← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Feb 4, 2012
00:28:19
After a journey from the calm of a hotel lobby to a city centre ladies' outfitters and...
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BBC World Service Announcer
You're listening to a download from the BBC. This is from our own correspondent.
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You can hear the version of the
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To keep up with our latest reports and get a sneak preview of our
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Twitter feed as well. But now, presenting the BBC Radio 4
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Kate McGann
edition, here's Kate 80 today, more violence in Syria. How much longer can the regime of Bashar al Assad survive? Why many of the best and brightest young Italians are packing their bags and leaving the country. Black humour in Russia as demonstrators take to the streets again. And why you need a large stick when you are dealing with ghosts. In the Philippines, members of the United Nations Security Council are expected in a few hours time to vote on a resolution on the violence in Syria. Reports from the city of Homs speak of a government offensive leaving many dead. Residents reported sustained tank and mortar fire. Syrian activists said more than 200 people had been killed in the deadliest day of violence since the unrest began 11 months ago. There's been no independent verification. Tim Whewell's just back from Syria, where he tried to work out whether the opposition movement was gaining ground.
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Tim Whewell
It was the potted plants on the breakfast table that I couldn't decide about, so unnecessary as decoration and yet so perfectly positioned to catch every word of a whispered conversation. Braving the ridicule of colleagues and the obviously feigned indifference of the waiters, I ostentatiously removed them each morning before settling down to my muesli. Call it paranoia if you like, but in Syria, for those involved in or reporting on the opposition to President Assad, most such precautions are completely justified. Perhaps there were no bugs of the electronic variety infesting the busy Lizzies. But certainly it's not coincidence that foreign journalists, on the rare occasions that they get visas, are always placed in the same few rooms of the hotel, equipped for listening by the secret police. And it's certainly not from having read too many spy novels that opposition activists almost never arrange meetings over the phone, relying instead either on Skype or other forms of Internet chat, which are harder to monitor. It's from having seen too many comrades in the movement arrested, tortured and sometimes shot. What, to your own correspondent, is a slightly stressful game of cat and mouse. To get at the true story and to protect contacts is a matter of life and death to those struggling for democracy in Syria. And so when my colleagues and I set off for one anti Assad demonstration in a Damascus suburb, we Chatted as loudly as possible as we passed the government spooks lounging in the hotel entrance about the purchases we planned to make on our shopping expedition. We wandered as prearranged around a fashion store examining caps and scarves before clocking the presence of our contact across the bag display in women's accessories. Then, without making eye contact, we followed her at a discreet distance out onto the street. She waited. We waited, seemingly, we hoped, unconnected to one another for what felt like an unbearably long and suspicious time. Until finally a car drew up, she climbed in and wordlessly we climbed in too. A silent 20 minute drive through the bustling traffic filled, brightly lit centre of a capital that doesn't look rocked by revolution brought us to a quieter, darker district of squat factories and jerry built concrete housing. We stopped outside a shuttered workers cafe and waited again for longer than my nerves felt comfortable. Finally a cheque call came. No name asked for or given from an unknown number, presumably from a Skype address. And then two minutes later, the outline of a man appeared out of the blackness, only his eyes visible through the woollen scarf that bound his face. He guided us first in our car and then on foot through a maze of increasingly narrow back streets, until, as the eerie sound of distant drumming and chanting grew ever louder, we suddenly emerged onto an open plot of wasteland, framed in silhouette against the flickering flames of a bonfire. A crowd of a couple of hundred protesters were dancing, waving banners and calling for the hanging of their president, just visible in the shadows of the houses around. Men in knitted balaclavas with rifles. Defectors, we were told from the Syrian army who now support the rebellion. What lesson should I draw from that extraordinary, edgy hour long progression from the bland tinkling of the piano in the hotel lobby through the handbag department of Zara to the drumbeating heart of free Syria? That parts of the capital itself just a short distance from the presidential palace are now under the effective control of the revolution? Or that Assad's police state is still so powerful and all encompassing that opposition activists must behave like hunted animals, constantly glancing over their shoulders, even as they stand innocently on a street corner, Even in the so called liberated zone that I visited that night. We were forced to flee after half an hour as word spread that government security forces were approaching. And so I left Syria, unable to answer the first question that most people asked when I returned. How much longer will the regime survive? All I can tell you is that the dictatorship is very well constructed and that the people who oppose it are very brave.
