← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Home Grown Heroes
00:27:44
War may still be raging in the east, but Ukraine's gearing up for elections -- and are...
Loading summary
Transcript16 lines
- [00:00]
A
Thank you for downloading this podcast we make from our own correspondent for the BBC World Service as well.
- [00:06]
B
But this is the edition broadcast on Radio 4 and it's introduced by Kate Ady. Hello. Today, the homegrown heroes fresh from the war in the east, now fighting for seats in Ukraine's parliament. The Native Americans determined to ensure that their language dies along with them. We're getting to know our Roma neighbours in Bulgaria and meeting a former jihadi, now working for the government and something of a celebrity in Indonesia. The economy has gone through the floor, corruption is widespread, and there's a damaging and costly war going on in the east of the country. It's not hard to grasp the issues dominating the run up to Sunday's parliamentary elections in Ukraine. The war between government forces and pro Russia separatist rebels broke out in April. More than three and a half thousand people have been killed. A ceasefire deal was agreed last month between Kiev and the rebels, but fighting continues. It's been particularly fierce around the airport in Donetsk, which neither side is willing to give up. Jamie Kumarasamy says the conflict has cast a long shadow over the Pole. It's also thrown up some unlikely candidates.
- [01:17]
A
Being caught naked on camera is usually an effective way to end a political career. Mihailo Gavriliuk. It was the event that launched one. A manual labourer who worked on farms and construction sites, Gavriliuk was thrust into the spotlight in January during the height of the anti government protests in Kiev. He was filmed standing in nothing but a pair of boots in sub zero temperatures as riot police attacked him and shoved him into the back of a van. His distinctive hairstyle, one long blond strand of hair cascading from an otherwise shaven head, marked him out as a Ukrainian Cossack, a group that's played an important role in the country's history, often forming militias to defend against outside invaders. Overnight, the uploaded video of his ordeal turned him into a symbol of proud patriotic suffering. And when he reappeared on Independence Square a few days later, fully clothed and chopping wood, with a smile on his face, he'd morphed into something else. A picture of defiance and determination. Nine months later, his face is once again smiling on Independence Square, a normal looking place these days. The sprawling mass of barricades and tents a thing of the past. But this time, he's looking down from a poster. Fort Mikhailo is a prominent candidate in Ukraine's parliamentary elections, standing for the Popular Front party of Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk. As was the case during the protests. He's not alone. Mihailo is one of many war hero candidates who have been signed up by parties hoping to appeal to patriotism. Most of them are political newcomers who made their name during the uprising against the ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, or on the front lines of the conflict in the east, or, in the case of Mykhailo, both. When we met on a warm, autumnal day in Kiev, he was, in contrast to his first public appearance, a overdressed, wearing military fatigues to emphasize his fighting credentials. Following his experience in Kiev, he told me he'd served time with a volunteer Cossack battalion in the Donetsk region, fighting pro Russian rebels and delivering supplies to besieged locals. But how does this qualify you to sit in parliament and write laws? I asked. My experience doesn't matter, he replied with a chuckle. All I need is a good team around me. It's important that Ukraine is run by patriots. To illustrate his loyalty to the country, he proudly produced an item that symbolized both his unlikely journey and the upheaval that's taken place in Ukraine. A police badge. His Cossack battalion is under the Ministry of the Interior, making him a police officer, a member of the very organization which publicly humiliated him. But perhaps the most prominent war hero in this election campaign is actually a war heroine whose name isn't on the ballot. Nadiya Savchenko is a pilot with the Ukrainian Air Force who was captured by pro Russian forces in the east. In an echo of Mykhailo's experience, her interrogation was filmed and uploaded to YouTube. She's since turned up in Russia, crossing the border under her own steam, according to Moscow, under duress, according to Kiev, and is being held at an undisclosed location, accused of causing the death of two Russian journalists. But while she's out of the country, she's certainly not out of sight. Ukraine's highest profile female soldier is the face of the party led by Ukraine's highest profile female politician, the former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko. Many of her Fatherland Party's posters show Savchenko's determined features after her family gave permission for the image to be used. Timoshenko, you may remember, was herself a heroine during the 2004 Orange Revolution, but was later jailed by her arch rival, President Yanukovych. Yet on her much trumpeted return from prison in February, on the very day that Yanukovych fled the country, she ended up hitting the wrong notes. Her appearance on Kiev's Independence Square that night was was in front of a critical, skeptical crowd, suspicious of anyone who had been in power. I was on the square too. And her impassioned pledge to sacrifice herself for the country seemed ill judged, too self centred. In May's presidential election, she only got 13%. The man who won that vote by a huge margin and whose party has been leading in the parliamentary polls is Petro Poroshenko. He also dons military fatigues these days when he visits Ukrainian soldiers serving in the east. Yet unlike most other parties, which emphasize Ukraine's power, strength and resilience, Poroshenko's uses slogans that stress the importance of national unity. For parliamentary candidate Mykhailo Gavrilouk, that unity can only come through national pride. Our children have had enough of Batman and Spider man, he told me. We need our own homegrown heroes. Homegrown heroes presumably like him.
