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From Our Own Correspondent
Barriers and Borders
00:27:51
Kate Adie introduces reports on French deradicalisation, Syrian refugees and Switzerland.
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Thank you for downloading from our own correspondent. This edition was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday 24th September 2016. It's introduced by Kate Ady Hello.
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Today, how to tackle Islamic extremism. We're in the Loire Valley to hear about the 18th century chateau where the French are setting up a de radicalization boot camp. Among the endless suggestions about how to implement Brexit, can Switzerland offer the answer? In South Africa, we hear of yet another effort to tackle the problem of a whole range of wild animals facing extinction. Send in the army, or at least the ex soldiers. First to Canada, where the sheer size of the country influences its attitude to refugees. In the past year, they've taken in 30,000 people, and the government in Ottawa insists they're a benefit to the nation. Of the Syrians who've arrived, more than a third are being supported by individual citizens. And Lise Doucet, who herself hails from Canada, has been looking at this sponsorship scheme.
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We go to a picnic in a park on a perfect day. A gentle autumn sun bathes a rolling stretch of green filled with the warmth of a family gathering, Syrian families still new to this country, Canadians who've raised money to help them settle in. It's a picture postcard of a refugee welcome. Children's faces painted with sparkling butterflies, Syrian musicians strumming the elegant oud tables, groaning with the favorite fare of Syrian and Canadian kitchens. In the midst of this hubbub, a young Syrian boy approaches me. What is your name? He asks. What is your name? I reply, taking this for the game children play almost everywhere I travel. But then I sense this isn't a game. What is your name? He asks again. Lise, I tell him. An echo bounces back. Four children screeching my name. We know each other. We know each other from a place and time so far removed from here that it would have to be called another world. I know them as the family who lived in a dingy, dark storeroom above a shop in Damascus because their own home was destroyed by war. I know them from the fear and hunger which stalked their days. Then they know me as the journalist who kept visiting them more than two years ago. And now, in a magical moment of serendipity, happiness gushes like fizzy water. Happiness and relief. To meet here in Toronto of all places, must be proof a dark chapter has ended. We speak English now, the children announce with pride. We're Canadian, declares their mother, Hanan, whose appearance and joy are unrecognizable. Gone are the headscarf and Gown she wore in Syria to disappear in crowds. Now her long blond hair falls on a bright yellow polo shirt worn with jeans. As the sun starts to sink in the sky and we drive back to their new temporary home, I catch Anan looking out the window, exclaiming to herself and to anyone who's listening. I am free. Free to study English and architecture. Free to be a mother who can now feed and care for her children, as well as for her husband, who's ill and still trapped by the traumas of the past. Her daughter Dodd, now 13, has what many teenage girls dream of her own bedroom full of her stuff. Teddy bears and pink pillows, drawers to hide her secrets, including her diary. She pulls it out in Damascus. Her jottings on sheets of paper were the cries of a child who said she hated her future. Days darkened by fear she could live or die. Nights disturbed by dreams of her old home, haunted, she said, by the ghosts of friends, some with their heads cut off. Now it's a diary of her own. Drawings of princesses with long hair, of well known fairy tales with happy endings. I love my future, she says blissfully. But who can say now, with any certainty, how it will all end? Will this be a story of children who will shine at school, of neighbours who will continue to make them feel welcome? Will they be able to support themselves? Canada, a vast country, has made space for more than 30,000 Syrians over the past year. They've all been carefully vetted before they come. More than a third are sponsored by Canadians who've clubbed together to raise funds to support families for a year and get them started on their new life. In fact, so much money was raised in response to the Mediterranean crisis in Ocean Away that thousands of Canadians are still waiting for their Syrian family to arrive. I'm the only government where people are calling for more, not less, refugees, canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tells me when I ask about the numbers. He knows he has strong public backing for refugees he calls new Canadians. But he also knows some critical voices are starting to surface, warning of problems ahead to integrate so many people, even in a country which has long absorbed new immigrants. We live in a time where immigration is a toxic phrase, where Syria has become a byword for suffering, for a heavy heartedness rooted in fear that the horror of this war and its refugee crisis will never end. All that and more makes a Syrian story of pure and powerful joy something precious to behold.