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Kate McGann
Tim Whewell don't go out and protest about Vladimir Putin today. It's far too cold. That was the message from Russia's chief doctor as thousands of people prepared for another demonstration in Moscow this morning. This is the latest in a series of mass protests challenging Mr. Putin in the run up to the presidential elections next month. And it's not yet clear whether the freezing temperatures or the state doctor's thoughtful warning have significantly affected the turnout. Unsurprisingly, it's the demo taking place in the capital which is attracting most foreign interest. But they've been taking to the streets in other Russian cities as well, as James Kumarasamy's been finding out.
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James Kumarasamy
Have you heard the one about the chair of Russia's Central Electoral Commission, Igor Turin, has in his grey business suit, set off with a small Russian flag pin. He doesn't look like a promising stand up comedian, but as lunch goes on, the jokes begin to flow. We met in his restaurant in Nizhny Novgorod, an old merchant city at the confluence of the Volga and Oka rivers, which used to be a bastion of liberalism, but where the pro Putin authorities have recently taken a hard line with the protesters who have been disputing the results of December's parliamentary elections. Igor has no problem with those results. A successful businessman, he's a member of Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party and of the local parliament. Those things often go together. He's a former Red army officer who morphed into a vegetable importer when the Soviet Union collapsed, eventually earning enough money to buy the restaurant. And on one occasion he proudly told me to take his sons to a Britney Spears concert in London. The immigration officials had been suspicious of him, so he had sung Hit Me Baby One more time at the front of the passport queue. Now, you're probably wondering how that joke goes by now. Well, here it is, and it's not the sort of thing you'd expect from a Kremlin loyalist. President Obama phones up Vladimir Putin and tells him that his poll ratings are doing badly. So could he help? Sure, putin replies. We'll send you the head of our electoral commission, Chirov. When Churov returns from the mission, Putin asks him how it had gone. Excellent, comes the reply. United Russia won in 40American states. The slogan on the United Russia poster at the entrance to Dzerzhinsk is something you'd imagine a touring stand up comedian would tell his audience. Dzerzhinsky is United Russia's favorite city, it reads under a picture of a prowling green Bear the feeling it seems isn't mutual though. 40 minutes drive from Nizhny Novgorod, Dzerzhinsk voted Communist in December's elections, the first time that has happened in the post Soviet era. You wouldn't have thought there'd be much love for the communists there. Named after the founder of the kgb, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Dzerzhinsk was the center of Soviet chemical weapons production. And as the dark pools that dot its rivers and streams attest, that's left its citizens a poisonous legacy. Vladimir Putin's decision to close down many of the chemical plants helped him win local support, but he seems to have frittered that away by deciding to run again for president. I liked Putin, 78 year old Valery Unitsky told me on a rickety tram that first took to the rails in the year he was born. But he's got to stop thinking he is the father of the nation. He's just a hired manager. So Valieri voted for the Communists not out of love or nostalgia, but in protest at the way that power is being carved up. He'd hoped to re elect Dmitry Medvedev as president, but he's stood aside in favor of Mr. Putin. Back in Nizhny, I met a very different type of Putin opponent, Zakhar Priliepin, a rising literary star, but a far cry from your traditional member of the Russian intelligentsia. He's a veteran of the most recent war in Chechnya, shaven headed and intense, a proud Russian nationalist and one of the intellectual driving forces behind the current national protest movement. For him, it's not Putin's lack of democracy, but his lack of patriotism which disqualifies him from the Kremlin. You in the west, he chides, think he's a strong leader, but actually Putin's weak. He relies on associates who keep their money in Western banks and their children in Western schools. What kind of a national leader is that? In a cozy book lined cafe, he spoke of the inevitability of a major financial crisis or a terrorist attack, that that would bring the Russian people into conflict with the authorities. But he's not happy with the current protest movement, complaining that Moscow liberals are trying to sideline the nationalists and the communists. No one I've met in this region doubts that Vladimir Putin will be re elected president in March. And that makes businessman Igor Turin rather happy. We need stability, he says. We don't need any shocks with Putin. We know what we're going to get. And what we get from Igor are more jokes. Here's one. Putin and Medvedev are drinking together in 30 years time and find that their glasses are empty. Putin asks, who's president now? Is it you or me? You, replies Medvedev. My round, then. Putin sighs. There's a long tradition of political black humor in Russia, but in Soviet times, a foreign journalist wouldn't have heard it from the mouth of a ruling party official. A sign perhaps of how much has opened up here, but also of the underlying concerns about corruption and the lack of democracy, even among some of Mr. Putin's supporters.
