← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Talking to Ghosts
00:27:57
Reporters. Today, from Sierra Leone: why covering the Ebola outbreak is an assignment...
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Transcript12 lines
- [00:00]
A
This is a download from the BBC. It's from our own correspondent. We make one version of the program for the BBC World Service, but this is the latest edition broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It's introduced by Kate Ad.
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B
Hello. Today it feels like talking to ghosts. How Ebola's leaving its mark on the rural villages of Sierra Leone. A view from divided Korea as Germans start to celebrate the end of division in their country. Now just another deposed African president. How the leader of Burkina Faso failed to read the writing on the wall. And there's new money, new building, a new social order. Is that a revolution going on in Malta? The head of a United nations mission charged with fighting Ebola says he does not yet have the resources necessary to defeat the disease. Tony Banbury, who has just visited the three West African countries worst affected by the outbreak, said more help was needed urgently. The epidemic has killed more than 4,800 people so far, the vast majority in Sierra Leone, guinea and Liberia. Andrew Harding's been in Sierra Leone this week looking at the efforts to contain the virus there.
- [01:16]
C
They call it the Witch's plane. It's an old legend. Well, fairly old. The story goes that an aeroplane packed with flesh eating witches crash lands somewhere in the countryside in Sierra Leone, bringing curses and misery to the population in the rural villages north of Freetown. There's been a lot of talk about it lately. There's a quarantine order in place around Port Loco. It's not exactly watertight, but the roads are mostly empty. Soldiers and police armed with infrared thermometers man the checkpoints and glance at our permits. There's an immediate sense of ordinary life suspended. The countryside is vivid green lush hillsides with waterfalls pounding onto dark rocks. A siren wails in front of us and an ancient ambulance rushes past. On the back, in big black letters, someone has painted the less than encouraging words duster Dust. The trees close in overhead as we drive into a small village called Kibal. There's an elderly man by the side of the road. He looks agitated as we walk over to see him. Momo Sesse wants help for his wife, Fatu. She slumped on the bench behind him, coughing and feverish. Almost all their neighbours are already dead. To start. There's an almost comic moment as I try to ask Fatou how she feels. She starts to growl and answer. Momo swings round and scolds her. I'm the man, I'm doing the talking, he says. Old habits die hard. Momo insists he cares for his wife without touching her. But it's Hard to imagine how I'm scared of her. He says they should come to take her to hospital. He asks for advice, and I tell him what I've heard about keeping patients hydrated. Give her water. He thinks about that, then asks quietly, hesitantly, hot or cold? And for some reason that seems like the saddest moment of all. Then it strikes me why this disaster is so fundamentally different from any other I've reported on. After a tsunami or an earthquake or a war, you get to talk to the survivors. Maybe they've lost everything, but they're here. They have a future. Standing in Kigbal talking to Momo Fatou and another sick woman further up the street, it feels like talking to ghosts. Across the road there's a large group of children. Almost all say they've lost one or both parents in the last fortnight. Up close I can see beads of sweat and rashes on a few faces. It seems clear the virus has taken hold here too. The children insist they know the rules. No touching. But one of them, a two year old girl, dies soon after we leave. And so it's a relief to hear Amara Ceci roaring with laughter. The 10 year old has just recovered from Ebola in a nearby village and telling me about how when he was finally discharged from a hospital on the far side of the country, he was given a care pack that contained a woman's bra. Amara was the oldest child of six. The others are all dead now so are both parents. We drive back to Freetown, just off the glorious golden beaches. There's a Royal Navy ship and onshore a new sense of drive and purpose among those leading the overall war against Ebola. The bosses talk of corners being turned, of command and control systems finally in place, but others still warn of unacceptable delays and muddle. In the months to come, there will, or at least there should be, a reckoning for those who mishandle this crisis. Local and foreign, weak leadership, too many warning signs ignored, too much institutional inertia and bureaucracy. But for now, most people are getting on with the job. The sweat pours down Mariatu Cagbo's face as she pulls off her protective suit. The 37 year old mother of six has just helped her team to carry another corpse out to the burial van. It was a 22 year old woman. Mariatu has been volunteering for two weeks and has lost count of how many times she zipped up a body bag. But she has another role too, one she clings to. She is always first to go into a house to check that any women Victims are decently clothed before the men follow to help with the lifting. If I don't do it, who will? She asks, and it seems to be her team's motto. The next body is that of a 44 year old man, then a one year old boy, hurriedly buried in an overgrown cemetery beside the beach. The work is vital. In death, Ebola victims are even more contagious than in life. But it is striking that right now, across Sierra Leone, it is the dead, not the living, who seem to receive more attention and enjoy, if that's the right word, more dignity.
