← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
23 Feb 12
00:28:01
Is al-Qaeda giving the people of Yemen something their government is not? It's a by in...
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You're listening to a download from the BBC. This is from our own correspondent.
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You can hear the version of the program broadcast on the World Service by following the link to the BBC iplayer on the top of our website. To keep up with our latest reports and get a sneak preview of our stories, you can sign up to our Twitter feed as well. But now, presenting the BBC Radio 4
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edition, here's Kate 80. Today, a new president for Yemen. But will he do anything to halt the spreading influence of Al Qaeda? Communities broken up, city centre in ruins, whole neighbourhoods abandoned. That's Christchurch, New Zealand, a year after the earthquake. We take to the skies looking for pirates off the Horn of Africa. See jellyfish dancing off the Bahamas. And visit Brittany, a part of the world which has nearly everything except jobs. So it looks like farewell then, to President Ali Abdollah Saleh, who ruled Yemen for 33 years. He agreed to stand down after this week's election, in which the vice president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, was the only candidate. The poll was accompanied by outbreaks of violence. At least nine people were killed. There had been a call for a boycott of the vote by separatists in the south of the country. Polling stations in the southern city of Aden were forced to close early. But voting in the capital, Sana', a, passed off peacefully. The United States, which has declared Yemen to be the number one centre for Al Qaeda activity in the world. It was encouraged by the election, but Rupert Wingfield Hayes wonders how much change it will bring.
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From afar, Yemen can sound like a very scary place. All we usually hear about the country in the news is of kidnappings and of Al Qaeda. But as is so often the case close up, Yemen feels a lot less scary and a lot more charming. Its capital, Sana, lies in a high valley surrounded by crumbling brown mountains. It's a crowded, jumbled, throbbing metropolis. At its heart, behind thick mud walls, stands one of the Arab world's architectural jewels, a medieval city completely intact. For hundreds of years, Yemenis have built high. Every house is a mini tower block in brick and stone, the walls beautifully painted, the windows covered in intricate latticework. Along the narrow streets, men in turbans and flowing brown robes stride past. They wear large, curved knives tucked into wide, golden belts. It is indeed like a scene from the Arabian Nights. But if the people look a little wild, their behavior is anything but scary. Everywhere I've been over the last week, I have been shown nothing but warmth and kindness. So why does this country have such a fearsome reputation? Well, in part because it's true. Kidnapping has been a way of life here among Yemen's many tribes for many generations. I'm told it's usually for money or to get a member of the tribe out of prison, one Western diplomat in Sana' a told me. Foreigners who've been kidnapped here usually find it a not totally unpleasant experience. But the threat from Al Qaeda is much newer and much more frightening. You wouldn't want to be kidnapped by them. Yemeni fighters returning from the wars in Afghanistan have brought their fundamentalist creed back home with them. For the last 10 years, the Yemeni government and its American allies have been trying to kill them at a military base on the edge of Sana'. A. I went to see the man charged with carrying out that task. Brigadier Yahya Saleh is a jovial character with twinkling eyes and a trim moustache. He is also the nephew of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the man who has ruled Yemen for the last 33 years. The men under his command are impressive, well trained and well equipped. He points to one of his senior officers. He graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, he tells me. The west, he says, should appreciate what we're doing here. The American policy in Yemen is not popular, he says. We lose support from people due to this cooperation with them. It is an image the regime here has long fostered of a trusty ally fighting the good fight against the extremists. But sitting in a Sana' a coffee shop, I hear a very different version. You should ask Yahya Saleh why his troops are sitting here in Sana' a when Al Qaeda militants are taking over towns, abdul Ghani Iryani tells me. He is a political analyst and a fierce critic of the regime. I have been told that one town was recently taken over by Al Qaeda militants in five pickup trucks, he says. A whole town? How is that possible? Where were the government soldiers? This is a story I have been told many times in Sana'.