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Lise Doucet Seashores and land borders now make the news headlines on a regular basis, with the world's refugees trying to head for safety or a new home. It's a dangerous business, and the huge stretch of border between Mexico and the US state of Texas has seen an influx of people from Central America, adding to the large number of Mexicans who make the often hazardous journey. Joe Miller has been to see how one small American town is dealing with a constant stream of new arrivals.
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We weren't supposed to go to Macallan. The small Texas town not far from the Mexican border has a roadside shopping mall and a drive through Starbucks, but at first glance, not much else. But Xochilmora was insistent we were not to leave the Rio Grande Valley until we had come to see for ourselves. In Macallan, she assured us we would see another side to the immigration debate that has so obsessed this election cycle. Sotchill works for Macallan's mayor, Jim Darling, a Vietnam veteran who headed down south after the war because he couldn't stand the cold winters in his native New York. For decades, the easy going politician who arrives late to our meeting at City hall, out of breath and apologising for not wearing a tie, enjoyed the relative serenity of life in Hidalgo county. Then, roughly two years ago, the peace and quiet in McAllen were disrupted. The first day I knew something was happening, he recalls in his adopted Texan drawl. I was down at the bridge and the port Director. We had 15 kids yesterday. We're not used to dealing with kids. Within two days there was a situation. The situation which Mayor Darling refuses to call a crisis and was a sudden influx in the number of women and often unaccompanied children fleeing El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, countries where lawlessness, extreme poverty and gang violence are rampant. Some swim across the Rio Grande, Macallan's director for health, Josh Ramirez, tells me, and some just walk across the bridge to a checkpoint and say, I'm here. After being processed by the U.S. border Patrol and undergoing the requisite security checks, these migrants are dropped off at the local bus station. The hope is that they will somehow find their way to relatives elsewhere in the U.S. and await a court hearing. At first, 30 or 40 arrived in Macallan each day. But over the last two years, at least 44,000 have come through the city, whose population is only 140,000. The day we were there, 70 women and children arrived before lunch. Those who come through Macallan are the lucky ones. They've survived a journey which many never complete and on which physical and sexual violence is commonplace. And they've found sister Norma Pimentel of the local Sacred Heart Catholic Church. On a boiling hot afternoon, I walk around the repurposed church hall, which now resembles a warehouse. Dozens of tables are piled high with shoes and clothing donated by locals and sorted by size and age in Spanish jeans For NINAs aged 7 to 10, T shirts for NINOs aged 10 to 14. In another part of the room, sanitary pads, maternity clothing and nursing bras are provided, along with baby formula and basic medical supplies for those suffering dehydration, malnutrition or worse. This respite centre, says Sister Norma, is where we restore their human dignity. In an air conditioned tent in the church's car park, this morning's arrivals are resting after enjoying their first shower and possibly their first proper meal in weeks. Some are phoning their loved ones to assure them that they are at long last safe. Alexander, one of the few men to come through the center, talks of his journey across Mexico with his young son, in which they stood for days in a trailer tractor with no toilet facilities. He paid $4,000 to a coyote or people smuggler in Honduras, and as soon as his son gets settled in the U.S. he says he'll head back to get his wife and other children. Most of the others are tight lipped, but one woman who I ask about whether a new occupant of the White House could mean a crackdown on illegal immigration is defiant. If they deport me and my kids tomorrow, she says, I'll make the trip again because there is nothing there for us. Sister Norma and her army of volunteers treat the McAllen crisis as primarily a humanitarian one. But for Mayor Darling, it's a political headache and a security risk for the rest of the usa. He's applied for federal emergency help, but only a few dollars have trickled back here. Neither the Clinton nor the Trump campaign has visited McAllen, nor have many mainstream media outlets. When politicians do come down, much to Jim Darling's chagrin, they drop in for a photo op and a press release and head back in helicopters. It's easy to ignore Macallan, a dusty old town at the very bottom of the country. But the mayor has a simple warning for the rest of America. The Border Patrol, he says, can police these women and children, but the drugs and all that are just passing through us, and they're coming to a neighbourhood near you.
