Many in our industry are wary of the NGOs... But some of them, particularly those based in African countries, often do their work under considerable threat. They are brave people.  I have now interviewed two NGO activists who have been arrested. The first, Farai Maguwu, head of the Zimbabwe NGO Centre for Research and Development, was accused of passing government secrets to the Kimberley Process monitor in 2010. He spent 40 days in jail and nearly died... Now, Rafael Marques de Morais, an Angolan author and activist who has written and spoken frequently about the human rights problems in the country’s diamond fields (including to JCK), has been charged with defamation by seven government-connected generals over his book... Angola is chairing the KP this year. It certainly doesn’t appear right for a blood diamond watchdog to be headed by a country that might jail a blood diamond activist... “It is the elephant in the room,” says Alan Martin, research director at Partnership Africa Canada, and member of the NGO coalition. “We fully support him. His case is certainly being raised in individual conversations...” ...Angola “has made a lot of efforts in accepting the faults that people have pointed out before—including some of the things that Rafael has talked about,” he says.