← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Congo warlord
00:28:20
The British soldiers in Afghanistan have lost faith in their mission, there are fields...
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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 program broadcast on the World Service by following the link to the BBC iplayer on the top of our website. To keep up with our latest reports and get a sneak preview of our stories, you can sign up to our Twitter feed as well. But now, presenting the BBC Radio 4
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edition, here's Kate 80 today, how British soldiers have lost faith in their mission in Afghanistan after the Charles Taylor verdict. Who'll be next to face war crimes charges? We have a chilling encounter with a former rebel warlord in Congo. An English scholar's precious library burned to the ground amid continuing turmoil in Syria. And we don trainers and take to the hills to find out what makes Kenyans the world's best distance runners. So some 500 British soldiers will be on their way home from Afghanistan over the next eight months. The update on the timetable for withdrawal was given by the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, in the Commons on Thursday. The reality on the ground, he told MPs, was that Afghan forces were now increasingly taking the lead. The death of one more British soldier in Afghanistan was announced last night. Quentin Somerville, who's been with British troops patrolling in Helmand Province, says many of them no longer feel they're helping the country towards a brighter future. They just want to go home.
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The Rifles officer is a veteran, but you wouldn't know it to look at him. He stood in front of me in a helm and field, the opium poppies up to his waist, their fat heads bobbing in a welcome breeze after a long day's patrol. The captain, he's 28 years old, looked young and bewildered. He'd been marching for hours, part of a body of men, Afghan and British soldiers clearing the area of the Taliban. They'd walked in single file. They call it the Afghan snake. It reduces the chances of stepping on a roadside bomb. This was the captain's first patrol in two years and to his astonishment, he found Helmand, there's no other word for it peaceful. He was last here back in 2009. It was, he said, the best and worst experience of his life. Then he was a platoon commander of 20 odd men. The war at the time was at its bloodiest, the losses horrible. Six of his men were killed, 13 were injured. British army captains are young and chatty. The captain asked me not to use his name. He was understated. It was clear that his experience had left him altered. Afterwards, back in Britain, he'd sat with the families of the men who died there. Was one question they all asked him. Was my son, brother, father, husband in pain at the end, today's helmet is almost unrecognizable. The British army say that attacks from the Taliban have dropped to a fifth of the level during the captain's last tour. Far fewer British soldiers now die on Afghan planes. But progress in Afghanistan can be deceptive. The principal reason for the Taliban's retreat in Helmand was a massive surge of international troops. That surge is now disappearing. Some 30,000American troops will be home by October. 500 British soldiers will be hard on their heels. In the colorful language of the military, the American and British boot on the throat of the Taliban will be replaced by an Afghan boot. But there's a deep flaw with this strategy. The Afghan military aren't up to the job for sure. Their discipline has improved and they're now well equipped. The operation we'd been on was meant to remove the Taliban from the area. Hundreds of Afghan troops spread out across the countryside, with the men of the 1st Angling Regiment taking part only as advisors. Working behind the troops were government poppy eradication tractors. It was an overwhelming show of force and it encountered little trouble. Some improvised explosive devices were found and two suspected insurgents were detained, one being released shortly afterwards. The poppy eradication effort was, in the words of a number of experienced soldiers, a joke. Much of the crop was left in place, a major source of funding for the Taliban, and the insurgents weren't cleared from the area. We know because they spoke to us. My Afghan colleague chatted with a group of men. We are Taliban, they said, as British troops relaxed with their helmets off by a wall only yards away. One man, a 41 year old father of five, said he'd been fighting the Americans in Kuna Province. Go five minutes from here and you'll find hundreds of Taliban, he said. The villagers complained about the Afghan government in it had done nothing for them, they said. Instead, they paid their taxes to the insurgents. We're happy to give the Taliban shelter, they told us. And this is the other great flaw in the Afghan strategy. Pillars of support, an army, a police force, a judicial system are being built around a void. President Karzai's government is greedy, corrupt and incompetent. His Western partners have lost faith in him. But more than that, they've lost faith in the war itself. Gone are the hopes of a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan. Now it's about getting out. The war is deeply unpopular in Britain and America. Here in public, at least, commanders and diplomats maintain confidence. But in private, they're miserable it's called the Afghan doublespeak. One senior diplomat I'm paid to be positive, he told me, described the situation as pretty bad in capital letters. A couple of weeks ago I met a senior American commander at a base in the east of the country. What do you tell people, I asked him, when they question you? Why are you still here, still fighting? Ha, he said, rolling his eyes. Momentarily, he was at a loss for words. Here's what I tell my men. He look after the man to your left, to the right, and the man in front of you. If you get through another day, then that counts as success. Here. That's it. That's all I tell them.
