glow from the braai.

"Are they DeBeers diamonds?"

"Ah, ha, ha! That's good! DeBeers! No, they're not DeBeers. And even if they were it would be in name only. You see? The DeBeers brothers were farmers who were practically run off their land, well, they actually left their name and their land to a cartel. They were paid a pittance for their property. No, it was the old shell game. Now you see it and now you don't."

"What do you mean by that?"

"This country has a history of physical, financial and religious invaders. Usually they are all one and the same. Indeed, the continent is like one big prize."

"Really."

"Yes! You see, Mister Erikson? When the white man came to the African continent they had the bibles and we had the land. Now, centuries later, we have the bibles and they have the land!"

"Well put, my good man! Well put!" declared a black man of some bearing. "And that is why our country is taking back what once belonged to us."

"And you are . . .?" I asked.

"This is His Excellency Solomon Mutepfa, High Commissioner for the Republic of Zimbabwe," Clamani explained. "He is a man ahead of his time."

"Thank you," the High Commissioner replied with a broad smile that highlighted his two front gold-capped teeth.

"In historical retrospect," I interjected, "wouldn't one come to the conclusion that it wasn't just the white man who invaded Africa. It's more likely that it was invaded by a series of tribal groups. I don't mean to be disrespectful but isn't there a better way of accomplishing your taking back the land?"

"The white people have taken the land from us and have made huge profits from the land. Now it is our task to take back what was rightfully ours."

"But can't the government phase in a buyout of these properties?"

"Time is of the essence and the government coffers are low. Don't forget that we had spent considerable money and resources in sending our troops to help defend the Democratic Republic of the Congo against the rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. There is no other way."

They did this in the hope of getting some of the spoils or territory, I thought, and not out of the goodness of their heart. "Surely this can be accomplished without strangling the rural economy! These are men and women of some considerable farming experience that could be passed on."

"If they want to work for us we will consider it, though we haven't had any such offers."

"Well, you only have to look at who is in control of these seized lands," I said as diplomatically as I could. "Do you seriously think that the farmers would work for these people?"

"That is not the government's concern."

"I see."

"I couldn't help overhearing the conversation, your excellency," declared a diplomat from Malawi who had been admiring the braai. "It seems to me that if you cannot resolve your land issue peacefully, your country's economic malaise could easily spread throughout Africa. And political violence could easily develop into regional warfare as each interest group battles another for control of the spoils."

"We will accept no delay in redistribution of white-owned farms. And that is final!" he thundered.

"Very well but don't say that you weren't aware of the possible consequences of your actions."

"Consequences be damned!"

"Gentlemen, Gentlemen," cautioned Mr. Wilson, the United States Minister-Counsellor to South Africa. "We have not yet learned our lessons. Take the ivory trade. In the 1970's and the 1980's, half the world's population of elephants were killed for their ivory - some six hundred thousand! In the 1990's a halt was called to this carnage. Then in the last couple of years, there was a relaxation of the global ban on the sale of ivory. This allowed Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to sell their existing stocks of ivory. What this has done is send a signal all over Africa that the ban on the sale of ivory is not really serious. So now we have ivory poaching again. Just in this morning's paper there was an article on poaching in Cameroon. At an anti-poaching roadblock a tiny pair of tusks less than a metre long were found hidden in a burlap bag in the back of a pickup truck emerging from the bush. Now this little elephant died for the sake of about five thousand Central African Francs - something like ten dollars, maybe."

"Now hold on!" declared His Excellency with undiplomatic fervour. "Zimbabwe has more elephants than our ecosystem can sustain."

"In the game preserves, that is," Wilson pointed out.

"That is the reality that most of Africa is facing - game preserves," he countered. "And Botswana and Namibia are reported to have a healthy elephant population like we do in Zimbabwe. So why shouldn't we cull our herds? Tell me, Mister Wilson, how many head of buffalo still freely roam the plains of America?"

"We're trying to teach using our mistakes as an example of how not to do something." "Oh, really? How self-serving!"

"Gentlemen. Please!" declared His Excellency Andreas Pretorious, the South African Ambassador to the United States. "We too have an over-population of elephants in our game preserves in South Africa. It is our intention to lobby for a further relaxation of ivory sales for those countries which find themselves in a position of over-abundance of stock."

"Andreas," the Minister-Counsellor interjected. "I think you are missing the point. The sale of so-called legitimate ivory triggers a renewed round of ivory poaching in areas that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species deems elephants to be endangered."

