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From Our Own Correspondent
Saints and Sinners
00:27:59
The recent feuding within Nelson Mandela's family has reminded us that within the myth...
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You're listening to a download from the BBC. This is from our own correspondent. You can hear the version of the programme we make for the BBC World
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Service by visiting our site at BBConline.
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But here's the latest edition broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and introduced by Kate Ady.
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Today we get a peek inside deported cleric Abu Qatada's new home. We're on a whale hunt in Norway, and we hear why Bolivians can't afford to eat quinoa anymore. And the Calabrian mafia claims another victim. Nelson Mandela remains in a critical but stable condition in a Pretoria hospital, possibly unaware of the recent meltdown inside what many regard as South Africa's first family. A squabble over the management of inheritance funds was followed by a court order for the bodies of three of Nelson Mandela's children to be exhumed and returned to their original graves. The scramble for control and ownership of the anti apartheid hero's legacy are reminders that within the Mandela myth, there is a man and family with very human frailties. As Gabriel Gatehouse pondered on a recent
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night out the other evening I went to the Market Theatre in Johannesburg. It's a place with a proud history of staging anti apartheid productions. Frontline theatre at the height of the struggle. This month, they're running a play called the Mountaintop, by the American playwright Katori Hall. The action takes place in room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. On stage are Martin Luther King Jr. And a maid, Karmay. It's the 3rd of April, 1968. It's Karmi's first day on the job. It's the civil rights leader's last night on earth. The audience and the protagonists all know what's to come. Tomorrow Dr. King will be shot. The play revolves around this tension and the tension between life and legacy, between man and myth. I am a man, he says towards the end, echoing the slogan of the striking sanitation workers to whom he has just given his final speech. I am just a man. Tomorrow you will be a saint, responds Karmi, who we now know is no mere maid, but an angel of death sent to bring Martin Luther King over to the other side. Don't call me that, says he. I am a sinner, not a saint. Earlier, the saintly Dr. King had been flirting heavily with the angelic Karmi. It's a powerful evening of theatre in any setting. But here in South Africa, at this moment in history, the play feels hugely significant. An ailing icon, a man who, through extreme self sacrifice, led his people out of decades of injustice. Into a promised land of multiracial reconciliation now lies critically ill. A nation watches and waits. Nelson Mandela is dying. Many South Africans find the thought of his passing, or almost impossible to contemplate. Every day they arrive in their hundreds outside his hospital in Pretoria to leave messages and flowers, sing songs and say prayers. The parallels on stage at the Market Theatre are not lost on the audience. It shows us that he's real, not just a saint, says one man, referring evidently to Mr. Mandela rather than Dr. King. Oh, but he was a saint, protests his female companion. He was a saint. Both use the past tense. To his family, though, Mr. Mandela was not always a saint. His single minded commitment to the anti apartheid struggle meant inevitably that they suffered alongside him. In one heartbreaking letter to his second wife, Winnie, Mandela wrote from his prison cell on Robben island the other day, I dreamt of you convulsing your entire body with a graceful Hawaiian dance. I stood at one end of the hall with my arms outstretched, ready to embrace you as you whirled towards me with the enchanting smile that I miss so desperately. That was in 1970. It had been another 20 years before he was released from jail, by which time their marriage had effectively collapsed under the strain. They separated in 1992 on the grounds of her adultery. She had also been convicted of kidnap and accessory to assault. Mr. Mandela's first marriage to Evelyn started to fall apart in the mid-1950s. In 1956, Evelyn filed for divorce, alleging that Nelson Mandela had physically assaulted her on a number of occasions. He denied the allegations of violence, which were never tested in court, and Evelyn later withdrew the case. But their son, Temby the died in 1969, having never visited his father on Robben island, apparently bitter at the way he felt his mother had been treated. These are details that are rarely mentioned. Now details of his infidelities are similarly glossed over. But the fractures left behind by this extraordinary life are nevertheless being put on very public display. Even as he lies dying, different factions of the Mandela family are fighting over his grave site. Last week, in the cold, fine winter rain of the Eastern Cape, the remains of three of Mr. Mandela's children were dug up, moved and reburied. It was the second time in as many years that they had been exhumed. Nelson Mandela wants to be buried next to his children. Whoever controls his grave will also control a potentially lucrative pilgrimage site, and to some extent, even the Mandela legacy. After the performance at the Market Theatre, I met Selo Sebozzane, the actor who plays Martin Luther King. He's a towering figure with a deep, lustrous Bass voice. And he also does a creditable impression of Nelson Mandela. They're tarnishing his name, his deeds, he complains of the squabbling relatives. It's very sad, he says. He's painfully aware of the parallels between the drama he acts out on stage night after night and and the slow death of Nelson Mandela under the glare of the media spotlight. It's bittersweet, he says. For most South Africans, he's almost like a Jesus. He's like a God. They should let him rest. But many aren't ready to let go. Underlying the prayers and the get well wishes is the unspoken fear that once he goes, the legacy will somehow not live up to the myth.