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From the more moderate version, that government troops aren't really fighting Al Qaeda, to the more extreme, that the regime is deliberately allowing Al Qaeda to take towns over to increase the threat and to extract more funds from the American allies. It is an accusation Brigadier Saleh strenuously denies. But there is another, more compelling argument about why Al Qaeda is so hard to defeat. That argument is that Al Qaeda is giving people here something the government in Sana' a is not. This is a conservative society, says Nadia Al Saqqaf, the editor of the Yemen Times. If Al Qaeda comes to a village and digs a well or helps to pay for a wedding. Then people will see them as bringing them life and heaven. The villages where 70% of Yemen's population live are a world away from the bustling streets of Sana'. A. I was taken by UNICEF to visit one on a dusty plain near the Red Sea coast. Deir Ayash has no running water, no paved roads and no electricity. Its houses are made of sticks and mud. A quarter of the children in Deir Ayash are severely malnourished. The rates of childhood malnutrition in Yemen are now higher than in Somalia. Most of the villagers in Deir Ayash cannot afford to pay for the water to irrigate their fields. So they've given up farming. They've sold their land to rich businessmen who now employ them as day labourers. Only the intervention of UNICEF and foreign NGOs prevents many more children here from dying. This is not a story that's talked about much when people speak of Yemen, so dominant has the narrative of Al Qaeda become and that people have forgotten a truth that has been repeated again and again all over the world. That extremism can thrive where everything else has failed.
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That's Rupert Wingfield Hayes in Christchurch, New Zealand. They've been remembering the earthquake which struck the city a year ago, killing more than 180 people and causing billions of pounds worth of damage. At a memorial service, the Prime Minister, John Key said it had shaken the country to the core. The quake was the worst natural disaster to hit New Zealand in 80 years. Large areas of the centre of Christchurch were severely damaged. Its famous cathedral was destroyed, as well as office building, shops and homes. Joanna Lester says the city is still a mess today. Parts of it resemble a building site and thousands of people are still unable to return to their homes.
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The ground is shaking in central Christchurch as concrete, carpets and furniture plummet from the fifth floor onto a pile of rubble below. On this occasion, the destruction is deliberate. A six story apartment building that was damaged beyond repair in last February's 6.3 magnitude quake is finally being torn down. February is supposed to be the height of summer in Christchurch, but under grey skies and steady rain, the slow demolition of the city continues. The official term used here for pulling down a building is deconstruction. One year on from the devastating earthquake that killed 185 people and flattened much of the city centre, the deconstruction process is still in its early stages. Following the quake, many residents and business owners were never allowed back into unstable buildings. To retrieve their belongings. So the apartments, which have stood empty for a year, are still fully furnished. Sofas, televisions and coffee tables are flung whole from the open frontage onto the ground below, watched by an audience of passers by. In Christchurch, deconstruction is a daily event, but much of it happens in the fenced off city centre. The cordon around the red zone was due to be lifted in April, 14 months after the quake. But a fresh quartet of earthquakes on 23 December again loosened buildings and masonry, further delaying repair works to make the city safe. As the quakes and aftershocks continue, some parts of the centre could now remain closed until next year. Even outside the cordon, eerie Reminders of 22 February are widespread. Clocks that stopped at 12:51 when the quake hit have not been reset. In one pub, glasses, plates and the mouldy remnants of lunches sit on tables, untouched since the moment customers fled the building. Over the past year, the remarkably resilient people of Christchurch have been adjusting to life without the city centre and its workplaces, shops, restaurants, arts venues and cathedral. There have been pockets of regeneration, including a shopping mall made of shipping containers, pop up cafes and temporary performance spaces in safer suburbs. But the city no longer has a focal point and could be without one for decades. Most residents expect the rebuild to take 10 years, and some believe it will be 20, depending on how long the earthquakes continue. Those planning the new Christchurch are firmly focused on future generations. But there is also sadness that children here will have limited memories of the old city. Andrea, whose granddaughter was five when the quakes began, tells me she'll never know what a beautiful place Christchurch used to be. She'll only remember it like it is now, just building sites and earthquakes. Away from the city centre, Christchurch has been divided by the Quaker. The western suburbs were largely unaffected, but on the east side, whole streets are being deserted as houses are declared unsafe and the marshy ground deemed too unstable for rebuilding. Amid the wonky door frames and overgrown front yards, the last remaining residents are waiting for their insurance payout so they can move on. Families have been living without basic services and sewage systems for a year and a half. Portalous line the streets and are emptied each day by civil defence trucks. I meet the father of one girl who has refused to sleep in her bedroom since the first quake 18 months ago and now sleeps on a mattress in the lounge. I hear stories of other teenagers who will only sleep in bed with their parents. Dallington, on the river Avon, is one of several suburbs that are gradually being abandoned. After navigating hundreds of traffic cones along the bumpy quake damaged roads, I meet Janine at her riverside home. She and her family live in one of the few houses on this street that still has a future. Two thirds of the homes here have been deemed unsafe, and once all the condemned buildings have been demolished, there will be just 15 houses left on a street which used to number 80. With so few residents remaining, the local newspaper is no longer being delivered. Instead of being surrounded by neighbors, Janine's house will soon overlook wasteland. She tells me, when the earthquakes happened, we all helped each other and we got to know neighbours we had never met before. It was a difficult time, but it really brought the street together. The sad thing is now that everyone has got their insurance payouts and is leaving the community, it's being torn apart again.
