← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
A Night Out in Greenland
00:28:14
Correspondents' stories: once the cradle of the Arab Spring, Tunisia's now battling an...
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Hello from the.
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From our own correspondence studios at Broadcasting
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House in London, you've downloaded the latest edition of the programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It's introduced by Kate Ady.
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Hello. Today, trouble in Tunisia as the authorities struggle to control Islamist rebels and a million plus refugees from Libya. Another story of desperate migrants and a perilous sea crossing, how thousands have died trying to reach French territory in the Indian Ocean. We're off to the far south west of Ireland to visit a town once considered vital to the defence of Britain. And it's payday. They've had a tax rebate too. We're off to join the celebrations at the only pub in a small town in Greenland. It's been two years since the first democratically held elections in Tunisia, where the Arab Spring began. But instead of celebrations, thousands have been taking to the streets, calling on the coalition government to resign. It's accused of failing to tackle an insurgency by Islamist militants which has led to attacks on security forces, bombings and assassinations. Andrew Hoskin has been finding out how an influx of more than a million refugees from neighbouring Libya has further destabilised this traditionally moderate Muslim country.
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There are three types of men who, in my experience, like to sport sunglasses indoors. There's the nightclub bouncer, the pop star, normally of the aging variety, and last but not least, the official from state security, the sort of chap who might have you bundled into the back of a screeching car, only to re emerge a little later as a silhouette behind a dazzling, angled, poised light. As his burly assistants slip on the knuckle dusters, the man in the sunglasses apologises for any inconvenience caused. But before murmuring menacingly, we need to Talk. I met Mr. Mahmoud twice indoors and on each occasion he wore his sunglasses unhealthy looking, small and slight, with hunched shoulders and slicked back dark hair. Mr. Mahmoud could perhaps have been a bouncer for an under 8 disco, but I don't think he would have been taken too seriously by drunks in a night club. He didn't seem to be the musical type either, but he did have the right sort of sinister ferrety grimace to qualify for the spot behind the interrogation lamp. Mr. Mahmoud is in Tunisia as a refugee and clearly expects death or imprisonment if he returns to Libya. Astonishingly, Tunisia is now home to around 1.2 million Libyans, which is getting towards a quarter of Libya's total population. Most of them are innocent of any crimes and have either been bombed out of their homes by the Civil War of 2011 or or have ended up on the wrong side of the many militia and tribal disputes that now rack Libya. But clearly some refugees are dangerous men on the run from justice. On the first occasion I met Mr. Ahmud, he was in the offices of a lawyer representing members of the Gaddafi family. On the second occasion, in a cafe in the resort town of Hammamet, I saw him in the company of a former high official in one of Gaddafi's government departments, along with two soldiers who had badly scarred faces and slightly lobotomized gazes. They slouched at the table while gawping at a tablet, emitting sounds of Kalashnikovs and screaming women. A video nasty, no doubt from the civil war. A couple of other sinister looking types seemed, like Mr. Mahmoud, reluctant to discuss their pasts, or also like Mr. Mahmoud, to discuss what they were up to. Now, obviously I was in the company of the remnants of the Gaddafi regime. For Tunisia, where the Arab Spring began nearly three years ago, the continuing chaos of its eastern neighbour is one of the most significant threats to its stability and future security. Post war There are millions of guns in Libya. Each street thug seems to have his own AK47 and many weapons are finding their way across the porous border and and ending up in the hands of Islamist insurgents. In Tunisia, there have been many attacks on the country's security forces with guns. But particularly destabilizing was the assassinations of two leading opposition politicians, Mohammed Brahmi and Shockri Balaid. Both were murdered with the same gun which originated in Libya. Jihadists were blamed and the government dominated by the moderate Islamist party Enada, took the exceptional step as of banning the extreme Salafist group Ansar Al Sharia, which was linked to the murders. Tunisia is one of the most secular Arab nations, which is why this sudden Islamist insurgency has proved such a shock to the system. Public anger over the government's perceived failure to deal with the security threat has led to public protests in recent days and an arson attack on another party offices. Tunisians told me how they like to think of their country as a haven of stability in a troubled region, North Africa's version of Switzerland. That self belief has crumbled with the realization that Salafist extremists are receiving training and guns in Libya from groups such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb jihadists who don't recognize international borders. Despite all its problems and the many threats posed by Libya, Tunisia's altruism in accepting so many Libyan refugees is extraordinary. This is particularly so considering the increasing concern felt by many people over the motives of a tiny, sinister element which has found sanctuary in Tunisia and the presence here of so many Libyan weapons. There's talk of Mr. Mahmoud setting up his own TV station in Tunisia, possibly to attack the current Libyan government and possibly bring about its fall. But why? He wouldn't elaborate. Mr. Mahmoud is a hard fellow to read. Useful things, sunglasses.