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Quentin Somerville In Afghanistan, history was made this week when a former president, Charles Taylor of Liberia was found guilty by an international court of involvement in war crimes in Africa. This weekend they are asking who will be next to face trial on charges of murder, rapes and other war related crimes. Few countries there have seen as much violence and brutality as the Democratic Republic of Congo, scene of a 10 year long civil war in which millions died. Recently, its president called for the arrest and trial of one notorious former rebel leader. Some months ago, Fiona Lloyd Davis went to talk to him at his home in Goma.
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The fear surrounding him is palpable. Hushed voices whisper his name. Those who've survived attacks by him and his men talk only in the shadows. Yet he's not in hiding. Everyone knows where the Terminator, General Bosco and Teganda lives. Through intermediaries, messages were sent and a safe house was arranged. More than half a dozen survivors had decided to risk coming out of the shadows. They were waiting in the shade of an avocado tree in the cool darkness of a storeroom. Sitting on makeshift chairs made of plywood boxes, they told their stories. A 12 year old boy dressed in rags related in a singsong voice how he was kidnapped and forced to carry a gun. Soldiers instructed him. Bosco is now your father, they ordered. And then he was trained to kill. A girl spoke of how she was taken from a market and brought to him. He raped her over five days. He brutalized me, she said, silhouetted by a broken window behind her, her head hung low. My life is over now, she told me. She was only 17 when it happened, an elderly man whose wife was murdered in a massacre said. When the soldiers killed, they cried, Long live Bosco and to Gander. Long live Bosco and to Gander. It was time to meet the general in a narrow row of houses with high metal gates. There were no names or numbers but it was clear where the Terminator lived. The makeshift guard house gave it away. Four twisted wooden poles supporting a small square of khaki material, a lean to against the rough brick wall made of volcanic rock. A handful of soldiers huddled beneath it all vying to get into the shade. They didn't look much older than teenagers. Skinny, with fresh faces, gangly long arms and legs, their weapons grubby and worn. Looked as though they'd had more experience than the soldiers themselves. Out of nowhere, a tense looking man in shades and plain clothes materialised, brandishing a walkie talkie. Is the general home? I asked in my bad French, knowing full well that he was. No, not today, was the reply. He was tall and thin, a tootsie looking man like his boss who was born in Rwanda. Eventually the huge metal gates were dragged open and a pristine white 4x4 emerged. At the wheel was the General, sporting a leather Stetson. He was all smiles and charm. Come back tomorrow at 8:30am we can talk then. A pickup truck full of the gangly teenage soldiers bristling with weapons escorted the general away. They bumped their way down the street towards the main road. I arrived early the next morning and I was allowed inside. The house was a mansion, newly built and in the style that only the very wealthy or the very corrupt can afford. I was led to a covered patio and shown to a comfortable squashy sofa. The general arrived, seemingly relaxed. He looked more like he was on the way to a barbecue than an interview. Open toe sandals, a short sleeved red and white checked shirt with an enormous grin. He's a tall, slim man over six feet, and he bent down, extending his hand with a firm, strong handshake. He laughed at the idea of an on camera interview. Not on the first meeting. We must get to know one another, become friends. Before that, he led me inside to talk through the kitchen, past his wife and children watching cartoons on tv, through cavernous empty rooms with only the odd sofa or chair. There was nothing personal here, nothing to give him an identity. It was soulless. We sat in the dark for over an hour. Either there was no electricity or no light bulbs, or both. I asked him about the allegations of war crimes. He denied them all with cries of I wasn't there or I came later and a slightly hurt look in his eye. Eventually he said, you know, I was a soldier during the Rwandan genocide. We saw terrible things. I've had to protect people. So there it was, an admission, an inference as to how he explains to himself what he's done, that he believes he's protecting his own tribe, Tutsis in eastern Congo, where they're a minority. He made it clear that our chat was over. As we walked outside, his young son followed him and I asked if I could take a photo. He pulled the boy up onto his hip with a broad grin for the camera, looking like the perfect dad. As I turned to go, the Terminator said, you know, I've had enough children with my wife. But looking directly into my eyes, I want a child with a white woman. And with that, he turned and walked back into his bare, empty house.