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B
And that's Andrew Harding. President Francois Hollande has admitted that France played a part in the deposing last week of Blair's Campa Aure, his counterpart in Burkino Faso. Mr. Hollande said France had allowed for his safe evacuation to Ivory Coast. Yesterday, the presidents of Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal were in Burkino Faso, pressing the military there to return the country to civilian rule. The army took control after violent protests forced the resignation of President Kompa ore after 27 years in power. Chris Simpson, who was in Burkina Faso earlier this year, says the pressure had been on Compaore for months, but the president and his supporters seemed to think the crisis would pass.
- [06:42]
D
So you've been here for some time now. Let me ask you something. Have you really seen a revolutionary mood here? Do you think people really want an Arab Spring? In Burkina Faso? It was April, six months, before a watchful army stepped in, not to give power to the people, but ensure the departure of President Blaise Compaore. My new friend sipped his freshly squeezed, somewhat overpriced orange juice while I tried to be frank without being rude. I had before me a senior figure in the ruling party, a man of rallies and communiques, softly spoken but quietly confident. It was almost a relief to be in his company. I had been in Burkina Faso under slightly false pretences, of course. I had a strong interest in a vibrant, overlooked music scene and a rich cinematic heritage. But like many others, I really wanted to know if Blaise was heading for the exit. The head of state, still sleek and Dapper at 63, had blively signalled he wanted another five year term and took it as red that an adoring public was all for that too. But an expanding opposition, including some leading defectors, had said otherwise. Opposition rallies had got bigger and bolder. Diplomats were jittery. There was talk of confrontation and fears it could all end badly. I had endeavoured to stay neutral. I had taken a pre dawn bus to attend a pro Blaise rally in the second city. Bobo Dulasso sweltering in the afternoon sun as speaker after speaker denounced the treachery and opportunism of the opposition, while cheering supporters held up banners proclaiming Unity and development. I had read the Father of the Nation book Blaze, looking purposeful in army fatigues, chatting to peasant farmers and, yes, kissing babies. But it was not difficult to find the dissenters, those openly pushing for regime change. A veteran philosophy professor arrived at my hotel. I played devil's advocate. Why all this bile? Why the mean critiques of a president who had won prizes for his peacemaking and had given his country more more than 25 years of calm and development. There was much spluttering. The allegations became more lurid, the anecdotes more scurrilous. The professor was confident the truth would come out. Compaore's regional diplomacy was a sham. Look at the rebels he had backed on the quiet, his documented arms trafficking, the warlords he happily played host to. A trade unionist talked me through what ordinary citizens were now putting up with rising bills for medical treatment and school fees, shrinking salaries for civil servants that couldn't possibly keep pace with living costs elsewhere. There were hints about mining contracts and property deals, of how a self enriching clique had carved up the prettier districts of the capital and was now building and bartering its way towards greater prosperity while fellow citizens were left mired in poverty. France featured prominently in the denunciations. Blaise listens more to the French foreign minister than he does to his own, was told. Sometimes my interviewees invoked the name of Thomas Ankara, Burkina's revolutionary leader, reputedly killed at compaora's request nearly 30 years ago. Despite a long standing personal friendship. Buried in a poorly maintained grave on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, Sankara had been embraced by a new generation of campaigners. The lost legend, the scourge of corruption, a champion of the poor removed because of his principles. Many wearing the T shirt did not know the man. Some in the opposition warned of lazy hero worship and historical simplification. They had no wish to go back to the 1980s. But however austere and authoritarian they may have found Sankara at times they still mourned a loss of solidarity and common purpose. People need to look out for each other the way they used to, a community worker told me. There is too much corruption. We have a cult of individualism here. It does not suit us. I cautiously put a distilled version of all this to the man with the orange juice. But he was unmoved. Caressing his high tech phone, he warned me not to get carried away. Look at this device. I earned it myself. Not through ill gotten gains, he said. There is a lot of jealousy here. The opposition could mobilise the miscreants and the moaners, but they had nothing to offer but stadium rallies and cheap invective. But it seems he was wrong. Today ples Compaore is no longer in the country, just another deposed African leader.
