The Clash with the BBC over
diamonds.
Janine Roberts.
For details of a recent agreement between De Beers and
the BBC, involving both the Oppenheimers and John Birt's office -
read on. This is the first public account of what transpired when the
BBC backed an investigation of De Beers by an independent film
company.
But if you haven't
yet read Jan's account of of her earlier work as a writer and
filmmaker, please read it first by clicking here. .
As you will have read in her resume, all
was going very well for her when her diamond investigative series got
under way. This is a brief synopsis:-
SUMMARY OF INITIAL EVENTS ON FILM. 1987 ABC commits to put
major resources into producing a three part series written by Jan
Roberts on the international diamond cartel. The series is called
"The Diamond Empire." 1988. WGBH "Frontline" pre-purchase the USA
rights within a week of seeing the script.
1990 the BBC commits to the Series three days after
reading the script. 1991 BBC Enterprises commits to international
marketing of the Diamond Empire Series. Australian funders Film
Finance Corporation, Film Victoria and AFC join funding consortium.
November 1991. Pre-production commences of "The Diamond
Empire". Estimated delivery time January 1994. It is to be shot in
five continents.
This is perhaps the most international and expensive of
investigative series ever committed to by the BBC. It is pre-sold by
Jan to American, Swedish, Dutch and Australian Television. BBC
Enterprises predict it will sell to all parts of the world. The BBC
and WGBH Boston sign letters saying that Jan Roberts and her company
will be in creative and managerial control of the film. Her credits
will be that of producer and writer. On the basis of these letters,
the Australian government invests more money than the BBC in her
film. (It only invests in films in which Australian residents have a
major role). Jan feels she is flying high. Production starts. She
produces major shoots in the diamond districts of the US and in
India. The shoots come in on budget.
Then it gets dangerous....
A condition was set for some of the Australian government
funding - she must insure her life for the value of the government's
investment because of the perils she will face on her investigation
of the diamond cartel. Jan thought this over-paranoid.
But, in the midst of filming , the Oppenheimers, the
family controlling De Beers and the diamond empire, put pressure on
the BBC. The BBC begin to buck. They tell her to leave the film to
the BBC to make and offer her a book contract instead. She is told,
if she does not agree, her film will be ended. They propose to
replace her with a British producer and journalist. She is then
sexually and violently assaulted by a gang of strangers who come to
her home looking for her. Next day she is told that the BBC are
demanding she totally gives the film to them. If she doesn't, the
film project will be ended. She takes the BBC to arbitration.
The beating inflicted on her leads to her falling
critically ill with pulmonary emboli. On the day when in hospital she
is told she is critically ill and could die at any time, lawyers
acting under direction of John Birt's office at the top of the BBC
demand she agrees to being replaced as producer - and that she drops
her arbitration action against the BBC. As she now realises that no
matter how strong her will, her body is not as strong and that the
strain of resisting the BBC could effectvely kill her, she decides
she must put her health first and gives the film to the BBC. The BBC
agree in writing that they will send her by airmail all the research
she needs for her book on the diamond trade if she signs - but once
she signs, she does not hear from the BBC again. She is two months in
hospital. She resolves to write the story nonetheless. The BBC tell
De Beers that she has been removed from the production.
Researching why the BBC were so insistent on her removal
and why it refused to give reasons, she learns that the Oppenheimer
family attacked her in meetings with BBC, complaining that she was
"obsessed" with investigating the diamond trade.(That is, she will
not go away.) The film is completed by the BBC in her absence. It is
then first shown in the US - and despite her having produced many of
the scenes in the film, her credits have practically vanished. When
she asks why, she is told the BBC gave instructions to remove her
producer and journalist credits.
At her request the General Secretary of the Broadcasting
and Entertainment Industry Trade Union, the powerful BECTU, contacts
high officers of the BBC asking that she be given the proper credit
for her work. On the Friday before her film is shown, a senior
officer of the BBC phones her to tell her that while the BBC did not
deny that she produced part of the film, and was the senior
journalist, it refuses to give her any credit for this work on the
film. He says the BBC is justified in its stand by the document she
signed in hospital. She is extremely perplexed by this. Why is the
BBC so adamant not to give her credit for work they acknowledged she
had performed. Even tea-boys get credits on films.
When the film series is shown on the BBC, in a censored
version with a third of the content missing - but much substantially
as she wrote it, with her credited as the originator rather than the
producer, solicitors acting for De Beers write to the BBC indignantly
complaining that the BBC had promised to remove her name from the
film. The BBC (who do not own the film - it is owned by the
Australian government investors - the BBC only bought UK transmission
rights) then make a deal with De Beers saying they will not sell her
film to any other country. The BBC tells her that the Australian
government investors agree with this decision. This blocks her film
being shown in South Africa and Holland - both of which had asked for
it - and in the rest of the world. In Australia the ABC withdraw this
$A1.6 million dollar series at the last minute despite it being shown
in the US and UK withouit legal damages having to be paid. The film
remains buried as of January 1998.
But despite this, she does all she can to get the film out
to more viewers- and to complete her book on De Beers. When De Beers
tries to ban the American version of her film from being shown in the
diamond rush area of Arctic Canada, their heavy handed action leads
to the Federation of Trade Unions, the local environmental
organisation, Ecology North and the Dene Indians inviting her to
speak to her film. She is flown to Yellowknife. Her film is put on in
the largest hall in town and it is standing room only. Later she is
the guest of Dene Indians, goes out with dog teams, falls in love
with a beautiful frozen land and sky. (See the article on this web
site on Frozen diamonds)
When she goes to South Africa and Namibia to research her
diamond book, she shows her film on De Beers property to the mine
workers. De Beers tries unsuccessfully to ban her from several mines.
The Union says she is the first person banned by De Beers since the
Emergency of 1988!
1995 The World Council of Churches agrees to requests from
her to help fund the first post apartheid miners' conference for
Southern Africa. She is a guest key note speaker.at this conference
held in Namibia. While in Namibia she assists with a two part series
on Namibia's diamonds broadcast on Namibian TV. After she attacks the
role of a diamond merchant (well known as a companion of Jackie
Onassis Kennedy) and for employing former US intelligence agents, an
American government agent warns her that her every word is being
reported to Washington. The World Council of Churches also gives on
her request seed money towards the setting up of a Centre for
Economic Reform in South Africa.
1996. Her book "Glitter and Greed" on the world
diamond trade is completed. It contains all that has been censored
from the BBC film - and much more. The book tells of major
international fraud, it shows how the White House has been
manipulated, the Kennedies used in and out of office, Clinton's
recent role, the roles played by international figures, the underside
of the diamond Syndicate.
The book is now with agents seeking a publisher - a taster
of this book is on this web-site. It is the "crocodile Dundee story
of investigative journalism telling how the hunt of the diamond
cartel took her from the Australian outback to 5th Avenue. It is
substantial and her best work. She remains determined not to let De
Beers silence her
She has been writing in the meantime as a freelance for a
major UK newspaper l- with several top-of-front page stories. (These
also caused a parliamentary debate) She also writes about the threats
faced by the Dene Indians in Northern Canada from diamond mining,
about cyanide spills in rainforest - and the threats posed by mining
practices in West Papua where live a sister people to Australia's
Aborigines. These stories are here, in Jan's Library.
Now the above is
the story of my working life - as a writer, a freelance investigative
journalist tilting at the big and powerful. But there's a lot I
haven't yet told. Read on if you would like a more personal history
of how I came to change my Gender role before starting work with the
media - and how I started to work as a priestess and witch active in
the environmental movement in the UK - while still continuing my
investigative work for television.Click here. 
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