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Joanna Lester in New Zealand A major international conference on the future of Somalia is underway in London this morning. Representatives from the Somali Transitional Government and many Somali groups and factions are there, but not the Islamist group Al Shabaab, which controls much of the centre and south of the country. Finding a means of dealing with Al Shabaab is one of the key questions facing the delegates. They are also considering how best to tackle famine and a huge refugee problem. The scourge of maritime piracy is also high on the agenda. It's believed that more than 150 sailors are currently being held for ransom by Somali pirates. Frank Gardner has been out on a maritime patrol flight over part of the Indian Ocean known as the Somali Basin.
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Can you equalize? What? Can you equalize? I looked blankly at the Australian Air Force medical officer with his stethoscope and camouflage tunic, and I remember that equalising was a scuba diving term. It meant pinching your nose and blowing out hard so you clear the sinus tubes in your head when the pressure changes. Sorry, I thought we were going on a flight, not a dive. I questioned. Oh, you are. But we have to ask this. That plane makes some pretty radical maneuvers, he said, and we need to know you can cope. He caught my visible gulp and smiled. You'll be fine, he said. But don't eat too much. It had taken several weeks and a lot of paperwork, but finally the Royal Australian Air Force was going to allow our team on board one of their 10 hour patrols out over the pirate infested waters off the Horn of Africa. Rigorous about health and safety, they insisted we arrive a day early for a medical checkup. 110 over 80, pulse 72. You're clear to fly, said the medical officer this was a double first for them, taking up a British journalist and one in a wheelchair. The four propellers coughed into life and the Orion surveillance plane rolled down the Runway, taking off into the rising sun. For years, this desert air base at Minhad, just south of Dubai, was supposed to be classified, but now it's an open secret. From here, the Australian air patrols provide an eye in the sky for the entire 25 nation coalition maritime force that's trying to curb piracy, drug trafficking and weapon smuggling across the waters off the Middle east and Somalia. Using my walking frame, calipers and a guide rail attached to the roof of the fuselage, I hobbled unsteadily up the length of the plane to the cockpit. Quiet, spoken men in flying suits and reflecting sunglasses cleared a space for me behind the pilot and even brought cushions and coffee. You couldn't fault the Aussies for hospitality. Soon we were clearing the coast of Oman, flying due south, leaving behind its crumpled chocolate colored mountains and gazing down at the turquoise waters of the Arabian Sea. Passing out of Omani airspace, we descended rapidly from 20,000ft to less than 100ft above the waves. My headset crackled to life with a voice in my ears. Dhow coming up portside. 30 seconds. The plane's radar had identified a fishing vessel known as a Dhow that was too small to be using the standard maritime identification system called AIs. We banked slowly, the wingtips almost kissing the surface as we circled at over 200 knots. An air Force cameraman took up position beside me with a long lens clicking away to record the suspect vessel and its bemused crew. An electronic camera beneath the fuselage was also zooming in the images already being studied by onboard aerial analysts, all sitting in a row like teenagers in a suburban video arcade. In fact, there was an air of unreality about the whole scene, the pictures coming in of fishermen afloat on this vast Indian Ocean and being dissected from up in the air by men from Adelaide. A crackle in my headphones startled me. Hello, unidentified maritime patrol aircraft, this is Russian warship, over. Down below, out the right hand window, a steel grey frigate was scything through the glittering waves, its superstructure bristling with antennae. Russian warship, this is Coalition mpa, replied the Australians. Have you seen any pirate activity in our area? Negative, over. We flew on, heading towards the Horn of Africa, swooping so low over a supertanker I could even make out the coils of razor wire used to protect the bridge from marauding pirates. From somewhere behind me came the sound of a crewman vomiting That's Chuck, remarked the co pilot. He always throws up on these flights. Hang on, what's that? The plane banked once more at a sickening angle, much to the discomfort of Chuck. A pair of large wooden hulled fishing boats appeared, lashed together. Something was being thrown overboard. The cameras went into overdrive. If this was weapons or boarding ladders, then the odds were these were pirates. So are they? I asked. The Australians couldn't tell. They were beaming the pictures back to base on shore for further analysis. If pirates were confirmed, then the nearest warship would be dispatched aboard them and investigate. Yet when a ship is attacked by pirates, the first point of contact for that distress call by the crew is not some huge multinational operations center. It's a pokey little back office tucked away in the British Embassy in Dubai. Back on land, we went to visit it. The grandly named UK Maritime Trade Operations was just big enough for six of us in crisp white uniforms. Royal Navy ratings were studying emails coming in from some of the 4,000 ships transiting the high risk area, stretching almost from Suez to Sri Lanka. If a ship gets approached by pirates, then the crew calls one of two mobile phones sitting there on the desk. If the crew is lucky, a nearby warship might just be able to intervene in time and prevent them being pirated. Obviously, we were keen to see what happened if just such a call came through. So when in our final five minutes, a mobile's ringtone electrified the room, we held our breath, aware of the drama of the moment. The naval watch keeper kept his voice even and calm. All eyes were on him. Then his shoulders slumped. No, he said into the phone, I do not want to buy a villa in Dubai. Local estate agents had clearly got his number. There would be no hijackings to report today.