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Gabriel Gatehouse earlier this week, Abu Qatada's plane left RAF Northolt in the small hours of the morning bound for Oman. Prime Minister David Cameron said he was delighted at the Palestinian Jordanian cleric's removal. Abu Qatada was first arrested over alleged terror connections in 2001, and he'd fought deportation since 2005. It was only able to go ahead after the UK and Jordan signed a treaty agreeing that evidence obtained through torture would not be used against him. Yoland Knell's been to visit his new Jordanian home.
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Rows of green trees stand sentinel on the approach to Jordan's Almawaka prison, but otherwise it's surrounded by open desert like a blank page of parchment. When the extremist Muslim cleric Abu Qatada looks out of the barred windows here, the view must be a stark contrast to the one from London's Belmarsh jail, where he was incarcerated for his last few months in the uk. But some of the changes might be welcome. Behind the watchtowers and high walls topped with barbed wire, Al Muaka is, as one Jordanian jokingly told me, a seven star prison. There's a pleasant visitors garden with a fountain, a well equipped arts and crafts area, library and IT room. The prison doesn't even see itself as a prison. It's called a reform and rehabilitation center. Part of the aim of this new penitentiary is undoubtedly to improve Jordan's human rights reputation. The past eight years of legal wrangling, as the British government has sought to deport Abu Qatada to the country where he grew up, has subjected the justice system here to uncomfortable scrutiny. Judges in the UK and at the European Court of Human Rights expressed their concerns that the preacher who is accused of plotting terrorist attacks would not receive fair treatment and a fair trial. They wanted assurances that no evidence gained through torture would be used. Recently, Jordan has changed its constitution to guarantee that and signed a treaty with the UK Last Sunday, when Abu Qatada, who whose real name is Omar Othman, arrived back in Amman for the first time in more than 20 years, the local authorities wanted to make sure he was dealt with in an exemplary fashion. As soon as he was handed into Jordanian custody at the Marker Air Base in the capital, he was whisked away down the road to the State Security court in a police convoy guarded by armed masked anti terrorism officers. Customers in a nearby restaurant that sells delicious bite sized falafel watched on, bemused. Really, that's a lot of security, remarked the cashier Mohammed at the court. Abu Qutada was formally told the charges against him. He's alleged to have conspired to carry out bombings in Jordan in 1998 and 1999, acting as a spiritual guide to Islamist militants. The cleric denied any wrongdoing. And while the crush of journalists outside the court complained that their exclusion from the legal proceedings meant they weren't as transparent as the authorities had promised, there was no criticism from Abu Qutada's father, Mahmoud, after he'd been reunited with his son. His spirits are high and the officials are good people, said the old bearded man who wears a long traditional robe. A couple of days later, the lawyer for Abu Qatada told us that his client was very happy and relaxed. His treatment was very good and in accordance with international standards, he said. Now the preacher faces more questioning by prosecutors. It's thought his trial will begin in September. While Jordanian ministers, like their British counterparts, have expressed satisfaction at this outcome, it's a curious fact that ordinary Jordanians show relatively little. Interesting indeed. Although Abu Qatada is now a household name in the UK like the other radical cleric, Abu Hamza, who was deported to the United States last year, I found that in a man. He's not well known. When I set out to gauge reaction to his deportation in a shopping area, most people whom I approached simply asked, who's he? One store owner had heard of Abu Qatada and wished he'd not been sent back here. I'm a Muslim, but I don't like extremists, he said. You should have tried him in the UK if there's evidence against him. A conservatively dressed woman had a different view. She felt that Abu Qatada was an important Islamic leader who'd be welcomed home by his followers. Clearly that's an idea that worries the Jordanian authorities. But this deportation has given them hope of Getting access to a high profile name they'd really like to see. Back in Jordan. Waleed Al Kurdi. He's the uncle of the king by marriage. It's believed he escaped to London at the start of this year to avoid charges of illegally profiting from his position as the head of a large phosphate company. Last month, he was sentenced to 37 years in prison and heavily fined. In his absence, after Jordan signed its new treaty with the uk, we Walid Al Kurdi's assets were frozen. It's a tale that really sets tongues wagging in a man. And now, after attempts to fix its human rights record, Jordan is placing corruption next on the list.