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And that's Andrew Hoskin. The Mediterranean's been at the centre of a series of recent stories about migrants trying and sometimes failing to reach a better life in Europe. Well, for the past 20 years there have been similar tragedies unfolding thousands of miles away in the Comoros, a small island nation off the east coast of Africa, many thousands of men, women and children are believed to have died at sea after setting out from there, trying to reach the nearby French island of Mayotte. The government in Paris now spends millions every year policing and repatriating illegal migrants from Mayotte. But Emilie Fillou believes only better prospects at home will persuade Comorians not to attempt the dangerous sea crossing.
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With its neat rows of banana trees, taro and chili plants, the demonstration plot looks, to my untrained eye at least, the pinnacle of agricultural best practice. The trees are small but already bearing fruit, and the fiery Scotch bonnet chillies have started turning red. This small field in Adda, a village on the mountainous island of Anjouin in the Comoras, is where Dahari, an organization promoting sustainable development, has been teaching improved agricultural techniques to local farmers. We show them how to plant different crops together and how much space to leave between the trees, explained Badru and Siti, two of Dahari's technicians. Banana trees need to be three meters apart, but they used to leave just one and a half meters. Useni, a slight man with a graying beard and mischievous eyes, talks animatedly about what he learnt on the course. Siti, who is wearing the local sun protection a face mask made up of pounded bark, translates whilst giggling at Useni's theatrical demonstrations. We learned how to dig holes, says Husseini. Before we used to dig small holes and the plants didn't like it, he says, wriggling about in his brown jalaba and scrunching up his face to mimic an imaginary, unhappily squeezed plant. But now we know the right size, he adds happily. Subsistence farming is the mainstay in the Comores. There is virtually no industry in the country. The chickens we devour at lunchtime are imported from Brazil, and the tomato sauce comes from South Africa, so there are few formal employment opportunities apart from government jobs with so few prospects. It is no wonder that Comorians have tried in their thousands to migrate to the nearby French island of Mayotte. Located 70 km from Anjouin, Mayotte and its French standards of living feel tantalizingly close. The trouble is, France has no desire to welcome these economic migrants. In 1994, it introduced a visa for Comorians traveling to Mayotte. Most don't qualify, so they cross illegally, instead making the treacherous journey in small fishing boats called Kwasa Kwasa. In Adda, I meet a group of eight young men in their 20s and 30s, wearing tatty sportswear. They have all been to Mayotte several times and with mixed results. The crossing is a major gamble. It costs a small fortune, and many get caught before they reach the island. Those are the lucky ones, though. Since 1994, it's estimated that 10,000 Comorians have died attempting the crossing. For those who make it, working on Mayotte isn't easy. Wages may be higher than in the Comores, but ironically, many end up working on farms, something they could have done at home. The Maure hate us, says Atuman, a short, outspoken 37 year old who has crossed seven times. We're scared of the police. Every day we have to seek refuge in the fields, and if we get caught, we have to leave everything behind. I had a motorbike there, he adds bitterly. I asked a group whether they plan to go back. Rakib, a smiling young man whose only attempt was foiled by French border police, is determined to try again. I'm only 20. I have my life ahead of me, he says. But for Ismael, a mild mannered but tough looking 32 year old with shaven head and a goatee, the journey is over. He went to Mayotte eight times. The last time in 2010, his boat drifted at sea for 10 days. Passengers drank sea water out of desperation, and six people died on board. After living through this, I decided not to go back, he says. Instead, he dedicated himself to agriculture. Before he met Baudru, he only grew aubergines. Now he also has cabbages, sweet corn, lettuces, bok choy and tomatoes. He has had some losses with the cabbages, Badru says, surveying the field and pointing at the pock marked vegetables, the victims of a pest. But his technique is good, and he has sold well. Ismail is relatively lucky, however. He owns his field. Many of the young men I spoke to don't and work as laborers on other people's plots. Ali, who is 32, sold his land a few years back to pay for his crossing to Mayotte. I regret selling it, but I had no alternatives at the time, he says. Back on the demonstration plot, I ask farmers what they think of the techniques they learned. I hope I can transmit them to my children, says Kamalati, one of the women who attended the training. Agriculture is their future, not Myott.