- [11:13]
B
And that's Chris Simpson. The Mediterranean island of Malta enjoys a close relationship with Britain. Its entire population was awarded the George Cross for its bravery and support during the Second World War. Halfway between the Straits of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, the island was the perfect stopping off point for British imperial troops throughout the 20th century. And sea details about its fleshpot still circulate among our armed forces today. This is a place which over the past 5,000 years has been invaded and ruled by Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Sicilians and Habsburgs. And most of them have left their mark on the island's architecture. Yet Juliet Ricks, who knows it well, says Malta's not just a place which is stuck in the past.
- [11:58]
E
Entering Valletta, the tiny fortified capital of Malta, always gives me a buzz. It's a 16th century city built in the local honey coloured limestone by the Knights of St. John. They had nearly lost this Mediterranean island to the Ottoman Turks in the great siege of 1565 and their new capital was built for impregnability, its awe inspiring fortifications breached only by a single bridge and city gate. As I arrived in Valletta this time, however, the buzz was a little different. As I crossed the bridge over the deep defensive ditch, the bastion walls on either side glowed with newly restored freshness. And ahead of me emerged from a couple of years of dust and hoardings stood Citygate, tall, smooth, proud and unquestionably 21st century. The entrance to Valletta and the square just inside it, long degraded by World War II bombing and post war neglect, have been dramatically redesigned by Renzo Piano, the innovative Italian architect of the London Shard, a controversial choice for a UNESCO World Heritage city. When the project was first made public, I have to admit that I thought it would never happen. Malta is, or just possibly was, instinctively conservative. The Maltese are exceptionally politically engaged. The turnout at general elections here is around 90% and they love a good argument, and this project has provided plenty of material for that. But innovation is another matter. The Maltese are not generally known for speedy forward motion, except behind the wheel of their Beloved cars. I fully expected this audacious project to remain a footnote in Valletta's architectural history. There is no doubt, however, about what I see before me. The great limestone slabs of Valletta's modern entrance give on to two broad new monumental stairways leading up onto the ancient fortifications in the square. A modern open air theatre sits within the remains of the nation's 19th century opera house. And nearing completion, held aloft on stone stilts, stands Malta's first purpose built parliament. This is certainly statement architecture and that is exactly what former Prime Minister and driving force behind the project Dr. Lawrence Gonzi intended. I meet the besuited Dr. Gonzi at the legal practice to which he has returned since leaving politics, and we sit in its appropriately modern interior within an historic Valetta townhouse. Dr. Gonzi led Malta into the EU and the Euro and tells me that he wanted to show that whilst his country was rooted in its history, it was also, as he puts it, transforming the historical inheritance into a modern outlook in an island ambitious for the future. Even he, though, has been taken by surprise by how far that change in outlook has already swept. As a nationalist, in British terms, a conservative, Dr. Gonzi never expected to oversee a social revolution. When a private member's bill pushed him into calling a referendum on the legalisation of divorce, he promised to vote against, fully expecting that the Maltese people would do the same. To his amazement, this 98% Catholic country, for centuries held in the tight embrace of the Church of Rome, voted to allow divorce. What is more, this year, under Dr. Gonzi's Labour successor, same sex civil partnerships have been introduced, something quite unthinkable just a few years ago. And the official statistics now show that the proportion of Malta's babies born out of wedlock has reached one in four. Over coffee, I ask a Maltese friend what he thinks about this. Having a child outside marriage is something my parents generation and even my generation would disapprove of, he says. But once the baby is born, the family always rallies round the mother and child. At the end of the day, he adds, I think the Maltese are more interested in the fertility goddess than the Virgin Mary. EU membership, EU money, increased travel and most of all, Internet connectivity are driving a shift towards more liberal values. What about abortion? I ask Dr. Gonzi. Could that too be legalised? No, he says firmly, then pauses. But then I would have said the same about divorce less than five years ago. So is Malta turning into Sweden or the UK? Absolutely not, insists Dr. Gonzi. Malta was a mini EU. Even 500 years ago, he says, the knights came from every part of Europe and were followed by Napoleon and the British. The Maltese took the best of what each had to offer, but always remained Maltese. And they will now too. As I walk back to City Gate, the facades to either side of me are both of local limestone. A traditional Valletta palazzo. Its characteristic wooden balconies, freshly painted, now looks across at the 21st century Geometry of the new parliament. The modern building's detractors call it the pigeon roost or the cheese grater. But others are impressed by the way that by and large, the development manages to be quite different from its historic surroundings, and yet respectful of them. If Malta can follow that as a model for social change, it will be doing better than most.