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That was Fiona Lloyd Davis. Last weekend's London marathon showed once again that Kenya produces the world's very best distance runners. After the race, five of the six podium places were occupied by Kenyans. Attention now turns towards the London Olympics. There aren't many who'd bet against Kenyans winning several of the gold medals for distance events. Claudia Hammond's been to East Africa to try to find out why they're such good runners. She learned that the possibility of winning Olympic gold isn't the only incentive for local athletes.
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On the drive up into the lush Hills of E10, 2,600 metres above sea level, we pass groups of children on their way to school. The odd one is dawdling in a way that would seem familiar anywhere in the world. But most are running and and running fast with a carrier bag of books swinging from one hand. One 13 year old boy called Kenneth tells me how he runs back and forth to school every day and even runs back home for lunch. Each run takes 40 minutes, but he has long, lean legs and says he likes it. Like a lot of children living in the hills of western Kenya, when he grows up, he wants to be an athlete. Why? Because, he tells me, then he could afford to help his family and his whole village. With heroes like David Rudisha, who holds the 800 meter world record, the children see that athletics can be an escape from poverty. But runners here are so good that the competition is stiff. The times that would guarantee you a place on the national team of many European countries would leave you as one of many runners up in Kenya. But this exceptional pool of talent brings athletes another opportunity. An hour from the green piece of E10, I pull over by a line of single storey whitewashed buildings with rusty corrugated iron roofs. The fence which keeps the cows away is draped with shiny tracksuits, purple, red and black, drying in the sun. This is a training camp for the young people with one aim in to use their running talent, not to go for gold. But to get them a scholarship to an American university. It's early, but they've already been for a 45 minute run up into the hills. And soon they're putting their damp tracksuits back on before jogging across the road and ducking through a gap in the fence to get to the track, a bumpy grassy field marked out with chalk. Then they begin their training sessions, sprinting diagonally across the track, then jogging slowly round the edge, then sprinting across once more, again and again. After 30 minutes, they begin their stretches and tell me of their plans. Nawami wants to be a nurse, Beatrice a molecular scientist and Sustine a TV news anchor. But they know that what the Americans want them for is their speed. Provided they train hard enough, as well as passing their exams and satisfying the strict criteria for visas, they can go to the States. The best runners here have very slim long lower legs, so slim they almost look fragile. Scientists have found that this does bring an advantage, as does living and training at such a high altitude. But the athletes are not keen on the suggestion that it's all down to genetics. They don't like the implication that this means they don't have to try. And they certainly do try. In fact, one athlete told me that the motivation to run your way out of poverty is so strong that if Kenya were to become a rich country, he believes it would stop producing such fast runners. I go to another village where three primary schools are holding a competition. They're determined to include all children in the sports day. Not just the best, but coaches and even an Olympic gold medalist. Asbel Kiprop, have come to see who shows promise. The children are told to line up by age. They're very excited. Every single one wants to run. The seven year olds go first, flinging off their shoes and then sprinting 70 metres across the bumpy field. I do a bit of running myself, or maybe I should call it jogging. So I'd come in my running shoes, thinking I might join in. I was planning to wait to run with the older children, but that was until I saw how fast the 7 year olds went. So I asked the 8 year olds if I could be in their race. Their enthusiasm results in several false starts, with me already lagging behind because I was a bit slow on the off. Then I started sprinting as fast as I could, leaping two fresh cow pats and desperately trying to breathe enough of the thin air to keep going. Within 10 seconds, all but one of the 30 children were way in front of me. There was just one smaller one who I thought I might be able to catch up with. They'd warned me the competitive spirit was strong here and it must have rubbed off on me, because I have to confess, I don't usually Try to beat 8 year olds at games, but I found myself using every bit of energy I could find. I I caught up and crossed the line, possibly just in front of him, although to be honest, I think it was probably a draw. I can try blaming the fact that I was carrying a microphone and I'm not used to the altitude. Alternatively, I can just acknowledge that they were really fast, they enjoyed beating me and didn't seem surprised that they'd done so. As I left, the coach offered me a few words of consolation. In this field of children today, he said, I guarantee you there are gold medalists of the future. No wonder I couldn't beat them.