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Frank Gardiner. Brittany's long been a favourite part of France for British visitors. Not hard to see why. It has spectacular scenery, 1700 miles of coastline, beautiful beaches, superb seafood, and it's easily accessible by ferry. But life for those who live there isn't always easy, particularly in these harsh economic times. And while some Britons may have left these shores to set up home there, many Bretons have moved away. The economic gloom in Brittany is reflected in depressing unemployment figures. And it's the young in particular who are suffering, as Robert Coles has been finding out.
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The town square Fuelguat, like much else in West Central Brittany, is built of grey granite. In one corner stands the church, barnacled with a small tree growing out of the belfry. In the other corners are bar cafes. One A boulangerie, one in nickel chrome and one called Le Britany Pub. Dave Neill, an expat Englishman from Cornwall, leans his broad arms over a well wiped bar. He's telling the mayor about his new hip. Welguat is a tale of our times. When the railway arrived, l' Hotel Angleterre opened its doors to beaming Englishmen who came to have their photographs taken with shy servant girls before setting off through Huelguat's ancient forest or round its green glassy lake, or to the seaside. To the north, the rose red granite coast. To the west, Finisterre End of the earth skies by Matisse. In the south, warm waters and megaliths. In the middle, Huelguat and the misty Mondaray. Who would not want to live here? Well, Bretons for a start. After 1918, the Great Migration began. Breton ghettos sprang up in Paris, while Parisians bought weekend cottages in Brittany. In the 1950s, the British began to arrive, hungry for a holiday. Tourism was all very well as long as farming and fishing held out. But it was not all very well. Once fishing was given its quarters and farming swapped workers for tractors. Don't be fooled by Brittany's one street, villagers. Every village is part of a commune. Every commune has its mayor. The population's larger than you think, and the mayor knows them all. And when the mayors rise, France enacts its deepest republican myths. Three years ago, they rose to defend their maternity unit at Carr. Six pregnant mothers led the march. Next, the mayors in their bonny tricolour sashes. Then the doctors and nurses and all the rest. Just over 300 young Bretons had been born in the unit that year. And everyone knew that a regional maternity unit is a sure sign of new life. Brittany is another small European region struggling to survive in a global market. It's extra difficult here because while tourism is the major industry, the region's own economic elite, the farmers, are threatening the beaches with a green toxin derived from fertilizers. After the farmers and the fishermen and the tourists and the white van men, many Bretons are pensioners. Rene Boucher of the village of Lockerfret is a retired submariner who lives carefully but well. He knows where to find unbelievably meaty mushrooms and peppery watercress. Four hunting rifles hang from his wall, and they're not for show. As for the young across the square in Huelgwat, the young woman with dreadlocks told me the that no young person expects to get a proper job in Brittany these days. She gets by serving organic coffee and running the craft shop, but has never worked outside a state funded project. So where on earth is Ethel Tiffin of the Dreads going to find her first proper job in a marginal region of a European Union that is in severe economic trouble? No one knows the answer to that, but above all, the region has a strong sense of self belief. Brittany is a true payee. As the French Quebecois Gilles Vignau put it, the people of a payee are special, a people of words who talk to hear themselves. And that is true here. While it waits for growth, Brittany has to back its beauty, defend its assets, hold onto its young and hear itself talk. In recent years, many young British families have moved here to work and are welcomed as signs of the new life. The Ludgates moved here from Liverpool and Brian, a builder and part time karaoke singer at Dave's Pub, says life hasn't been easy, but it has been worth it. Any drawbacks? Well, he tells me the daughter's boyfriend is called Cyril. Or is that Cyril? You can't have everything. And Brittany nearly has.