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B
Juliet Ricks there every day now seems to have a new headline about immigration. And that seems unlikely to change in the run up to next year's election. Yesterday it was a report painting a positive picture of the impact on the British economy of migrants from the rest of Europe. Before that, reports from Germany that the Chancellor, Mrs. Merkel, was not prepared to give in to David Cameron's plans to curb immigration from other EU countries. In Germany, immigration is now at a 20 year high. More than 400,000 newcomers made the country their home last year. And Jenny Hill in Berlin says it's official German policy that incomers are made welcome.
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F
When I cycle to work in the morning, I like to listen to Berlin first. The creaking of my bicycle, sprockets squeaking as I bounce down a cobbled street, crows calling through the park, the hiss of a tram, the roar of a rubbish lorry and a grumble as the grocer drags out his fruit and vegetables. And then, just as I reach the river, music. Because every morning, without fail, Yolanda's there. A smiling, squat figure hunched over an accordion, scattering its notes over the sleepy faced office workers. Yolanda came here from Romania. No jobs there, she says in her broken German. No money. But she smiles. Here she makes a living. She feels at home. And she's far from being alone. Tens of thousands of Romanians and Bulgarians arrive every year and now they're joined by other so called economic migrants, people from the countries of the southern Eurozone eyeing up Germany's stronger economy and better jobs market. Net immigration here is higher than it's been for 20 years. Other countries might see that as a problem. Germany views it differently. Here, by the government, at least, immigrants are welcomed with open arms because Germany has a significant skills gap and a Worryingly low birth rate. And in these young, hopeful arrivals, Germany sees a solution. They've even invented a concept for Wilhommenskultur, a culture of welcome. It's about attitude, of course, but in practice it's advice. Citizenship classes, free German lessons. I went along to a classroom in Berlin among the young Europeans, learning to distinguish Wen from Van. I met Alyssa and David from Milan. She's an architect, he's a musician's agent. Milan, they found, was simply too expensive. The quality of life not good. So they've bought a flat in Berlin, where it's cheaper. We were looking for a real metropolis, they told me, and in Europe, the bigger cities are too expensive. Berlin was the only solution. They found work. And while the language is still tricky, they're settling in. I wonder what Helmut Kohl makes of Ville Commons Kultur. The former Chancellor was famously opposed to immigration, objecting to the number of Turkish people living in Germany. Turkish people who'd been invited to the country to help with post war reconstruction. Today, they're an established community. Stroll through the Berlin district of Neukern and you pass hundreds of businesses run by their children and grandchildren. It smells delicious here, and no wonder. I stepped into one restaurant, past a large chunk of roasting meat turning on a spit, the counter stacked high with freshly baked flatbreads. Hassan, the owner, is a thin, anxious man, and as women in headscarfs sip at their tea, we talk about immigration and how it's changed since he came here as a teenager. It's great that people come, he says. They should be able to come, but people who can't work shouldn't be able to stay. There are a lot of beggars, he says. I give them kebabs, pizzas. But my heart breaks. I can't give food to everyone. Neither, it seems, can some German states, who are largely responsible for the welfare of immigrants. Last year, the Mayors of 16 large German cities wrote to the government asking for help. Places like Cologne, Dortmund and Hannover are struggling to cope. There's also growing support here for a new political party. Alternative fur Deutschland acknowledges the need for migrant workers, but still wants tighter controls on immigration. Inevitably, there are tensions. Angela Merkel's government has been forced to take a harder line, pledging to crack down on migrants who fraudulently claim benefits. But this is a country still haunted by the atrocities of the Second World War. People here are mindful of how devastating the consequences of Rassenhass racial hatred can be. Bear in mind too, that today's migrants are moving within the European Union. Germans are comfortable with EU membership. Some even describe themselves as European first, German second. Here, the free movement of workers is perceived as an important right. So Vilkommons Kultur prevails in that German class. I also met a French musician called Gauvain, a wiry, bearded chap who tells me in his first month here, he's met people from everywhere. His eyes brighten. It's great, he says, for the music. Gauvin's jazz, Yolanda's accordion, perhaps even the squeak of of my British bicycle. Each a different note in the ever changing soundscape of this city.