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Kate McGann
And that's James Kumar Samy. Italy is passing through a critical period. The new government's launching a major effort to restructure the economy. This follows the announcement of a range of austerity measures, spending cuts, tax rises and so on, designed to rein in soaring public debt. The aim is to help the country claw its way out of a grave financial crisis. But any change for the better will come slowly. So many Italians are left feeling pessimistic about the future. Young people in particular are concerned about their prospects. And some, as Alan Johnston tells us, feel they'd be better off abroad.
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BBC World Service Announcer
One of Rome's central squares is dominated by that vast monument to united Italy's first king. It's sometimes nicknamed the Wedding Cake. With its stairways and towers rising up and up, all in gleaming white marble, it's a rather overblown statement of national pride. But in its depths, there's a place that tells the stories of those who, for one reason or another, had to leave Italy. This is the Emigration Museum. It's full of fading old photographs of Italians carving out new lives for themselves in Buenos Aires or Brooklyn or Brisbane. Emigration is very much part of Italy's history. But for this country's younger generation, it's also part of the present. Many of the best and brightest young Italians talk about leaving. Take, for example, Sebastiano. In my first days in Rome, we sat on a flight of steps chatting in the sunshine. I remember asking him what journalists, like me, newcomers, tended to get wrong about Italy. And he said that we British were at a particular disadvantage. He said we came from a land of quite clear cut politics, where the winner takes all, where coalitions are rare and where rules tend to be enforced. He said I came from a black and white world, but that Italy was all shades of grey. And you could tell that Sebastiano knew and understood all those many shades and that he loved the place, but he saw no future here. He reckons that in Istanbul, in rising, confident Turkey, there'll be possibilities that he would never find in weary Italy immersed in its worst economic crisis for a generation. A few days later, I met Samuele. Clever, handsome and likable and speaking several languages. You'd imagine him being able to walk into jobs all over Rome, but actually he was unemployed. Around one in every three young Italians is in the same position. I heard the other day that Samuele has now finally managed to find a job, but it was in Quito, in Ecuador, and that was the thing. A young guy called Vincenzo said, these days, smart young Italians aren't only heading for wealthier places like Germany or Scandinavia, say, they're going all over the world, Latin America, Africa, anywhere, if it meant being able to get away. Vincenzo works at a research centre at a university in Rome, where he said pretty much everyone wondered about going elsewhere, and he certainly will. He talked of a system that's failing its youth, the place where opportunities depend far too much on who you know and too little on what you know. Like other young people I'd met, he described a kind of national malaise, a lack of dynamism, openness and fairness, a strangling of potential. He said that Rome was, as he put it, just beautiful, but that it was impossible for him and his girlfriend to stay if they wanted to make something of their careers. Italy's new government is acutely aware of the frustrations of the nation's youth. Prime Minister Mario Monti talks constantly of needing to create opportunities for the youngest Italians, and he says this is one of his major objectives as he sets about trying to restructure and re energize the economy on a grand scale. So down in Naples, I asked a young journalist called Francesco if he believed that things just might change now, that Mr. Monti might deliver for the new generation. But Francesco was doubtful. Even if the situation were to improve, he said, it would be years before you'd really notice the difference. And Francesco doesn't have time to waste. He felt that his life had stalled in Naples. The only work he could get would make around €300amonth, not even enough to pay the rent. Francesco was planning to head for Berlin. We talked down on the seafront just as the sun was sinking. A calm had settled on the huge bay, and as we watched just for a few minutes, Mount Vesuvius was bathed in an extraordinary, gentle, pinkish sort of light. I said, surely you'll miss this when you leave. And Francesco replied that sometimes, living here, he was so lost in his troubles, the it was hard to see the best in the place. He said that when he was away, it might be Easier to really appreciate Italy and all the things that it offers, like that lovely vision of the Bay of Naples in the Last of the Light.