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Claudia Hammond in Kenya, 10 people are reported to have been killed in an explosion yesterday in the Syrian capital, Damascus. The violence is the latest blow to a peace plan brokered by the United nations envoy Kofi Annan. Earlier, the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, was said to be gravely alarmed at reports that Syrian government forces were continuing to shell populated areas. Ian Panel has just returned to a part of northern Syria which has been under attack.
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Abu Mohammed says he wept when he saw what the soldiers had done. He'd had to wait for two days for the troops to pull back before he dared to venture home. That's when he saw the still smouldering remnants of what had been his life. His apartment had been deliberately set on fire. Every wall, floor and ceiling was blackened and cracked, and all of his possessions had been reduced to ash. I first met Abu Mohammed in February. He lives in Idlib province in northern Syria. I won't say exactly where to protect his identity. And Abu Mohammed isn't his real name either. But he's an English literature graduate who's an unlikely recruit to the rebel Free Syrian Army, a young, thoughtful man who's more at ease discussing William Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett rather than military tactics. The last time I met him, he told me, I want people in Syria to carry a pen, not a sword. But conflict hardens the soul and forces people to make choices based on necessity, not want. In the time since I last visited, the full force of President Assad's military has been unleashed on this part of Syria. Towns and villages have been shelled, hundreds have been killed, people have been detained and homes have been burned. I had 500 books, English novels and plays, American poetry, and all of them are gone, Abu Mohammed said. He gave me a guided tour of the charred shell of his home. I could just about make out a series of black rectangular marks on the floor of what had been his library. If they burned all my home, it's ok, he said. But not my books. I cried when I saw my books. He's lost faith that the international community will help. Can Kofi Annan come and see my library? He shouted, adding that the former UN Secretary General's six point plan lay in the ashes of his home. He's angry and he's not alone. Those we met feel they've been abandoned by the outside world. Many asked why the west refuses to help, why Syria is different from Libya, where the international community did intervene. I tried to explain that the Europeans and Americans felt they were helping, but that Syria was a far more complex country in the heart of a very difficult region. But it's hard to make a convincing case for nuanced foreign policy to people who've been on the losing side of a life and death struggle for more than a year. In fact, for many people in Idlib, their fight with the Assad government isn't just more than a year old, it's more than three decades old. A protest movement erupted in this region in the early 1980s. It had an Islamist bent and called for an end to what the Sunni majority here still see as routine discrimination at the hands of the ruling family, who are from the minority Alawite sect of Shia Islam. It was eventually crushed in a ferocious government offensive that left perhaps tens of thousands dead and and many imprisoned. This goes some way to understanding that what's happening in Syria today isn't just another offshoot of the Arab Spring. It's a generations old movement for change. It also explains why it hasn't yielded to the pressure. It's been put under. In a grubby tent that offered little shelter from the elements, we met a group of fighters squatting around a solitary pear shaped paraffin lamp. They were dirty, tired and beaten. The government's offensive has had an effect and for now at least, it seems the armed insurgency is over. But the popular uprising is far from being bowed. Abu Mohammed and I talked a bit about the authors whose works had filled the shelves of his library. He moved through the ages from William Shakespeare to Jane Austen to Samuel Beckett, declaring that Beckett's Waiting for Godot was his favourite play. He wanted my interpretation. What did I think the enigmatic, absurdist drama really meant? It's about two men waiting for someone who never arrives and Feeling rather gloomy about what I'd witnessed over the last few months, I waffled a bit about inaction and fate. What does it mean to you? I asked. Abu Mohammed smiled. Hope, he said. I believe Godot is hope. Death and destruction had been wrought upon his hometown, and we were standing in the ruins of what had been his beloved library. Yet his faith was undiminished. You know we are waiting for Godot. He laughed. The people I've been talking to here share an absolute conviction that this time will be different, that what their fathers began will be finished by today's generation. And after decades of what they see as state sanctioned oppression, the spirit of rebellion burns bright as they wait for Godot.