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Yolanda Japan has been forced to defend its annual whale hunt at the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Australia brought a case against the country, accusing it of killing up to 1,000 whales a year for commercial gain rather than the scientific purpose purposes that Tokyo claims. Less often in the headlines is Norway, which openly hunts whales for their meat. The Norwegian government says it supports the traditional industry and that the minke whales that migrate past its coastline are not endangered. The whalers themselves tend to avoid publicity because of the controversy surrounding what they do. But Joe Fidgeon was granted access to a whaling boat on a recent hunting trip.
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Boom. The shock of the cannon judders through the old boat. It's a hit. The minkie is motionless, maybe 30 yards away, the rope attached to the harpoon trailing in the water. The skipper Yarn strains his small frame to haul in the catch. It doesn't give an inch, so Fred lends his considerable bulk to the task. He turns to me with a flicker of a grin. Now the work begins, he says. Fred is a paramedic by day. Whaling is like a vacation, he'd told me that afternoon as we'd sat in the crow's nest, scanning the sea for telltale puffs of vapour. It was a beautiful day to be out in the fjords. There were no clouds to muzzle the ferocious mountains guarding Lofoten's coast and no wind to ripple the water. Perfect weather for hunting whales. We chugged on for hours without a sighting, giving me time to poke around the boat. At about 15 yards long, it was on the small side for a whaling vessel, just twice the length of its prey. It had been prowling these waters for 40 years and looked tired. The rusty cannon had claimed a couple of Yarn's fingers a while back when it exploded as he attached the grenade. Oh, it's not dangerous work, he assured me. Accidents can happen in any job the only problem is that I can't cover the bass any more when I play the accordion. Yarn is the easy going sort. A lot of whalers wouldn't have had a woman on board. It's bad luck. Fred was less comfortable with my presence. Are you sure you're not an activist? He kept asking me. A couple of local boats were sunk some years ago in protest at the government's decision to resume whaling. It argued that the industry was important for a community that has lived off the sea since Viking times. Every whaler I met insisted that whales were eating too many fish, leaving too few for them. Many wanted to be allowed to hunt bigger whales and seals too. The fuss baffles them. I was raised on a farm, Jan told me. We took care of the cows and the sheep and slaughtered them when it was time. For me, it's no worse to take the life of a whale than to kill an ox. Whale is food. That's a lot to take on board when you've been raised on a diet of anti whaling protests. But it's only 50 years since Britain stopped whaling and in the days after the Second World War plenty of people were glad of the meat. I comforted myself that the kill would be quick. Nine times out of ten I'd been told the grenade detonated inside the whale's brain. An instant death. Only this day it wasn't going to plan. Three minutes had passed since the whale had been harpooned. For most of that time it had been under the surface. Suddenly it lurched into view, revealing a deep gash in its back where the harpoon had passed right through. Only now did I realise that it was still alive and trying to swim. Fred grabbed the rifle just as the whale dived again. The boat was tense. Two long minutes went by before the whale reappeared and Fred could finish the job. He turned to me, grim faced. I want you to know it almost never happens like this. He. He said. The captain, Jan, took the blame, saying he misfired and was sorry it had happened. But these are practical men. This can happen in all kinds of hunting, he told me. If you shoot an elk, it might run into the forest and you don't manage to kill it until the next day. Flensing duty fell to Fred. He wore himself out. Over the next few hours, carving up the whale, I stroked it. Its skin rubbed off on my fingers. Fred ripped off the blubber like Velcro. The stomach floated away like an obscene beach ball chased by seagulls. As he heaved the carcass into the water, Fred called out. Thank you for the meat. Eight huge steaks lay on the deck. They'd earn each of the crew a few hundred pounds. The meat is served rare, fried in butter and garlic, or smoked and eaten with crackers and sour cream. The locals go wild for it. They may not get to taste it for very much longer. Young people are choosing to live in the city, so there's no one to man the boats, and that's natural. Jan shrugged. I'm 69 now. When I go ashore, this boat will be the last in the area. I disembarked, reflecting how little there was of Moby Dick's Captain Ahab in affable yarn and ambulance driving. Fred and how different the sea from the slaughterhouse.