"But that is a problem for C.I.T.E.S. and the country where the elephants are endangered."

Unable to bite my tongue, I declared to those dignitaries assembled, "It's also encouraging illegal ivory traders to slip their poached ivory into the flood of this auctioned stock of ivory to legitimize it. So you see, there is always that danger of setting a bad example and creating a ready market for these illicit goods."

"And how is his Excellency handling the surplus of elephants in his country?" The Nigerian diplomat asked, injecting a dose of levity into the tense conversation.

Count Philippe Cornet, the Belgian Ambassador to South Africa turned to his wife, Countess Maggy Cornet and asked, "What was the latest herd count in Belgium, dear?" Guffaws resounded from all around the group. "I think that our zoos are running at full capacity at the moment. Actually, the man has a point. A very valid point. The ivory trade has to be well controlled and seen to be well controlled. Otherwise, you are going to make a mockery of any program that you try to administer. While Belgium doesn't have elephants to contend with, we do have the problem of ivory smuggling across our borders. That is a world-wide problem. The only thing that I can liken it to is our diamond trade." Turning in my direction, he asked, "Your name sir?" as he looked directly at me.

"Erikson, Rune Erikson."

"Well, Mister Erikson, you have made a very strong point. Take the diamond trade, the pitfalls of which there are many. There are some parallels between the two commodities. At the moment we are facing the toughest battle in a long time - the sale of blood diamonds which is casting a stain upon our industry."

"Okay, everyone," Dirk announced to the assembled crowd, "everything is ready. There are sosaties and boboties, and yellowtail and snoek, and smoorvis and soutribbetjies, and brood and biltong, and of course, boerewors but the wors is yet to come!" he joked. Everyone laughed as they lined up for plates and cutlery.

"Watch out for that one," warned Wilson of the US with a whisper to me as we chowed down on South African staples while admiring the beautiful grounds of the terrace. He was referring to the High Commissioner from Zimbabwe. He and I had met at the same poolside table while trying to balance our plates of steaming food. We gave each other a short recitation of our resumes as a matter of small talk. "There were even reports, unsubstantiated, but reports all the same of secret plans where Western diplomats were going to be targets of the Third Chimurenga, but you didn't hear it from me."

"Third Chimurenga? I've not heard that term used before."

"It has a certain historical resonance in Zimbabwe. Chimurenga means revolution. The First Chimurenga occurred in 1896 when the blacks revolted against the white rulers. The Second Chimurenga was the guerilla war attacking Ian Smith's Rhodesian government. The Third Chimurenga will probably lead to a complete expulsion and decimation of the white population in Zimbabwe as it is thought that all opposition to the present government is lodged amongst the whites. So, get rid of the whites, get rid of the opposition at the same time. That's the flawed logic that they are using. The only thing holding back a complete expulsion at the moment is that a lot of the government ministers have children at school in the US and Britain. They would be extremely distraught if they could not educate their children there any longer or even travel there, for that matter."

"I see what you mean. It's a fine balance."

"So there you guys are," Lauren said as she led a small group of plate-laden guests. "We thought that you had gotten lost again. Dan Clamani was getting edgy when he couldn't find you right away. Lucky for us we only had to see where his attention was focused to spot you."

"I've just been talking with Mister Wilson here . . ."

"Call me James, please and I'd like to meet your lovely wife."

"We're not married but . . ."

"Oh, my apologies, Miss . . ."

"It's not necessary. Hildi and I have been chatting with your wife, here, and our ambassador and his wife. Charming people," she said as they neared.

Introductions were made all around.

Lauren whispered to me, "Did you get in all right?"

"Yes. I found a black man locked up in a dungeon. He's the one who came off that ship in Cape Town."

"What did he say?"

In a low voice I explained, "Not too much. We were interrupted by Magnus and his cronies."

"Did they catch you?"

"No, I was able to outwit them but while I was down there I found out that there were kids on board that ship. Quite a few of them. Aydin may have been on board."

"Should we go back to Cape Town?"

"No, it's too late. They've probably left already. We'd be better off trailing Clamani."

"Clamani? Why?"

"It may be that he owned those slave children. The prisoner said that he was going to sell them."

"Sell them? Where?"

"He thought maybe the Middle East."

In a rising voice, Lauren declared through clenched teeth, "He has a nerve!"