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Joe Miller the terrorist attacks of the last year in France have inevitably led to questions about homegrown Islamic extremism. Among various measures, the French government is now setting up 13 residential rehabilitation centres around the country. The first one to open is to focus on preventing radicalisation from happening in the first place. Lucy Asche drove for a couple of hours southwest out of Paris to the Loire to find not everyone happy with the new initiative.
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There's a pink sky over the vineyards of the Loire Valley near Beaumont environs. A group of men and women are chatting over their evening aperitif. Despite the perfect sunset and the chilled bottle of no one's happy, these villagers are outraged that a small chateau on their doorstep is about to become France's first centre for prevention, integration and citizenship, or what some call a de radicalisation boot camp. The government is conducting a crazy experiment over there, says Michel Carrier, pointing to a collection of 18th century buildings across a small road. We may be outside the cage on this side of the fence, he declares, but we feel like the guinea pigs. Despite official assurances that the residents of the centre would come voluntarily and be restricted to those who'd never been convicted of acts linked to radicalisation, Michel, who heads the local protest group, is unconvinced. We live with fear in our stomachs, he says. Especially after Nice. Michel, who once worked at the nuclear power station in nearby Chinon, also fears the centre might provide a tempting target for terrorists. His neighbor Valerie describes the new project as window dressing. Ahead of the presidential elections next year. Francois Hollande is desperate to be seen to be doing something to fight extremism, she says. But he'll lose anyway, Michel interjects. The next morning, it's clear which party thinks it can exploit local discontent. At the top of the drive leading to the chateau, Michel's group are holding banners with angry slogans. And they're joined by Veronique Payan, a regional councillor from the front. She hands me a press release which denounces the government as incompetent in the face of Islamist terror. I've come with 50 other journalists to peek inside the chateau and to meet Muriel Dominach, France's former consul in Istanbul and newly appointed anti extremism czar. The centre, we're told, is not in the business of de radicalisation, but re engagement and reintegration. The aim is to support young people who are cut off from their families and friends and rescue them before they fall off the edge into radicalism, as she puts it. But why would somebody on the path of radicalisation volunteer to come to a place like this? It's complicated, says Madame Dominar. With young people on the brink, there's often a tug of war between their thirst for life and their fascination with death. The prime Minister manuel Wals says 15,000 people are on the radar of the police and intelligence services because they're suspected of being radicalized. But if they aren't funneled through the criminal justice system, I'm not sure how people will get here. Apparently they can be referred by concerned teachers or by parents who've called a helpline called Stop Jihadism. But what if they refused to come? In the country of liberty, this experimental centre seems to be testing the definition of what it means to be a free citizen. The centre has room for 30 recruits, but it's unclear how many have so far signed up. We walk down the wide gravelled drive, past majestic chestnut trees, to see a typical bedroom in the new unit, the chateau's former laundry house. It's a bit spartan with a tiled floor, but there's a brightly coloured duvet and an alarm clock on the bedside table. Just like a kid's holiday camp, scoffed one French TV reporter. To me, it feels more like a military boarding school. Residents will have to get up at 6:45 each morning, go to classes and wear uniforms or certain outfits, as the director puts it. They'll study French history, religion and philosophy. Once a week they'll salute the French flag and sing La Marseillaise. Some critics warn that this approach might backfire. But republican values insist the prefet of Andre and Loire are the key to success. They need to feel like citizens, he says. Towards the end of their 10 month stay, residents may be allowed out for work experience or to visit their families. What about the use of laptops and mobile phones while they're here? Computers will be strictly pedagogical. And anyway, smirks one Interior Ministry official, the signal here is terrible. And what about the concerns of local people? They're irrational, says the mayor of Beaumont environs, adding that 18 cameras and other security measures are in place. Place. Although they're no guard dogs, there's no such thing as zero risk. But we must help these young people somehow, he says. Madame Dominaux agrees. The most dangerous and irresponsible action, she concludes, would be to do nothing.