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Joe Fidgeon this week, Ecuador has been hosting the fourth global quinoa summit. This so called pseudo cereal contains more vitamins and protein than any other grain or seed. It's been hailed as a wonder food and now commands high prices in restaurants and delicatessens from Sydney to New York. Bolivia is the world's largest producer of quinoa. It's also the poorest nation in South America, with exports up a quarter in just a year. The crop is becoming an increasingly important source of income in the country, but external demand and rising prices is depriving poorer Bolivians of an important staple food. Ed Stocker has been speaking to Bolivia's quinoa consumers and producers.
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Bolivia's Uyuni salt flat is visible from space. A vast crystalline desert in the south of the country, it stretches for four and a half thousand square miles. In April, the countryside becomes a kaleidoscope of reds, whites and blacks as growers start to harvest the yield quinoa, a grain like crop, much of it for export. Accompanied by a driver and local guide, Silvana, we race across the salt flat in our Japanese 4x4 towards our destination, the village of Chantani. Distances are impossible to calculate here. The horizon appears strangely close, an optical illusion due to the emptiness between us. We drive for about an hour. We arrive at the northern extreme of the salt flat. Towering above us is the snow capped Mount Tunupa, a dormant volcano. Chantani is a stunning setting for a settlement. Little stone built houses are clustered around the foothills of the mountain, but on closer inspection, many of the houses are in a state of disrepair and the village is eerily quiet. As we get out of the car and walk, I wait for the tumbleweed to blow across our path. I feel like I'm in Bolivia's wild West. We've arranged to meet 67 year old quinoa grower Don Santos Quispecayo. A thin man with sun weathered skin and a cheeky glint in his eyes. He doesn't have a single white hair, despite his years. He lives with his wife and son, one of just three families left in the village. Many have moved to the nearby town of Uyuni to find work. If it weren't for a small museum of local culture he runs, Don Santos tells me, he would have moved too. This is the quinoa heartland, but if the market is booming, no one seems to have told the villagers. Far from being a wonder crop, quinoa can be a risky venture. Sometimes you plant and you get nothing back due to a lack of rain, Don Santos explains. When I was younger, much more grew. It must be due to the climate, if ever. Dry weather hasn't helped. He also adds that the hilly terrain means they don't work with tractors, the crop is hand picked and they don't spray on any pesticides. When it's time to get his produce to market, he says it's impossible to compete on price against quinoa farmed with more modern techniques. The Bolivian market price, still less than what it sells for internationally, is also forcing people to eat less and less. Explains our guide, Silvana. I like quinoa, but it's expensive and I can only afford to buy it once a month. People who plant it prefer not to eat it. They'd rather sell it. Right on cue, Don Santos goes into a murky room in his house and emerges with a hessian sack filled with black quinoa. It's the most expensive variety, he says, and he's hoarding it in case its price goes up further. It's only recently that people in the area have learned about quinoa's health benefits. But they kind of knew all along. Don Santos mother died a few months ago, aged 100, he says, straight as an arrow until her final day. Another local from across the valley recently passed away, aged 110. External influences threatened to meddle with a food staple eaten in the Andean region for the last 7,000 years. But don Santos is still a fan. His favourite dish, a bed of quinoa, a juicy hunk of beef and a dollop of mayonnaise. As he finishes telling me about it, I'm pretty sure I saw him smack his lips with delight.
