THEY ARE CALLED GARIMPEIROS, A Portuguese word for a prospector or trafficker in illegal treasure. Lured by the promise of quick wealth, an estimated 50,000 Angolans, Zairians, South Africans, Belgians and even a few Americans have surged into Angola's remote Lunda Norte province. From the air, they look like a colony of ants tunneling aimlessly into sunbaked moonscape. On the ground, the diggers, shirtless, sometimes laboring with a pistol in one hand and a shovel in the other, are scrambling to get rich.
The primitive mining is illegal and dangerous, but the garimpeiros have ample reason to ignore the hazards: rarely...
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