"Shhh! We'll talk later."

". . . and yes, the question is how to balance the needs of the people with the needs of the animals," the South African ambassador was saying.

"I've heard that there are about sixty endangered species in Kenya," Hildi stated.

"We should be so lucky here in South Africa. We have something in the order of almost one hundred and fifty endangered species. If it was not for our game preserves, we would be in serious trouble."

"Lauren and I were in the Congo recently. One of the things that we noticed is that the jungle seems to be somewhat quieter now."

Lauren added, "And there were a lot more logging roads than before."

Hildi pointed out, "Where there are logging roads, there is logging. And where there is logging, there is an extensive use of bush meat to feed the loggers."

"That goes for mining too," I added. "But I think in the case where you have civil war, there is the greatest decimation of the animals for bush meat to feed the troops."

"It's not just civil war. The gorillas in Uganda are actually being squeezed into increasingly-smaller areas by the proliferation of people trying to clear the jungle to farm," Lauren pointed out. "In the lush jungle of Central Africa there is a battle going on for preservation of the last virgin rain forest in Africa. It is surpassed only by the Amazon for sheer size. This deepest, darkest part of Africa is still relatively untouched. It has the largest concentration of animals whose only threat is from a few roving bands of Pygmies. In fact, I'm told, the animals there for the most part have no fear of humans because in most cases they have not had any contact with man whatsoever."

Hildi broke in, "It has been reported that German, French and Middle Eastern logging companies have been making inroads into the heart of Africa to take out the best of hardwoods."

"Why is that?" I asked.

She replied fitfully, "Because European interests have virtually depleted West Africa's tropical hardwoods! Not only that, with civil strife local currencies have been devalued by half making it doubly attractive for European and Japanese interests to buy up all the old growth hardwoods - trees that have been growing for almost one thousand years! There has been a fifty per cent increase in logging in places like Congo and Cameroon and Gabon."

Mrs. Veronique Ntoutoume-Danby, Counsellor of the Gabonese Republic and her husband, Mr. Danby were standing on the fringe of the group as the discussion became more heated. At the mention of her country, Mrs. Ntoutoume-Danby spoke up. "I happen to know that cacao exports from Cameroon have been slumping while in my country, Gabon, it is our oil production which is in serious decline. We have no choice but to increase the cut allowance of our forests. Indeed, we have come to depend on the sixty million dollars a year that this venture brings in."

"I'm sorry," Hildi apologized, "but I didn't mean to single out your country for criticism, Mrs. . ."

"Call me Veronique, please. And you are?"

"Hildi."

"Well, Hildi. We are a poor country. Our people have to eat and to have medical care and desperately need to be educated. We have no choice!"

"And I understand that but soon your forests will all be gone."

"It is a devilish choice, isn't it?"

"Again, I don't want to single out your country, Veronique, but I was reading an article in which the director of ECOFAC, a Mister Conrad Aveling is quoted as saying, 'A logging road goes in, and five years later there isn't a single large animal left in the forests. Thousands of square kilometres have been hunted clean.' "

"An exaggeration, I'm sure," she sniffed then added, "by some touchy-feely group on the other side of the world."

"Actually," Hildi countered, "although ECOFAC is funded by Europeans, it is based in Gabon."

Lauren interjected, "When I was there, the city people who were flush with cash would place their orders for bush meat leading to a virtual pipeline of bush meat competing with logging trucks for the use of the logging roads. What used to be subsistence fare for rural people has turned into a big-money business supplying city dwellers with bush meat. I can remember seeing carcasses hanging in shops - antelope, monkey, gorilla, even elephant cubed into carrying-sized portions. Gorillas go for at least several hundred rand per pound, chimpanzees just about as much and monkey meat is a delicacy. There are only about a hundred thousand chimpanzees left in Central Africa and, of course, thousands are shot every year. They don't stand a chance as they are unafraid of humans. They just sit there and get shot. The one thing that Central African jungles have over the Amazon is that there is a larger, more diverse population of animals. It is not the jungle of a century ago nor even of two centuries ago but it is the jungle that existed before humans presided there. Indeed, elephant herds are more plentiful here than even on the savannahs like the Serengetti. In fact, there has been some progress. A few years ago the European Union and the World Bank held a meeting with Cameroon officials who were basically told to curtail the bush meat trade or their fifty million euro road maintenance fund would be frozen. From then on, the bush meat poaching trade quickly went underground. Jaap Schoorl, the respected Cameroon field coordinator for the World Wildlife Fund was quoted as saying, 'Here you have the developed world telling this poor country to shape up, while its own logging companies are the very ones opening up the forests to poaching.' What gives?"