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Emily Filu in the Comoros Israel this week released 26 Palestinian prisoners as part of a deal connected to the latest peace talks between the two sides. The Israeli prime minister has been telling his parliament he's making a real effort to secure a peace deal with the Palestinians. Precisely what's being discussed isn't being revealed. The Palestinians are known to be concerned about the 400 mile long separation barrier Israel has built in the west bank to prevent, it says, attacks being launched against its citizens. Seeing it has reminded Andreas Gebauer of another wall, the one that divided Berlin and his native Germany.
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The story of walls and the Promised Land begins three and a half millennia ago. Joshua and the Israelites, having escaped the pharaoh's chariots, have crossed the Jordan to take possession of Canaan. In their way is what claims to be the oldest city of the world, Jericho, surrounded by the mightiest wall. But it crumbles within days after, the Israelites kept walking around it, blowing trumpets of rams horns. Now a new wall has gone up in Canaan. It snakes its way across hills, follows motorways, hugs buildings, cuts through roads and farms. In the hilly countryside, it stands out, an ever present reminder of the unresolved Middle east problem. Of course, I knew it would bring back memories of the Berlin Wall, which I'd first seen as a young boy. When you stand next to it, as I did east of Jerusalem, the similarities are eerie. The same prefabricated slabs, the same watchtowers, even the graffiti, some angry, some witty. Only this wall seems to be much higher. Eight meters, I later find out, more than twice as high as the Berlin Wall. To most Palestinians, it's impenetrable not only to would be attackers, but also to the mass of Palestinians looking for work. The few Palestinians that are allowed to cross it may have to wait for up to four hours at a checkpoint. Again, childhood memories of Berlin come back, especially an incident when East German border guards let us wait inside our car for two and a half hours in the blazing summer sun until I was sick from heat stroke and vomited all over their lovely checkpoint. It felt good to see a border guard having to come across with bucket and broom to clean up the mess. Three years later, people in divided Germany felt envious of Israel when its Forces reunited, divided Jerusalem, while their own wall seemed to be there forever. But they were wrong. Against all expectations, it came down and Berlin and Germany were one again. So much bigger was their surprise when a few years later, they saw a new wall go up just east of Jerusalem, not dividing the city, but keeping out its Palestinian hinterland. The Israeli economy may be doing well, but that Palestinian hinterland is clearly suffering. Bethlehem, just a few miles from Jerusalem, shows all signs of massive unemployment, stagnation and squalor. On the hill opposite, sheltered by the wall and overlooking the countryside like a modern medieval castle, sits Ha Homah, one of the many Israeli settlements that have sprung up east of Jerusalem. They look well built in in their gleaming white concrete, their roofs not cluttered up with black water tanks like those of the Palestinian houses. Unlike the settlements, most Palestinian towns and villages receive water for only a few hours a day. When you travel through the west bank, you can't help feeling that most of it has already been incorporated into Israel. The road numbers are Israeli. The bathing complex on the Dead Sea is Israeli. The Qumran caves, where centuries old Jewish scrolls were found, form part of an Israeli national park. The road along the River Jordan, with an electrified fence facing the neighbouring Kingdom of Jordan, is dotted with small Israeli settlements. The only Arab presence is a derelict barracks vacated by the Jordanian army when it left in a hurry in 1967. And yet there is a huge Arab presence even in Israel proper. Head north to Galilee and you encounter numerous Arab villages and towns, the minarets of their mosques and the steeples of their churches shining proudly in the sun. Their residence now more than 1.6 million, were allowed to stay after 1948, even given Israeli citizenship. The wall makes a reappearance on the way back to the airport, next to the motorway leading from Galilee to Tel Av. Behind it, the Palestinian town of Tulkarm. To the right in the distance, the high rise blocks along the Israeli coastline. This is the point where Israel proper is barely 10 miles wide. No distance for a good enemy army. Yet whether the wall is the answer to Israel's undoubted security needs is questionable. Walls may, for a while, bring relief to a symptom. They don't solve the problem itself. The Berlin Wall certainly saved East Germany from imminent economic collapse, but it didn't rescue it in the long run, creating hardship and huge resentment in the process. Similarly, Israel's security barrier is unlikely to be the long term answer. It's a blot on the landscape and doesn't help Israel's image. What's required now are two wise and courageous politicians to emerge on both sides, and fortunate circumstances we may have to wait for a while, but so did the people of Berlin.