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Lucy Ashe. Three months since the Brexit referendum, and are we any wiser about the future? Is it possible to cut a special deal for Britain, a bespoke arrangement, as it's been called? One country which already has this is Switzerland, and Kamal Ahmed has been to see how it's worked.
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The old man walking up the main street in Bremgarten is clear. People think this place is so rich, he tells me politely, answering in English. After My stuttering attempts to engage him in schoolboy German. He points to the shops in this affluent town full of glittering silver trinkets and, of course, chocolate. But we are not, he continues, we are crowded. Too many. He sighs, Too many. He looks like the kind of man you might draw if asked to put pen to paper and come up with, say, a Swiss man, illustration for a fairy tale. Small handlebar, moustache, tweedy hat, braces. Others here are a little more circumspect. Ah, yes, the BBC says one young woman with a baby when I approach her immigration. No, no, sorry, I don't want to talk about that. This town looks like it should be pictured on the lid of a chocolate box. Medieval clock towers reach into the bright blue sky. A covered wooden bridge, the local tourist hotspot, spans the River Reuss. Water rushes white from the Alps. It's quiet, reserved, German speaking and frankly suspicious of its EU neighbours. Switzerland is landlocked, but still an island of sorts. Not a member of the eu, but surrounded by it. It has a multitude of free trade deals with its exceedingly large neighbour, over 120, full of complex sub clauses and special derogations. In return for open access to the EU's 500 million consumers, Switzerland agreed to free movement of people from the EU. Well, it did until 2014, when in a referendum, the Swiss voted to introduce immigration quotas. Pretty Brehmgarten, just a 45 minute train and tram journey from metropolitan Zurich, was one of the provinces that voted for controls. By the highest margin, rural Switzerland rose up and said it had had enough. An expression of dissatisfaction now familiar across the continent. The referendum gave the government a three year deadline to come to a deal with the EU limiting free movement. But as that deadline approaches, what is the sum total of new agreements with the EU on this most toxic of issues? Precisely zero. I meet Micheline Calmire, the former president of Switzerland. She is an academic now in Geneva. Very glad, she says with a high pitched laugh, to be out of what she describes as the nightmare of trying to negotiate with the eu. Good luck, she says, as the UK begins its long and doubtless tortuous journey to its very own Brexit. Mrs. Karlmireill was also Foreign Secretary of Switzerland between 2007 and 2011 and so has considerable experience of EU trade negotiations, whispering to me that Jean Claude Juncker, the President of the Commission, is going to have to soften his attitude towards the trade off. Between free trade and free movement. There needs to be some interpretation of the principle, she says, meaning flexibility The Swiss have put forward a compromise, yes to open borders, but with priority given to Swiss residents in the jobs market. The EU has not dismissed the plan out of hand, but it hasn't agreed to it either. This is a fine example of what the Swiss Germans called Lebensluhe, living with a lie, or, to use more diplomatic language, living with deliberate ambiguity. Switzerland is proving, Mrs. Kalmireh tells me, with its bilateral negotiations and sectorial agreements, that it's possible to be not quite in but not quite out of the eu. A person I want to meet is Michael Amboul, one of the country's most experienced trade negotiators. He's spoken of in revered tones by politicians and business leaders. I track him down in Zurich, a studious looking 50 something with a shot of white hair. The EU will have to develop, not be so precise except ambiguity, he tells me the main issue for him is the enforcement of EU rules, which he says is definitely a headache for my country. The Swiss, he points out, jealously guard their judicial sovereignty. As the European Union plots new relationships with the rest of the world, it could be the Swiss who reveal rather more about the way those relationships will develop. A country in Europe, but not in the eu, A country that has a bespoke deal with Brussels, a country whose voters have called for compromise on free movement. For all those who want to understand Europe's future, a trip to Bremgarten might well be in order.