- [06:37]
B
Jamie Kumarasamy in Kiev the authorities in Canada have yet to comment on the suggestion by their prime minister overnight that the man who carried out an attack on the parliament building in Ottawa yesterday had jihadist sympathies. Governments across the Western world have been trying to work out how to react to the growing numbers of young people who have declared their support for the Islamic State extremists fighting in the Middle EAS and what they can do about those of their citizens who've travelled halfway round the world to join them in battle. In Britain, there's been talk of treason charges and seizing passports. But other governments may have different ideas. Michael Bristow's been talking to a man in Indonesia who once devoted his life to militant Islam but now has a different agenda.
- [07:24]
C
Nasir Abbas once fought the Russians in Afghanistan and for Islamic militants in the Philippines. He's killed people, so I wasn't prepared for what he does now. He's a salesman, peddling disposable medical products to hospitals across Indonesia. I met him in a warehouse on the outskirts of Jakarta, where boxes of catheters and surgical gloves were stacked in neat rows. In many ways, the former jihadist is perfectly suited to his new job. He's handsome and has a smile permanently plain on his lips. And he's got the gift of the gab, all useful attributes for a man who wants to persuade others to part with their money. He's even managed to draw on his former life for the benefit of his current one. He often called his old friends in Jema Islamiya, whose members bombed tourist spots in Bali more than a decade ago. I asked them if any of their relatives work in a hospital and if they could give me an introduction. He told me, obviously, he said, I offer Them a commission. Nasir Abbas was born in Singapore but grew up in Malaysia. He went to a Muslim school and at a critical age in his young life, met a group of Islamic radicals. They persuaded him to go and fight with the mujahideen in Afghanistan, which was then occupied by the Soviet Union. But it wasn't ideology alone that persuaded him to go. I wanted adventure, he said, smiling again. His journey to Afghanistan was not without irony. To fight the Russians, he first had to fly from Malaysia to Pakistan. He went on the Soviets national airline, Aeroflot. Apparently it was the cheapest ticket. I kept wondering if I was going to get arrested, he said. After six years fighting in Afghanistan, he went back to Malaysia, joined Jema Islamiyah and was sent to the Philippines. He fought with Muslims who wanted to set up their own country on the southern island of Mindanao. At no point in this journey did he doubt what he was doing. I was fighting a holy war, he said. Jihad. But his life as a jihadist ended when he was arrested in Indonesia. It was just after the first bali bombs in 2002 and the police were rounding up Islamic extremists. He said he had nothing to do with those attacks. He'd just moved to Indonesia at the time, but was sent to prison anyway on charges of illegally entering the country. While in jail, he had time to observe his guards. I noticed they appeared to be good Muslims, he said. They prayed, they fasted, they seemed more pious than me. His conversion to the anti terror cause had begun. His change of heart, whether genuine or opportunistic, was encouraged by his jailers. After the Bali bombs, the authorities in Indonesia woke up to the threat that the jihadists posed. They sought to counter it by first arresting them and then trying to change their minds. Who better to persuade them than a man who'd already been through the same experience? So Nasser Abbas now works for the government, talking to prisoners convicted of crimes of terror, trying to convince them to reform. A comic book has even been produced about his life. When we met, he gave me a copy. The exploits of a jihadist, rendered into the brightly coloured images of a child's magazine. We flicked through it. There are pictures of when the Taliban took over in Afghanistan. The legs of one man shown dangling from the branch of a tree. He'd just been hanged. And there's a sequence from when Nasir Abbas himself was arrested in Jakarta. In the comic, he fought back before soldiers dressed in black finally pinned him to the floor. His message to young people thinking of fighting jihad abroad today is simple. Don't Talk to as many people as possible about Islam and don't be convinced by radicals. The former jihadist has now become something of a celebrity in Indonesia. He appears on talk shows and people often recognise him and ask to take his photograph. Naseer Abbas seems to revel in this limelight. He enjoys playing the reformed terrorist. It's easy to see why he appears to have struggled to settle into ordinary life. He's done a succession of jobs since coming out of prison. He once sold snacks from a street stall, and money is tight. He's still waiting for the government to give him Indonesian citizenship. But it's hard not to admire him. He turned his back on his old life and admitted he was wrong. And for whatever reason, that's never easy.