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Kate McGann
Alan Johnston Travel anywhere in Africa and it won't be long before you're on a railway built with Chinese cash or rolling along some tarmac laid down by a Chinese construction company. In recent years, a relationship has developed between China and Africa which has been of huge benefit to both parties. China gets access to the African mineral wealth it needs to keep fueling its hungry economy. In return, the Beijing government is on a gigantic African spending spree in the form of infrastructure projects, loans and even gifts. And as our man Will Ross has been finding out in Ethiopia, some of those gifts are bigger than others.
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BBC World Service Announcer
A serious looking Chinese man in a dark suit was giving lessons in how to get the fountain tiles gleaming. He pulled out a ball of steel wool imported from China and, making sure his sleeves stayed dry, did a bit of light scrubbing before handing over to a tiny Ethiopian woman in an enormous straw hat. Neither could understand a word the other was saying, but they were making, albeit slow, progress. This was just hours before the handing over ceremony of a very special Chinese gift. Journalists were busy taking pictures of it from every conceivable angle, which upset some of the Chinese officials who didn't want the present to be publicized until the official opening. It reminded me of a parent saying to a child, no, you can't open your birthday present yet, not until the morning, so put it back and stop feeling it and trying to work out what it is. But there was no wrapping paper around this particular gift. In fact, it couldn't have been more unhideable. Addis Ababa's tallest building, a 100 metre tower with a round, shiny spaceship like structure next to it. The brand new headquarters of the African Union, funded entirely by the Chinese government. I asked a journalist from China what we could read into the timing of this generous donation. Well, in the 1970s, China gave railways to Africa. Later, stadiums were built. In the last 10 years, there have been roads and now it's just time for this beautiful building. He replied with a smile, knowing it wasn't quite the answer I was after. Some analysts suggest that by supporting the Pan African body, China's trying to help build stability in Africa and to foster some unity across the continent. Not an easy task. Less than 48 hours after a huge golden key had been handed over to mark the building's official opening, Africa's presidents were locked inside, trying to decide who should be the chairman of the au, the continent's Economic powerhouse South Africa was trying to wrestle the position away from the West African state of Gabon, whose francophone allies were not pleased at all. They were still voting at 3 in the morning, at which point the decision was taken to call it a draw. Let's let the incumbent continue for a few months and then they'd vote again. Not exactly a harmonious start for the new AU hq. China may not be able to change the politics of Africa in a hurry, but it's certainly shaken up the business environment at lightning speed. I sat in the driver's seat of a brand new and very comfortable saloon car. This is the Lifan 620, the young Ethiopian man told me in the showroom, which overlooked a street clogged with blood taxis, many of them Russian larders from the 1970s. Parts from China built here in Ethiopia, he said proudly. The cost was about the same as a 5 year old Japanese import. Although some Ethiopians I met doubted this Chinese car would survive the roads for too many years, the growing middle class is getting a chance to own a brand new vehicle for the very first time. In an exhibition hall in Addis Ababa, Sheng Yuxing was giving me the lowdown on his company's products. Ceiling panels and partition walls. Ethiopian homes have metal roofs. When it rains it's very noisy and in the day it's very hot, he told me before declaring, every house needs a proper ceiling. Next to him, an Ethiopian assistant, Elsa, was practising her finals with nasal endings from Standard Chinese book 1. Chinese businesses have set up all over Africa. There's been a lot written about the huge mining companies hungry for the continent's mineral wealth to feed China's economy and the infrastructure projects and loans which African governments have been offered in return. China's rise has gone down well with most of Africa's politicians who say they're fed up with the Western countries telling them what to do. Back in the brand new 2,500 capacity conference center, the speeches were in full swing. The heads of state looked comfortable as China's fourth most powerful man, Jia Qin Lin, spoke of the flourishing relationship with Africa, offered container loads of cash for the African Union, and then stressed the fact that China would not interfere in any other country's affairs. Then Ban Ki Moon stood up and warned that the Arab Spring could head south. Repression is a dead end. Police power is no match for people power seeking dignity and justice, the United nations chief told the assembled leaders. He then went on to lecture them on gay rights. I know which speech the presidents preferred. This continent is looking east Will Ross in Addis Ababa.