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Kamal Ahmed. Cites is one of those strange acronyms which is becoming more familiar by the year. The United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. And for good reason. As the latest meeting opens in Johannesburg today, the pressure on wildlife and the possibility of the extinction of many species is an ever more urgent problem. And in South Africa itself rife with poaching, Chris Terrill has been to see if military tactics can help on the veldt.
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Thula thula, in KwaZulu Natal is a private game reserve. Its name in Zulu means tranquillity. Although it's an African paradise rich with wildlife, it's also under siege. Its peace is threatened by dark forces. The animal poachers. I watch as an earnest young Englishman in military fatigues and sporting a big red beard addresses a group of Zulu anti poaching rangers. They're raw, untrained and nervous. Yesterday, he tells them, a ranger in the Kruger national park was shot and killed by poachers. I don't want that happening to you. The rangers shift uneasily where they stand. I'm an ex soldier, he continues. I'VE come to teach you some of my skills. If the poachers see you as a military unit, they'll treat you as one and think twice before taking you on. The bearded Englishman is Thomas Sully o', Sullivan, a former Royal Marines commando. I first met Sully on the front line in Afghanistan five years ago. But last February, after 15 years service, he left to forge a new life as a civilian. And that's when he saw the advert placed by the charity Veterans for Wildlife. I jumped at it, he says. Chance to make a difference. My daughter Ellie loves animals and I'd hate her never to be able to see rhinos or elephants in the wild. But my main concern is for the rangers because the poachers are upping their game. Most poachers here are low level. They're locals, snaring antelope and wildebeest for bushmeat. But rhino horn fetches £70,000 per kilo on the black market. It's feared that professional poachers with high velocity weapons will soon target Thula Thula's two magnificent white rhino, Tarbo and Tombi, even though they're protected by armed guards around the clock. So what do the rangers here think of training with Sully? John Jena, an older ranger, is uneasy. This'll be very hard for us, he says, because we're not soldiers. The poachers would kill us as soon as kill the animals. Elijah Biella, one of the younger men, is more forthright. We need training to show the poachers that if they come to Tula Thula, they'll leave empty handed or dead, he declares. At private reserves like Thula Thula, poachers can't be shot on sight, as they can be in the big government reserves like the Truga National Park. The rangers here can only shoot when shot at. Apart from warning shots, this is exactly the same rule of engagement that Sully operated under in Afghanistan. Thanks to this rule, places like Thula Thula might seem a better prospect for the poachers here. They get to shoot first. So rangers observing a shoot when shot at procedure need both skill and courage. As the days pass, Sully gets the rangers working as a team. From dawn to dusk. He puts them through a rigorous program that includes physical fitness, tracking, suspects, ambush techniques and marksmanship. During Sully's last week on the reserve, and despite his progress with the rangers, Francoise Anthony, owner of Thula Thula, makes the agonising decision to dehorn her two rhinos, Tarbo and Intombi, the permanent armed guard, is no longer considered sufficient to protect them from the poachers. I used to think a rhino without a horn was not a rhino, but now I've changed my mind, she says. Better to have live rhinos without horns than dead ones with their horns hacked off. We track the unsuspecting creatures and dart them with a powerful sedative. Once they slump to the ground, the vet sets to work with his chainsaw while Tarbo's horn is sawn off. Sully's job is to monitor Ntombo's breathing, his hand on the rhino's chest, counting the breaths. Blimey, he says. I'm not the crying type, but this is emotional. John Jena, the older Zulu ranger, uneasy at first about Sully's training, is now more assured. It's been hard, he admits, but we've become more of a team, and my shooting is better. At first I missed the target altogether. Now I'm hitting the bullseye. It won't be a quick fix for Thula Thula, but Sully's made a start, and maybe more former soldiers will bring their military skills and ethos to bear on Africa's wildlife emergency. Well, there's still time.
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Chris Terrell trying to help ensure the future of the rhino and the elephant and bringing this edition to a close. I'll be back with more from our own correspondence next Thursday and Saturday. Do join us. Goodbye.