- [12:10]
B
That's Michael Bristow. Now. How do you prevent a language dying out, becoming extinct? Some sources suggest that of the 7,000 languages spoken around the world, more than 400 of them are in danger. This means that the only people still speaking them are likely to be elderly, perhaps only using the language occasionally. But while these minority tongues struggle to survive in various corners of the world, in rural California, there are some native speakers who are doing their best to make sure their language dies with them. Caroline Davis, following in the footsteps of her ancestors, has been to northeastern California to find out why.
- [12:50]
D
Three hours drive from Silicon Valley, we reach the railroad. The orange rusting tracks follow the curve of the river through the mountains, disappearing into rough cut tunnels deeper into the heart of northeastern California. This is the road to Taylorsville, a frontier town in the Genesee Valley. We pull over at the general store. Apart from the hairdressers, it's the only shop in this town of 140 inhabitants, a pointed timber building painted in deep red. The shelves are piled with tins to dried jerky and black and white postcards of pioneers leaning on wagons or puffing on pipes. Trina, a distant relative and my guide, points to the old mechanical cash register, its brass buttons polished by over a century of use. That was probably one of the first pieces of technology to be brought from the city to the mountains, she says, tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear. Your Great Uncle John might have seen it arrive. Our forefathers were brothers together on a Welsh farm when, in 1850, John Davis traveled to the west coast of America in search of gold. As with many miners during the gold rush, he travelled to California on a wagon train, eventually arriving in Genesee Valley, where he married a Native American woman from the Maidu people. There weren't any other women around from Europe, says Trina, and many of the Maidu men had died at the hands of the early settlers. We take her jeep through the pine forest to John Davis's farm. A feather tied delicately to some beads with a leather strap dangling from the mirror is Welsh, taught in the uk. Trina asks, do you speak? Is, I explain. But I can't. I stutter a couple of badly pronounced phrases and nursery rhymes that my grandmother taught me, which proves the point. I'm the same with my dear, she says. My but here we're losing the language. There are only five speakers left, and they're all aged between 87 and 93. Is someone recording it? I ask. It needs to be taped and written down phonetically. Trina smiles, a little pained. It isn't quite that simple. Our arrival at the farmhouse startled some deer. We walk to the family graveyard. At the end of the path, stones bear the name of some of my very distant family members, Maidu first names and Welsh surnames. I notice one new grave. It's for Trina's brother. He died last summer, says Trina quietly. He was very involved in preservation. It concerned him that the next generation wouldn't have that connection. He used to teach the Maidu language, but most of the people who wanted to learn weren't those with Native American ancestors or any experience of it. They would have conversations, but I couldn't recognize their pronunciation. Those that know the language don't want to speak it, she continues. They associate it with difficult times. They don't want to stir up anything. Over the centuries, different governments have tried varying approaches to the indigenous people across North America, from paying for their scalps to forced assimilation through boarding schools and work programs that failed to deliver. Trust in authority is low. We are quiet on the drive back to Taylorsville. Trina suggests we stop for tea. There's a different way of thinking in the Mydu tradition, she explains. We believe the way you reach richness in life is through knowledge. It gives you power, and it's your responsibility to use that wisely. If you pass that knowledge on, you are responsible for the outcome. If someone misuses the knowledge you give them, if they use it to hurt someone, you as the person who gave it to them, are responsible for that hurt. Even in the state of California, where the information revolution began, some communities would rather turn in on themselves than share their culture with a world they distrust. Is this the noble act of a true social responsibility or a futile gesture by a culture that would rather die than adapt? As regional boundaries blur and knowledge is shared around the world in a moment. Are we growing wiser or merely better informed? The choice of the MAIDU shows that without trust and engagement, valuable knowledge and understanding can be lost forever.
