← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Meeting the last Emperor of China
00:28:08
Kate Adie hosts reports from correspondents around the world. Mark Lobel attends a for...
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Mark Lobel
You're listening to a download from the BBC. This is from our own correspondent. You can hear the version of the
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Mike Thompson
programme we make for the BBC World Service by visiting our site at BBConline. But here's the latest edition broadcast on
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Will Grant
BBC Radio 4 and introduced by Kate Ady.
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Narrator / Presenter
Today, South Africa's striking miners fuel the country's debate about inequality. Cartwheels and piggybacks, military training with the Mali army. Our correspondent recalls a chance meeting with the last emperor of China and Sheikh meets high summer on Italy's Riviera Romagnola. The video recordings of South African police firing on and killing protesting miners have evoked memories of the country's brutal days of apartheid. The men had been demanding better pay and working conditions. President Zuma has announced that a commission will investigate the circumstances of the deaths. But the incident has focused international attention on the fact that many black people are disappointed with their lives. In democratic South Africa, almost a quarter of the population is unemployed, 73% of them under the age of 35. Mark Lobel recently travelled to one of the memorial services for the dead men.
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Mark Lobel
As we pull out of Johannesburg and head towards South Africa's game rich north west province, we coast along the so called Platinum highway as it sails over a dam wall. We cruise by a yacht club before entering the Platinum belt, home to Lonmin, one of the world's biggest producers of the precious expensive metal. But poverty is here too. We pass squatter camps housing many of Marikana's mine workers, most of whom are on strike. There's still a large police presence around the mine. You wouldn't normally look twice at a rock in the feld a few hundred meters from the mine. But from video footage of the shootings, it identifies the place where 34 protesting miners were killed as they stormed a group of armed police. The incident still shrouded in mystery. Video footage shows some form of gas pushing the miners towards police lines. A doctor at one main hospital here swears that none of the injured he treated had any shots above the femur. There is great anger that the police were using live bullets. But were they trying to maim rather than kill? The government say they are looking into it and they have named all the dead. But 25 year old mine worker Jabulani is still looking for six of his colleagues. The slim tall father of a toddler has been on strike for two weeks. As we talk at the back of a memorial service attended by thousands, he blames the government for authorizing the shootings, cursing that even now the police don't seem to have been punished. Holding an umbrella to shield the heat, Jabulani whispers to me as the hymns and speeches ring out in English, Sotho and Hosa that the strikers will win their battle for more pay for a better life. Could you keep going for two months?
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David Willey
I ask.
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Mark Lobel
He winces. He could, but it would hurt as he needs the money to pay for his very basic housing. He moved here from the Eastern Cape three years ago for the work. He's not a member of a union, but wants to use this protest to secure electricity and water for his informal settlement away from the crowds. A bulky mine rigger hopes meaningful negotiations get underway soon. He too is on strike. As a member of the largest mining union, he says he has no choice. The 41 year old father of three, Thabo Morarett, is a former boxer who turned to working underground after a serious injury ended his life in the ring. He's most furious about the lack of affordable sports facilities for his children in a local school provided by Lonmin. He hopes for a better pay deal throughout the industry and enough money, he says, so that he can afford to take his children to the zoo. Across town, police have been busy dealing with charges laid against their own in what turned out to be a media circus playing up to the press who are watching him hand in an official complaint. In the Marikana police station, a well known and controversial fresh faced former ANC youth leader finally emerges. Wearing a multicolored linen shirt with designer sunglasses propped on top of his shaven, well moisturized head. Julius Malema thinks he's the man to put members of the police on trial for for last week's shooting. He uses softly spoken words to deliver a ferocious verbal assault on the president. Malema was once convicted of hate speech for singing a song about shooting Afrikaner farmers and has since been expelled from the ruling party. Such is the scale of this tragedy. He appears totally comfortable criticizing his former boss, President Zuma, for inciting violence, accusing him of ordering the police to use maximum force against the protesters. We're treated to one last glimpse of the ANC outcast's gleaming white smile before he speeds off in his glistening white suv. All this international attention in the Marikana massacre has had an effect after whispers in the local police station that President Zuma was coming to visit. Indeed he did. He came and went so quickly that many of the news crews missed him. But with government inquiries launched and the incident fuelling the debate about inequities and injustice in the country, perhaps at Last, the plight of South Africa's miners may finally be addressed.