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Ed Stocker. Colombian police say they've caught Europe's most wanted drugs. Trafficker Roberto Panuzzi had been on the run from Italy since 2010. He's head of the Intragetta, the Calabrian mafia who run the biggest cocaine smuggling operation in Europe. They control their local area of southern Italy with a mixture of intimidation and bribery. Local officials who try to make a stand against them are frequently targeted and threatened. The most recent casualty is Maria Camela Lenzetta, who has just resigned as mayor of Monastarace. The news came as no surprise to Danny Mitzman, who has followed the mayor's career.
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There's something uncomfortable about Calabria down in the toe of Italy's boot, I can't help feeling its troubles are the country's neglected gangrene so far away in the extremities. Nobody further up the limb seems to care. But occasionally people do. In April 2012, the nation woke up to a burning sensation in its diseased foot, perhaps from the fire in Maria Carmela Lanzetta's chemist shop just below her family's apartment. Or maybe it was the sting of the bullets shot at her car soon afterwards. Whatever the case, the cries of pain from the mayor of the tiny coastal town of Monasterace were heard after months of intimidation, most likely by the Ndrangheta. Maria Carmela Lanzetta's Basta Enough echoed nationwide. Her resignation became front page news, prompting the national leader of her Democratic party to travel down to Monasterace and beg her to reconsider. The government gave her police protection and promised to help her achieve her goals. So she conditionally agreed to take back her resignation as long as the state made the changes necessary for her to govern. That was a year ago. I travelled to Monasterace just before her second and final resignation this week to discover if anything had changed. No, she told me despondently. Or perhaps it has. It's got worse. Maria Carmela was quick to stress that it wasn't simply about death threats and mafia. It was about the crippling economic and bureaucratic vacuum that left her powerless to see through any of her plans. We have no money. State funds have been frozen. We've had to declare the council bankrupt. I've got no resources, no prospects. I'm tired and I've had enough, she said. I want my life back. Maria Carmela's life had definitely not been her own. Since last year she'd invited me to her home as she didn't like to call out her police escort on a Sunday. Its like being in prison. I sympathise as we sip coffee on her terrace. Absolutely, she replies grimly, indicating the glistening sea just across the road. I used to swim every day, but now I haven't been in the water for over a year. Why don't you ask the police to accompany you? I ask, but she shakes her head. They're only for official business, she insists, adding, I do miss popping to the shops and going to the hairdresser. Maria Carmela's undeniably a woman of steadfast principles. She plays by the rules and wants everyone else to play by them. But that's never been the Calabrian way. The magnificent coastline is pocked with half finished concrete monstrosities built without planning permission, rotting rubbish on the streets. Her demandingly high standards put many backs up. Culturally, there's an absence of civic responsibility. Lots of my citizens don't see why they have to pay taxes for water and refuse collection. But she's self critical too. I had no political experience, she admits, saying she just wanted to bring legality to Monasterace. I didn't want any mafia connections, she told me. I've managed to keep all our contracts clean, but I'm exhausted. And now she just wants to be the local chemist again. She wants her family life back as well. My husband's always supported me. My sons did too at first, but now they say, mamma, who's forcing you to do this? After saying goodbye, I went to see the council building, a derelict former school with missing windows, stained walls and broken shutters. As I walked down to the beach, I passed the rubbish overflowing from the seafront bins, and I wondered how this brave pharmacist could ever find a remedy for Calabria's chronic ills. To be honest, I wasn't surprised to hear she'd resigned. From the end of this month, Maria Carmela Lanzetta will no longer be mayor. I phoned her, she sounded relieved. This time she says her basta is definitive.
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Danny Mitzman in Calabria, bringing this edition to an end. Goodbye.