- [17:17]
B
And that's Caroline Davis. South Sudan's warring factions have been meeting in Tanzania in the latest bid to end a 10 month conflict in which thousands have been killed. The civil war in the world's newest nation has seen some 2 million people fleeing their homes. James Kopnell tells us that as the fighting continues, the optimism so evident at independence in July 2011 has now all but disappeared.
- [17:43]
E
At Juba International Airport, the glossy terminal that was meant to be ready for Independence Day more than three years ago stands half finished. So far, so familiar. But when we stepped off the plane back into that enveloping heat, we were directed away from the dowdy old arrivals hall into a white tent. A man in a spacesuit wearing a ski mask pointed a gadget at my forehead and his gloved hand passed me a yellow leaflet. Ebola, the deadly virus, hasn't reached South Sudan yet, but no one is taking chances. It was a reminder, too, that even though the war rumbles on in South Sudan, the attention of the world has moved on to Ebola, the Islamic State and elsewhere. The next day I went to Juba University to take part in a debate about the country. The charming old campus has buildings made of irregular lumps of rock, like a dry stone wall. The event was held in the French Institute, a 10 minute walk across muddy lawns. The South Sudanese present asked pointed questions about proxy rebel groups and international relations, which often revealed who they were supporting in the conflict dividing their country. At one point, Taban Lo Leong, South Sudan's most famous writer, got up to speak. He is known for his fiction and his literary criticism, as well as his strong opinions. Lo Leung has a pronounced white beard and spectacles. He looks every inch the public African intellectual. To my surprise, he said South Sudan should be put under UN trusteeship for four years. To hear one of the country's most revered minds make such a drastic suggestion gives an indication of just how bad things have got. There were further signs in Lear. I had last visited the small town two years ago. Roads were dirt, not tarmac. Salaries were late or non existent. Frustration with the government was growing. Aquamarine paint was peeling on the walls of the few government offices on the other side of Independence Square, an open space that flooded when it rained. The police chief detained criminals in a ship's container as he did not have a prison. It was a case study in neglect, despite the oil fields just to the north. After the civil war began in December, the town was seized by troops loyal to the government. Lir, perhaps not coincidentally, is the home of the rebel leader Riek Machar. Much of the town was destroyed in the market. The empty spaces where shops used to be give it an abandoned air. Burnt metal sheets from torch stalls have been rescued from the ashes and pressed into service as walls and roofs as the market is slowly rebuilt. Even Lehrs hospital was attacked there. One building, still standing after fire and gunfire, is open to the sky. The holes make the roof look like a painful smile, a mouth with most of the teeth removed. That was nothing compared to the stories. The people of Lair fled into the nearby bush to survive, living off wild animals and water lilies. After the rebels took Lair again, most returned to the town. I sat under a mango tree with several young men, most of whom worked for international aid agencies. Most of the other males from Lhere have been pressed into service with the rebels. With my new friends, we drank potent coffee laced with ginger and several spoons of sugar. One, who I will call Joinet, spoke calmly, but I couldn't help noticing how his cheekbones protruded from his face. He and others had watched children and old people die of hunger, and in the swamps not far from the town, Joinet spoke of women creeping back into Lehr to scavenge for food and being raped or killed. People were less hungry now, Joynet reassured me, since aid agencies had started food drops. Still, no one was comfortable. The rainy season, which turns dirt roads into cloying mud, had slowed the fighting. But what would happen when the rain stopped in a few weeks? They are asking the same question in government garrison towns which have been sacked by the rebels. Both sides have committed terrible abuses against civilians. Given all this misery, you might expect a near unanimous demand to stop the war. Certainly there are many voices for peace. The Catholic bishops called the fighting evil and immoral. Many South Sudanese told me they are desperate for the warring parties to sign a deal that sticks. But among the many depressing things I saw in South Sudan, one stands out. I met supporters of the president and fans of the rebels, who have no objection to the war continuing until their chosen leader can rule unopposed.