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Narrator / Presenter
Mark Lobel earlier this week, footage emerged of three Western men held hostage since late last year by Islamist militants in the north of the West African Republic of Mali. In the video, the men appealed for their release. It's a stark reminder that part of the country remains outside the control of the central government based in the capital, Bama. The Mali army is trying to take steps to recover the territory, but what are its chances of success against an enemy that seems so established in the north? Mike Thompson, recently embedded with the official Mali forces, has been finding out.
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Mike Thompson
A heavy steel door set in walls topped with barbed wire slides open to reveal a waterlogged courtyard ringed by small accommodation blocks. Mopti Army Barracks is to be home for the next three days. Sitting on a sofa in what passes for the officers mess, Colonel Didier Dacko. Speaking in clear, well articulated English, he extends his hand and invites us to sit down. Gently stroking his well tendered moustache, our host smiles warmly and says, wherever you go here, my special forces will ensure your safety. After thanking him for this generous offer, I ask what distinguishes his special forces from the rest of his men. Ah, he whispers with a gentle shake of the head. That is sensitive information. The next morning, after a night of intermittent power cuts, clouds of ravenous mosquitoes and thunderous downpours, we pile into an old Land Rover before speeding off to join an army patrol hunting for insurgents. As promised, we're being tailed by a pickup truck full of heavily armed men with light brown instead of green uniforms, fancy knee pads and black T shirts. Are these the Mali army's special forces? It appears so soon. We're sandwiched between a long line of pickup trucks crammed with gun toting soldiers. Every minute brings us nearer to the ultimate destination, the Islamist controlled zone to the north east of Moti, where the Mali army's writ runs out. Spotting a good opportunity, we leap up and start filming as we pass through a small village. At that very moment, for some unknown reason, the driver in the lead car puts his foot down and we roar off. We cling on heroically. Finally, the officer in charge of our vehicle gets the convoy to slow down and I'm invited to perch on a large wooden box, which they tell me will be more stable when things get rough. About half an hour and many backside braking bumps later, I discover what's in this box numerous rounds of live ammunition. As the patrol continues, I ask the soldier next to me who's intensely scrutinising all we Pass what in particular? He's looking out for men with long beards, comes the reply. A while later, we stop at the point where the Islamists begin to hold sway. This, for now, is as far as we can go. An army captain tells me. We decide to film this unmarked border between north and south. Suddenly, a coach full of people, possibly northern refugees, comes tearing around the corner towards us. While we wait for the vehicle to pass out of shot, the captain starts shouting and waving his arms in an effort to be helpful to our film. He orders the coach off the road and out of sight within seconds. This being the wet season, it's stuck in an ocean of mud. And that, despite the efforts of its many pushing passengers, is the last we see of them all. As our patrol turns around and and heads for home. Back at the army base, I ask Colonel Dacko how confident he is that his men can successfully take on the well armed and in some cases battle hardened Al Qaeda linked Islamists. After all, earlier this year they did run away from them with scarcely a shot fired. We were beaten by the Islamists, he replies, not because of their strength, but because of our weakness. We are working on that and are quite sure we can conquer these areas. At least the nation's forces can rely on the help of army trained local militia groups, though this might prove a dubious asset. At one training camp I saw some militia volunteers enthusiastically doing cartwheels, walking on their hands and engaging in what looked like jousting by piggyback. I'm not sure what military manual all this came from, but that question and the lack of any weapon to train with didn't seem to bother one determined young recruit. Even if the army can't give me a gun to fight with, he told me, I'll go into battle with a stick if I have to. I only hope it doesn't come to that, either for that young volunteer or the very likable and determined Colonel and his men. Because even if there is a lot more to Mali's special forces than fancy knee pads and different colour T shirts, the battle ahead looks like being a tough one.
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Narrator / Presenter
Mike Thompson, and you can hear more of his reports from Mali on the Today programme next week. The British government has written to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London requesting a resumption of talks over the fate of Julian Assange. He's been camped out in the building for two months in an attempt to avoid deportation to Sweden, where he faces sexual assault allegations. The President of Ecuador, still enraged at the UK's refusal to guarantee the WikiLeaks found a safe passage out of the country, has said the situation could go on for months and years. But how is the diplomatic standoff being viewed in the South American republic itself? Will Grant has been speaking to people on the ground there.