- [22:33]
B
That's Jenny Hill, and it's a big day in the German capital. Tomorrow. They're celebrating the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. There'll be street parties, concerts, a whole series of special events. Doubtless there'll be a few speeches too, as people remember the days of the Cold War and the euphoria which accompanied the country's reunification. Our man Steve Evans, was the BBC's Berlin correspondent up until recently, but he won't be there covering these events, as he's now a man in South Korea. But Seoul and Berlin, he says, have much in common.
- [23:06]
A
If you ask East Germans what they used to yearn for from their side of the Wall, in my experience, they don't tend to reply in grand terms about ideology or freedom or voting or capitalism. It was much more mundane, things that they missed. I asked two of my friends from the east, and both of them separately said the same. We just wanted to travel. The Baltic or Lake Balaton in Hungary were very nice, but they wanted the Mediterranean too. And why not? I suspect Kim Jong Un thinks his people would feel the same. Why else would he go to such pains to block out the view from outside? And his opponents in South Korea certainly feel the same. I went to a balloon launch the other day. A group of fugitives from the north stood in a car park and filled very large balloons with helium and then set them off in a northerly direction. These balloons were packed with propaganda, but also with chocolate biscuits. Choco pies, they're called. A delight in the south and a rarity in the north, where they're so prized that they're exchanged for other goods. They've become a form of currency there. So threatening does the regime in Pyongyang find these balloons and their packages of outside delights that it's threatened to shell the car parks where balloon launches happen. And indeed, a month ago, Northern soldiers fired at the balloons. It all reminded me of Berlin there is a parallel. West Berliners used to send balloons over to the east too. There's a marvellous German word, mauerzegler. Literally it means war sailor and it's the word for a swift, that bird which darts and sails effortlessly over walls. But it came to mean the balloons which people in the west sent over to the East. Mauerzegler, Wall sailer. Korea and Germany have this in common. They are countries torn in two, with families torn in two. One people, two lands. But it would be a mistake to see only similarities. There are also crucial differences. Korea was split after a civil war. Even within families, immense brutality was inflicted. Christian and Communist tore each other apart. They spilt their common blood. That was not true in Germany. It was a country that sinned and knew it sinned and which was riven by victors without argument. Nobody in Germany could complain they hadn't fought each other, but been defeated as a united Germany. So the bitterness between the two halves wasn't great. The links between the two halves of Germany, though, were were great. With the exception of Dresden in the southeast, the citizens of the German Democratic Republic could receive West German television. They tuned in each night and saw that other world. That isn't true of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Why, by the way, do undemocratic regimes insist on putting the word democratic in the very title of their states? To ask is to answer because despots know that democracy is what people want anyway. The big difference is that the west in Germany was a shining light and the south in Korea is a barely visible bogey. The prostitute of the Yankee. As the northern regime portrays it, the importance of light is enlightening in West Berlin. The Axel Sprenger building stands right on the boundary. It overlooked the Wall. Every night the lights were kept on throughout the 20 or so floors as a shining beacon across to East Berlin, saying, look how abundant electricity is on this side of the Wall, apart from the balloons. The North Korean government also got very upset about a Christmas tree which was erected on a hill so its lights could be viewed from the North. A Christian symbol to an atheist regime, but also a symbol of abundance. The south has just decided to take the tree down. It will not shine out this Christmas. As the Germanys celebrate their unification, many in the Koreas will wonder whether they will ever do the same.
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B
Steve Evans, late of Berlin and now in the South Korean capital, Seoul, bringing this edition to a close. I'll be here again on Saturday morning with more stories from reporters around the world. Do join us goodbye.