- [22:22]
B
James Koppnell There the integration of the Roma people, some of Europe's poorest and most disadvantaged, has been a target of the EU for some time. It's estimated that there are between 10 and 12 million Roma in Europe, most of them in Central and Eastern. Billions of pounds have been spent on assimilation strategies. But critics say these efforts have largely failed, and economic turmoil in the continent has only helped to bolster long simmering hostility. Discrimination against the Roma is banned in the European Union, but many still fall victim to prejudice and social exclusion. Lucy Irvine, an Englishwoman living in Bulgaria, has been getting to know her Roma neighbourhood.
- [23:05]
F
Baba Trinka lives in the same village as I do in Bulgaria, but in the ghetto occupied by Turks and Roma. In the winter of 2009, she came to my gate flanked by grandchildren, begging for food. After shouting my name, the trio stood in silence under a ragged triangle of plastic, forming a cloak to ward off the sleet falling.
- [23:27]
C
Wait.
- [23:28]
F
I called back. Wearing a bin bag as a waterproof, I was lugging concrete slabs over semi frozen mud to form a path to my caravan. My house had burned down the week before. Come here. Cried Baba, but I persisted in my task. I wanted the path done by nightfall. Another slab laid. I turned to the group at the gate. Baba Trenker was observing me keenly. When she'd come begging before the fire, I had descended from my terrace to dispense juice and sponge cake with a faintly memsabish air, a typical neo colonial, albeit also an economic refugee, as it was the price of property in the UK that had driven me to Bulgaria. Now, both of us inadequately protected from the elements by plastic, my home in ruins behind me, the dynamic between us changed, and although Baba shouted again for me to come, it was no longer to demand arms but to offer from the sticky hand of a small boy she thrust by the wrist through the bars half a chocolate biscuit. Take it, she ordered in the tones of a matriarch accustomed to being obeyed. I took it. You must eat, she said, and she meant now. So I did. My caution over food passed from grubby hands, dissolving with the delicious cheap chocolate. Someone burnt my house down too, she informed me, and a warm smile lit up her face, previously set in a stern mask. She had found something we had in common, though my own fire had been caused by a faulty chimney. That was five years ago, and I've only encountered Baba Trinker again recently in a tin hut sometimes serving as a church for Roma. She was there to worship I to dispense art materials to ghetto children. An arthritic condition had restricted her movements about the village. Soon after the chocolate biscuit episode after church, she asked if I could fetch a prescription from the nearest town for her, and it was when I delivered this that I learnt more about how she lived. It was summer and I found Baba shuffling around on her bottom among weeds outside the one roomed home she'd occupied since her two roomed home burned down. She welcomed me with the words my sister and said she was looking for a kitten. Bad children who killed cats for fun had been chasing it, she said. Progeny, it transpired, of the bad people who'd once set a match to her home. This was a family with whom she had an ongoing feud to do with an arranged marriage which had foundered and the wasted bride price paid. I rolled my children down the roof. She reminisced of the blaze. Relatives caught them. The village mayor had put in an appearance in the aftermath, but no one had called the police. This was ghetto business. The besides, her house was unofficial. It qualified to be raised as casually by a Bulgarian bulldozer as by a feud fuelled fire. Many rural Roma live like this, unable to afford official land on which to build. They are often tolerated but despised, and some are recruited from their illegal hovels to work as street cleaners for local authorities. Babatrinka is now too disabled to work and often has no food in the basket hanging from her cracked ceiling, which serves as a cupboard. She lives from cadged cigarette to gifted jar of soup. We talk about kittens as I too take in the abandoned, and she shows me how she makes tiny harnesses for those she rescues to keep them safe from what she calls bad children. Her cats eat river fish when a neighbour's caught any, and kill the rats which scamper over her dirt floor at night, keeping her and the grandchild she shares a bed with awake. We have a deal going now. I pay for and fetch her prescriptions from town. She alerts me when there's another cat
- [27:19]
C
in need of care.
- [27:21]
F
Despite her arthritis and money worries, she's generally cheerful when I call, buoyed up perhaps by the philosophy in a phrase she often utters, health is all that matters.
- [27:33]
B
And with those words of wisdom from Lucy Irvine's Roman neighbour in Bulgaria, it's time for us to go. More words of wisdom, I hope, in our program here on Saturday morning. Why don't you join us? Goodbye.