"What gives?" Veronique repeated. "Please keep this information under wraps until this Tuesday. What gives is that, unless I'm reading the signals entirely wrong, I'm pleased to say that our president is poised to proclaim the establishment of over a dozen new parks covering almost twelve thousand square miles in different ecological regions scattered throughout Gabon. I hope that these parks will make tourism a viable alternative to logging. It is likely to be formally announced this Monday at a state dinner in honour of National Geographic-sponsored explorer Dr. Mike Fay's Megatransect through Gabon's interior. Should this announcement occur, the decree should be signed by the president at a ceremony the following day."

"Hear! Hear!" There was a resounding round of clapping going on at the unexpected news.

"Well, this is a glimmer of hope," cut in Brigadier General Simwanza of Zambia. "The World Bank promised to fund the establishment of parks throughout Africa to feed the increasing needs of eco-tourism."

Lauren declared, "Well, let's hope that they don't turn out to be just paper parks that do little to stop the illegal activity taking place within their boundaries."

"One can only hope," sighed Dr. Akintonde of Nigeria who, up until now, had very little to say. "Reform in Africa must be encouraged to flourish. Take my country, for instance. The oil men literally did that for forty years. They took my country's oil, keeping forty per cent of the profits for themselves and funneling sixty per cent into the hands of a few select people. Recently, the Chevron Texaco terminal that pumps oil in the Niger Delta was peacefully taken over by a group of neighbouring village women. Why women? Because they were less likely to be brutalized by the security men guarding the oil complex as happened when young men took over some oil operations, shutting down half of Nigeria's oil production in the late nineties. These young men said, 'The Americans are worse than the devil. They are worse than Lucifer. Can you tell me they are not worse than Saddam Hussein or Usama bin Laden? To me they are worse. I want to be clear. Americans are like terrorists to us. They come, they take and they leave without putting back.' I don't want to offend anyone here, especially you Americans, but that's what they said."

"It is kind of ironic after all that has happened recently. Nine-eleven, the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars. Hussein caught and bin Laden run to ground. However, there is a certain truth to that," admitted Wilson, the US Minister-Counsellor, "but the oil companies realized, albeit almost too late, that their only security was for them to improve the lives of the villagers. Failing to do so would only ignite the smouldering resentment of the people."

"That is true," agreed the doctor. "These villagers live on less than a dollar a day. They saw the complex across the river where Americans lived as they did in America. This terminal, the size of almost six hundred football fields was home to Americans who flew in and out of the facility on planes and helicopters. They had little contact with the villagers except to party at so-called bush bars where a few of our women prostituted themselves. Threatened with an increasing number of peaceful takeovers by women - Royal Dutch/ Shell was besieged by protesters as well - the oil companies now say that they will start to spend money directly on hospitals, schools, roads, and to provide water and electricity to the villagers. And that is how progress is evolving in our part of Africa."

"And progress in our country," declared the Botswana High Commissioner, " has been brought about in large part by the sale of our diamonds. There are those who say that you shouldn't wear diamonds because they may be tainted by the blood of an African. Botswana produces about thirty per cent of the world's diamonds whereas a blood diamond area such as exists in Sierra Leone accounts for only a fraction of one per cent. I tell you that people should wear their diamonds with pride because, instead of creating suffering, the diamond industry in Botswana is helping our downtrodden to combat poverty by providing them with jobs. And with jobs come money and the ability to provide themselves with health care and schooling and better housing - a better life in general. Diamonds have given us three thousand miles of roads - we had less than half a dozen kilometres at the time of independence. Now nobody lives more than fifty kilometres from a health facility."

Dan Clamani strode up to me and said, "Mister Magnus has asked that you and your girlfriend join him and his friends on our safari weekend. We are going to need all the help we can get to shepherd these diplomats for the next two days. What will be your answer?"

"Tell Wouter that we would be delighted, I'm sure!"

"Very well," Dan Clamani said with a broad grin that showed off his large white teeth. I could almost hear a chortle well up inside of him. What was going to be in store for us this weekend? Was it going to simply be a working safari or were we heading into something more sinister?

---

Catalogue Information

---