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And that's Robert Coles. The Mariana Trench in the western Pacific is the deepest place in all the oceans. It's seven miles down. It was first conquered by submariners in a specially toughened craft 50 years ago, but no one's been down there since. Today, four different teams are working on new submersibles, which they hope will make them the first to return to this corner of the Pacific. They have various reasons for wanting to conquer the deep. Some believe there's good money to be made from taking tourists to the floor of the ocean. Rebecca Morell has been to the Bahamas for a dive in a prototype of one of the new subs. It's been designed to withstand crushing pressure and to allow those inside a spectacular view.
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The sea lapped gently in the warm breeze. Moonlight glinted off the waves. It was the middle of the night with six of us crammed into a small inflatable boat. We were on a remote stretch of coastline, trying to navigate our way back to the shore. But suddenly an alarming noise cut through the air. Eeek. It sounded suspiciously like we were dragging across something very sharp. I peered over the side. Even in the darkness, the jagged coral was easy to see. It was poking at and almost penetrating our rubber boat, which suddenly seemed rather flimsy. I couldn't believe it. Now I was on the verge of getting shipwrecked after what had already been a very strange 24 hours at sea. Earlier that day, I'd Been in a submarine about to plunge below the waves. The vessel, bright yellow of course, was a model for one that'll eventually dive seven miles down to the deepest part of the ocean. Inside, it was snug, just big enough for three people and surrounded by a thick plastic sphere. Patrick, an experienced submarine operator, was going to be taking me down. As we sat in the sub, which was bobbing about on the surface like a beach ball, he sensed my anxiety. My nerves had been building all day as the dive had been hit by a series of troubling delays. Gale force winds, the launch ship nearly catching fire, severe technical problems, two of the ship's crew being tossed overboard, hauled to safety just moments from death. You really couldn't make it up. Hey, don't worry, Rebecca, said Patrick as he made the last checks before starting the descent. These things happen at sea. You'll like it much better once we're down. There was no going back now. The water slowly closed in overhead and within moments we were fully submerged, sinking into the darkness. As we dropped ever further down, it really did feel like we were plunging into a strange, alien world. Plankton drifted all around like snow squid and jellyfish danced past, performing their underwater ballet. Fish peered in, perhaps curious at these strange human visitors. Eventually, far below the surface, our lights started to bounce off the sea floor. As Patrick pointed out patches of colourful coral that teemed with life, I asked him why he wanted to build a sub that could get down to the bottom of the deepest ocean. Well, it's a place that's never really been explored, he told me. If you go there, you're just bound to see things that no one's ever seen before. And it's just so peaceful down here, isn't it? I had to admit he was right. Any worries that I'd had had simply washed away. Now, though, a few hours after the dive and I was stuck in a rubber boat on top of a coral reef, still some way from land. I was starting to wish I was back in the sub. Some of us are going to have to get out. The boat's too heavy, said our captain. He was trying to get us back to the shore. He tentatively stepped out onto the coral, shoes, trousers and all. His assistant followed. The boat lifted a little, but not enough to float above the reef. Two more bravely volunteered to get out, but that still wasn't enough. Just my producer, Simon and I were left on board. He turned to me. I'm going to have to get out, aren't I? Now I wish I'd said no. Don't worry, I'll do it. But I didn't. Minutes later, he'd joined the others, standing knee deep in the sea. Right, that's it. Our captain shouted. We're light enough. We need to pull the boat over the reef to get to deeper water. Er, are you sure you don't want me to get out? I asked, maybe a bit too tentatively, as I sat alone in the boat. No, he said. You stay in. And I did. So there I was at 4 in the morning in the Bahamas, being hauled in a dinghy by five soggy men over a coral reef. I'd been deep beneath the waves, and now I was riding high above them like the Queen of Sheba. From my lofty position, it suddenly occurred to me that while diving to the deep sea might be risky, the shallows can be just as perilous. Well, unless, like me, you get to stay dry.
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And with Rebecca Morel looking on as the men get wet, we've reached the end of this edition. Goodbye.