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Andreas Gebauer Relations between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland have rarely been as relaxed as they are today. Evidence of the burgeoning friendship came with the Queen's visit to the Republic two years ago. A statement from the British and Irish prime ministers at the time underlined how much Britain and Ireland had in common, not least their long and usually troubled shared history. This relationship has left some curious legacies, as Vincent Dowd has been learning in rural West Cork.
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My journey started in the noise and clamour of Dublin, passing the RDS Arena, a major sports venue, I thought how odd it is that after Ireland's fierce fight for independence, no one seems to have found a Royal Dublin society an anachronism. And a couple of days later, on the west coast, the the same thought as I drove past the Royal National Lifeboat Institution building at Kilrush in the Irish Republic, the long relationship with the UK left footprints. Take the pleasant little port of Castletown Bear in County Cork and its curious status after independence. Castletown Bear is on the Beira Peninsula, one of the fingers of land Ireland trails into the ocean. Catching the warmth of the Gulf Stream, the town looks onto Bantry Bay, one of the deepest harbours in Europe. It might have remained just a small fishing port, but when Britain ruled Ireland, Bear Haven became a base for hundreds, at times thousands of military personnel. From the 19th century, the Admiralty in London studied charts of Ireland's western coastline and imagined the threat posed by rival powers from from the Atlantic beyond. So Castletown Bear's role did not end with Irish independence. It was one of three treaty ports to which Britain retained access for 16 years after 1922. I had assumed anyone who knew those years firsthand would be long gone. Happily, I was wrong in rural and small town Ireland to dig into local history first from find your priest. Even if, as with Father Sean o', Shea, retirement came years ago. Inch by inch, Father Sean's pale and naked legs descend into the lounge as he makes a stately entrance from above on a slow stairlift, Father Sean apologizes that he's still in his dressing gown. At noon he's been a bit under the weather, but at 90, he his memory is all there. He was 15 when the British army and Navy finally left in 1938. Many of the men, he says, were stationed out on Bear island, divided then by a red line west of the line. The Irish went about their business at the island's eastern end ran the writ of the Royal Navy and the Royal Artillery. Father Sean repeats a story I've heard before that in their heyday the the British had so many ships on Bear Haven you could walk the mile from the mainland out to the island without touching water. I ask if locals objected to the forces staying on for 16 years after independence. Father Shawn considers. Well, perhaps in a pub on a Saturday night, one or two Irish lads would have a drink inside them and words would be spoken. But it seldom came to much. He's canny about why people still welcomed the British long after independence. It was mainly the money. When they came ashore, sailors would form a long line outside Spillan's public house, he recalls. Oh, many's the shopkeeper and publican bought a good farm on that money, he says. When 75 years ago, the treaty with Britain finally ended, the economic effects were obvious. Overnight when the navy were here, the ferries to Bear island were covered over, he says, and there were cushions on the seats. The day they went, it was open boats with just a bit of plank to sit on. Today, those small boat successors will take you out to Bear island in a few minutes. Evidence of the former military presence is not hard to find. There are the barracks now used by the Irish Defence Forces. There are two martello towers and placements for the big guns which deterred invasion. Quite a collection for an island whose permanent population is barely 200. Once, Castletown bear formed part of Britain's vital military defence. Today, Father Sean is among the last to recall the long ago sailors on the streets and their officers filling their days with golf and tennis. On a fine day, Bear island is a kind of paradise. Off the ferry, follow the single track roads and you hear not the crash of artillery or warships clanking on the bay, but the cry of the rook and the sandpiper. Where once an empire mustered its forces, there's the quiet lapping of water along each tiny strand and brushing the treetops. A salt wind off the infinite Atlantic beyond.