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Will Grant
As you walk along the waterfront or Malecon in Guayaquil and Ecuador's muggy second city, you eventually come to two brass figures on a plinth glinting in the sunlight, surrounded by the flags of ten South American countries. The figures are of the continent's great liberator, Simon Bolivar, clasping hands with General Jose de San Martin, known as the protector of Peru. Sitting in the shade of the monument is Lorenzo Pineda. Thin but not Frail, Lorenzo is 81 years old and still working for $2. He takes photographs of tourists, which he develops on a small printer tucked under a tree. He is tanned and weathered and walks with a slight limp like so many older gentlemen in Latin America. He is impeccably turned out in a navy blue cap and a crisp white Guayabera shirt. Over his shoulder is a top of the range digital camera, which he tells me a friend lent him after he was robbed of his last one at gunpoint. I ask him, are they ever not armed? He answers with a resigned smile. The semicircular monument called La Retonda was built to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Guayaquil Conference, a 19th century meeting between the two independence heroes held in the Ecuadorian city to decide the fate of Peru. But Lorenzo has his own take on history. Bolivar and San Martin never met, he says, even though the historical record suggests he's pretty wide of the mark. Someone, a mayor or something must have thought we should celebrate them. In Ecuador, people just do whatever they want. More plausible is his theory that the monument isn't to scale. Bolivar measured just 1 meter 55. San Martin was 180 something, Lorenzo assures me confidently. They've built them the same height to make Bolivar look taller. Lorenzo is refreshingly honest about the normally sacrosanct memory of Simon Bolivar, saying that he annexed Ecuador while San Martin claimed a large chunk of the country for Peru. But that said, when the conversation turns to Ecuador's present day dispute over territory, namely its embassy in London, he is quick to defend the Latin American perspective. The United States wants to impose its rule wherever it likes, he says, with the weary experience of a man who's seen 14 US presidents and more than 40 Ecuadorian leaders during his lifetime. An embassy is sacred, he says. I'm sorry, because you're English he apologizes, addressing me using the formal term for you, even though I'm so much younger than him. But it doesn't matter whether you're the smallest country in the world. You could be Paraguay. If you have an embassy, it can't be violated. You know that better than I do, he adds modestly. What of Julian Assange? I asked him. His name is well known here. Now the British are going to have a problem, because if they put him in jail, the whole of America is going to raise its voice. They can't do anything but grant him safe passage. Meanwhile, far from The Andes, the WikiLeaks founder remains cooped up inside a red brick building behind Harrods. His decision to walk into the Ecuadorian embassy, rather than any other, has dragged this nation of 14 and a half million people into an international dispute its people were not expecting. Its leaders, though, seem ready for the fight. David and Goliath has been the most quoted biblical reference on state television in Ecuador since President Correa decided to grant Julian Assange diplomatic asylum. But amid the charges of colonialism and imperialist threats, listening to the octogenarian photographers stories beneath the shadow of Bolivar and San Martin reminds me of one thing that South American history is littered with bitter territorial disputes, some of which remain painfully unresolved. As we chat about Guayaquil, which Lorenzo calls one of the most beautiful cities in Ecuador, the old man, some four and a half decades my senior, shows me how to work my own digital camera, finding functions on it I never knew it had. We shake hands with warmth, and I peel away to leave him to a flock of fresh tourists who have appeared at the foot of the monument. Photos fotos en el momento, he calls out a young couple. Stand by the plinth, and Lorenzo captures another South American union will grant China's
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Narrator / Presenter
cities are amongst the most dynamic in the world. Over the last few decades, the country's construction boom has transformed fishing villages and rice paddies into urban landscapes of skyscrapers and vast road networks with astonishing speed. David Willey is best known for his work as the BBC's Rome correspondent, but he was once based in Southeast Asia, then known as Indochina, and a recent trip to Beijing, his first for many years, has caused him to reflect on the changes and and recall an earlier extraordinary trip.