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And that was Ian Pannell. In less than a month, Egyptians go to the polls to elect a new president. Many have become more and more sceptical about the electoral process, and not just because the authorities banned several candidates from taking part. The turmoil surrounding the ballot comes amid more general doubts about what exactly has been achieved by last year's people's uprising. The military continues to run the country, there are frequent clashes between protesters and security forces, and the economy's in a mess. But Stephen Sack has been learning there are some reasons to be cheerful.
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There are, I hope we can agree, too many cooking shows on the telly. From the glamorous to the foul mouthed by way of the cheeky chappie and the toff, we've had all types of celebrity chefs serving up delicious scoff. We gawp and we salivate. But then we return to our sadly untelegenic kitchens and fry another egg. So the last thing the world needs right now is a new star of the stove. But what can I tell you? I recently went to Cairo in search of the enduring spirit of the Tahrir revolution, and I fell with a television cook. Galia Mahmoud is what Egyptians fondly call a sit, a term reserved for strong women respected for their ability to keep hearth and home together. Set Galia is in her 30s, sturdy of build with an electric smile. She raised two daughters while working long hours as a maid for one of Cairo's upper class families. Until last January's revolution, her life consisted of little more than cooking and cleaning for her employer and caring for a demanding family back home in Wara, one of the city's poorest suburbs. But then Gallia's life, like Egypt's, was caught up in revolutionary currents. Soon after the downfall of President Mubarak, her employer's brother, the founder of a pro revolutionary TV station, had an idea. He wanted a new show, something entertaining to leaven the diet of news and current affairs. And his mind turned to Galia, much loved for her delicious food and her gift of the gab. The concept was simple. Galia could lead a kitchen uprising on tv. No more fancy cuisine using unaffordable ingredients and complex recipes, but plain fare for plain folk, tasty and cheap. A year on and set Galia's cooking show on 25tv is an extraordinary hit. Her ratings are so good she does a live 90 minute show in prime time. She's watched on satellite throughout the Middle East. She doesn't have a computer, but she has got 40,000 Facebook fans. I'm like 90% of Egyptian women, she told me when I visited her cramped studio set, complete with ancient stove and battered pot. I take the bus to work, I get my bread from the baker, my vegetables from the market, and I'm happy in my skin. She should be. The day I visited was the show's first birthday. Her studio kitchen was visited by an Islamic cleric who showered her with blessings and a troupe of Nubian singers who serenaded her while she made a selection of Egyptian desserts. As Setgalia put the finishing touches to a huge round tray of basbusa, a few fatally attractive concoction of semolina, sugar syrup and rose water, her guests chorused ha namir misr. We will build Egypt, a potent mix here of pudding and politics, in the words of 25 TV owner Mohammed Gohar. Setgalia allows Egyptians and other Arabs too, to see themselves as they really are poor, struggling to make ends meet. Her budget runs to $4 a day. Her haggling skills have become a Cairo legend. And as she cooks, she talks, taking calls from all corners of the Middle East. Rima from Saudi Arabia says her children are too picky. What should she do? Give them beans and rice? Sana from Tunisia says her husband has gone off her food. He loves you, Setgalia, he says. He wants to marry you. Setgalia roars with laughter. There is an irony here, of course. 25TV was created to be the media voice of the Tahrir Square generation. One of its news anchors lost an eye in clashes with Mubarak security forces. Another was a doctor who gave up medicine for activism during the uprising last year. And now these young activist journalists see the ratings for their programs dwarfed by the popularity of a cooking show. But far from resenting Set Galia, they have embraced her. In the words of station owner Gohara, she is a part of the new Egypt Galia no longer works as a maid, but she and her bus driver husband still live in the same cramped apartment with two children and a dozen other family members to feed. But for how much longer, I wonder? A group of Egyptians, clearly unimpressed by the official list of candidates for next month's presidential election, issued an online plea for Setgalia to run for the highest office. Set Galia for president. Then Egypt's revolution really would be cooking on gas.
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And Stephen Sacha's tale of a kitchen sink revolution in Cairo brings this edition to a close. I'll be back next Saturday with more from around the world. Do join us. Goodbye.