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And that was Vincent Dowd. Now Greenland doesn't feature in the headlines very often. It did make the news this week though, with the announcement that the government there has awarded a UK based company a license to build and run a huge iron ore mine. Not everyone there is happy with the plan. Some fear environmental damage. Others are concerned about the plans to bring in thousands of mainly Chinese workers. But a boost does seem to be on the way for the local economy. Money will be spent in its shops and restaurants. The Pubs too are likely to see an upsurge in trade. So what are they like? Rob Crosson, in the Cause of research, of course, has been examining some of the drinking facilities on offer in Greenland.
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If there was this level of collective inebriation in any other part of the world, I thought, whilst stood at the bar counter in Tasselich's only publisher, I would probably be having to duck flying beer glasses and swinging pool cues right now. But drinking in the far east of Greenland is a totally different proposition. It's payday here in one of the few settlements on the east coast of the world's largest island. It also coincides with the annual tax rebate to citizens handed out by the Danish government, which still owns Greenland as an overseas territory. So the scene is set for a colossal binge among the town's 1,800 residents. There's no struggle deciding where to go. Out in Tasserlik, a collection of brightly painted huts, many still without running water, perched precariously on immense grey rocks which tumble down to a small harbour where colossal ice floes serenely sail across the field. Because there's only one pub, a windowless bunker where country and western music plays, whilst local men and women, mostly dressed in tracksuits, woolly hats and hiking boots, sit almost silently around the sparse collection of ripped banquettes and wobbly wooden chairs, only beer is available. The Danish brands Tuborg and Carlsberg spirits were completely banned in this part of Greenland five years ago due to the quite astonishing levels of consumption by the local population. There's a very serious drink problem in these remote communities, says Adam, a 23 year old Greenlandic man who has recently moved back to Tassilik after three years of study in Copenhagen. Beer is quite expensive, but people will go without other things in order to drink. In my opinion, it comes from a feeling of hopelessness. There's very little proper work here, and now we have television. Locals can see what foreigners are wearing and what possessions they have. It doesn't seem possible for many people here to obtain any of those things, so they just drink instead. As well as having by far the highest suicide rate in the world, the villages on the east coast of Greenland are struggling to find ways to merge traditional lifestyles with modernity. Tasilik's one Minimart has air rifles and frozen pizzas on sale side by side in the isles. On a walk around the harbour, I see one man dragging a dead seal over the hills, food for his husky dogs, whilst behind him an American tourist jabbers insistently on his mobile phone. Every adult male in the village still goes on traditional hunting trips for seal and polar bear, though only a handful now make a living from hunting instead. The majority of adults in Taslik hold down a number of part time jobs working in the mini mart, doing repair work on the vessels in the harbour, taking tourists out on boat rides and waiting on tables in the town's one hotel of an evening. There's no real money to earn here, says Helena, who joins me outside the bar for a cigarette as the coiling winds sweep around the village. The environmentalists banned us from selling furs a long time ago, and it's hard to move from here to Nuuk, the Greenland capital on the opposite coast, unless you have qualifications. My presence in the pub creates a slight stir among the younger drinkers who want to try out their English on me. Most of it seems to come from Hollywood. What's up, Duck? One tipsy teenager shouts at me again and again with both thumbs raised aloft. I'll be back. Hollers another in his best Schwarzenegger accent. As the night wears on, the sullen silent drinkers begin one by one to fall asleep, often with beer bottles still in their hands. The solemn atmosphere is occasionally broken by a screech of table leg on floor as the lone bouncer gently hauls catatonic drinkers to their feet and leads them out into the chilly night air. It all seems rather innocuous and certainly preferable to the casual violence which I became numbed to during my own teenage years spent in pubs in the north west of Eng. But there's a palpable sadness here too. Getting drunk in Tasleck doesn't appear to be about bonhomie or entertainment. The objective is to get as many bottles of beer down one's throat as possible before becoming incapable and then being gently escorted home. It's the quietest and certainly the best behaved experience of mass drunkenness I've ever seen. But when the drinkers of Tassilik wake up tomorrow morning, nothing will have changed. The ice floes will continue to float inert in the harbour, the corner shop will still sell the same one variety of frozen pizza, and the chances of escape to a less isolated environment will remain for most as slim and unreachable as ever.
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And with Rob Crossan out on the town in Greenland, we've reached closing time. There'll be more from our own correspondence on Saturday morning at half past eleven. Do join us. Goodbye.