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Kate McGann
Now it doesn't pay to cross the witches of the Philippines. It's advice the old president's wife, Imelda Marcos, apparently failed to heed. They say a curse was put on her which made scales grow on her legs. Must have made shoe selection very tricky. The home of witchcraft in the Philippines is apparently the island of Sikior. Like many of the 7,000 islands there, it's a perfect place to relax and unwind. There's tropical sunshine, white sand and turquoise seas. But visitors mindful perhaps of what's said to have happened to the legs of the forest former first lady do need to be careful. Kate McGann has been up into the hills of Sikior to seek out a modern day witch how do you go
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about looking for a witch? It's not a question I'd ever thought to ask before, so I rang the Sikhio tourism department to see if they were able to help. We don't have any witches, was the first reply, which didn't seem all that promising. But after a bit more discussion, it seems that Sikio's witches, well, the good ones anyway, have recently undergone a rebranding exercise. They are now called traditional healers. What about the bad witches? I asked. Oh, we don't promote them, came the rather sensible reply. So, armed with a list of approved witches, I set off. My first call was to a woman who's by far the most famous healer on the island. At 86 years old, Khonsing Achai is the only person still practicing bulo bulo, a technique to remove evil spirits. Her heavily lined face reflects the ancient history of her art. Murmuring a special language, she adds a small stone to a glass of water, then moves it slowly around her patient's body, blowing air into it through a bamboo straw. The water gradually becomes cloudy. Apparently that's the sickness coming out. She then repeats the ritual, continuing until the water stays clear, which took three attempts in my case, making me wonder just how many bad spirits had been attacking me recently. Consing isn't quite what I'd imagined a witch to be. She is devoutly Catholic and sees no contradiction between her religious faith and her traditional spells. In fact, she says she received her powers from the Christ Child in a dream, and she does a quick sign of the cross before starting each treatment. She does have a black cat, but it didn't seem to have an essential role in the proceedings. It fell asleep behind my chair during the treatment, and her consultations are held in a small room which is directly behind her son's karaoke bar. Francisco Allad is even more of a contradiction than consing, because he is essentially living the life of a modern Filipino. A motorbike was parked by the porch and a scarf with the word Holland emblazoned on it was in pride of place on the wall, a gift from his daughter's Dutch husband. But Francisco's most important possession is a large stick which he claims can identify bad spirits. He believes these spirits are everywhere on the side of the road, floating around in the air and even under the ground, just waiting to get into people to cause illness of body or mind. Francisco says they're the ghosts of the dead or fallen angels. When his services are called upon, he he identifies what's wrong with the patient by seeing how the stick reacts to suggestions of different diseases. I didn't see much reaction myself. It looked, well, like a stick, but then, of course, I wasn't ill. If it's a psychological problem, a change in behaviour, or a bout of anger or depression, Francisco has a different approach. He prods the stick in the ground around his patient's house to try to identify the spirits causing the malaise and tell them to go away. On the opposite side of the island, another family is also busy tackling evil in a different way. Dios Dada proudly showed me her father's herbal potions, which since his death, she alone can administer. These ointments are only made once a year. More than 150 different types of herbs and tree roots are needed and all of them must be gathered between Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. They are then rubbed into the affected areas of the patient's body. A cloud of smoke is produced at the same time to ward off yet more of these ever present bad spirits. By this point, I was wondering what it is that makes Sickyhaw so full of malevolence. After all, the palm trees swaying softly in the wind and the sun drenched paddy fields and the white sand beaches seem anything but threatening. Perhaps it's because, despite the government's rebranding efforts, almost all the healers I spoke to said that bad witches did still exist, putting curses on people out of jealousy or rage. Or perhaps it's the more practical reason suggested by Francisco, that because the island didn't have its own hospital until recently, traditional beliefs about illness and disease have stood the test of time. Or perhaps it's just a fiction that's been repeated down the centuries to become the stuff of myth and legend. But if so, the queue of people waiting for treatment from Kon Sing shows. It's a myth that's very much alive today. As for whether I believe it, well, it's better to be safe than sorry. If I had any bad spirits living inside me, the good witches of Squior have hopefully sent them on their way.
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And with Cape Magann wisely staying on the right side of those witches in the Philippines, we've reached the end of another edition. I'll be back with more from our correspondence on Thursday and Saturday next week. I do hope you'll join us. Goodbye.