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David Willey
The circumstances of my first visit to China were curious, to say the least. A delegation of 25 Chinese journalists, including a handful of Western reporters like myself, had been chosen by the Communist authorities to report on the return home to China of a former warlord called Li Tsun Ren. General Lee, or although I personally had never even heard of him at that point, was famous for his military campaigns during upheavals inside China during the 1920s and again during the war against the Japanese in the 30s and 40s. The general had in fact been acting president of China for a very brief moment after the resignation of Chiang Kai Shek during the period of political turbulence just before Mao Zedong emerged as leader in 1948, the general had escaped to the United States and had been living there in exile like many members of the former political regime. But now, sick and old, he wanted to return home to die. So on a cold, sunny Sunday afternoon in late September 1965, I found myself at a news conference followed by a reception in Beijing in in the Great hall of the People, rubbing shoulders with the entire top Chinese nomenclatura who had gathered there to welcome home their famous former warlord. I was even introduced briefly to a sad faced, bespectacled old man who was pointed out to me, standing there drably dressed in dark blue fatigues in a corner of the vast reception room. He was Puyi, the last Emperor of China. After an eventful life which included a period of captivity in Russia, they told me he was now employed as part time literary editor and part time gardener. In order to refresh my mind about what turned out to be perhaps three of the most exciting weeks of my entire life, I've been looking at my diary notes for 1965 and viewing, for the first time in decades, an hour of 8 millimeter colour film that I shot despite the worried glances of our official minders. I dutifully filmed a spectacular stadium performance by tens of thousands of school children, performing synchronized gymnastics and holding up colored cards, glorifying the People's army and vilifying the American aggressors in Vietnam. I saw more than a million people march past the Great Helmsman Mao Zedong himself, wearing his signature grey padded uniform high above us on the saluting platform at the southern gate of the Forbidden City. What impressed me most was the lack of motorized traffic. Later, during an excursion along the Yangtze river, we saw what was planned to be one of the world's longest railway bridges under construction. The river delta was a hive of human activity. I saw little mechanization. It all reminded me of scenes painted by Renaissance artists during the construction of the great architectural landmarks by the popes of 16th and 17th century Rome. Today, dozens of bullet trains now pass over that very bridge every day, reducing the journey time from Beijing to Shanghai to only four hours from the 24 hours it took back in 1965. Returning to Beijing after nearly 50 years, the city I remember is almost unrecognisable. The road traffic is unceasing despite an efficient subway. At a private dinner party in the bustling business district on the 56th floor of a brand new skyscraper, I gaze in wonder at the glittering spectacle of Beijing by night. I mention to my Hong Kong born hostess that this is my first return visit since the curious episode of the return home of General Lee Tsun Ren. Oh, I remember him well, she replies. You know, he did die shortly after his return. It was all part of a propaganda stunt by the Chinese government to encourage other former Kuomintang nationalists to return from exile. In fact, she said, I've got a book here all about it. She pulls out a slim volume from her library, and I recognize a familiar picture of the general amid his friends and me, taken on that long ago September afternoon in the Great hall of the People when I rubbed shoulders for the first and only time in my life with the top leaders of China's Communist revolution and shook hands with the
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Narrator / Presenter
last emperor, David Willey. August in Italy how lovely. Traditionally a time when frazzled city dwellers seek refuge from the heat and traffic and take a long break. Some make for fashionable islands like Capri or the calm, cool waters of Lake Garda. But the Italians who head to the Riviera Romagnola on the Adriatic coast choose a rather less serene experience. Danny Mitzman joined them with a mixture
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Danny Mitzman
of pride and embarrassment. That's how locals tell you they're off on holiday to the Riviera Romagnola. It's often preceded by just and invariably accompanied by a sheepish giggle, quickly followed by an explanation of the benefits, a sort of confession and justification. What's unique about this coast, stretching 68 miles from Ravenna down south of Rimini, is its enormous popularity, in spite of the unanimous agreement that the seas were just not very nice. It's a turbid greenish brown that makes you feel like you're swimming in a giant muddy puddle. Most astonishing of all is that nobody cares. That's because bathing isn't what coastal tourism here is about. As perfectly bronzed, Camilla tells me Romagna invented beach without sea. Camilla's from Bologna and has been coming every year since she was a toddler. The Riviera Romagnola is, she says in her DNA, from 5 to 13, I spent June and July here with my grandparents. Her working parents would come down at the weekends during the week, she grins the only people on the beach are little kids and old people. But come the weekend, the entire demographic changes and the coast is overrun by Italy's 16 to 35 year old beautiful people. Incredible to think that not long ago this was mostly undeveloped, malaria infested marshland. It was Mussolini, born nearby, who really launched it as a tourist destination, promoting development, building large concrete holiday camps and spending his own summer holidays here in Riccione. It became the seaside destination for the children of millions of North Italian factory workers. Since then, the Riviera Romagnola's never looked back. Rimini, with its legacy of homegrown film director Federico Fellini, Cervia with its historic salt pans, Milano marittima constructed last century by Milanese builders. All these resorts are now famous nationwide. The appeal of the Riviera Romagnola today is all down to the shrewd charm of the Romagnoli. They have earned a reputation for unequalled seaside hospitality. From push chair to pensioner, the Riviera promises something for everyone with the emphasis on fun and indulgence. Hundreds of top quality seafood restaurants, thousands of Piadina kiosks selling the famous local flatbread, millions of overflowing gelato cones. Every sport, health and shopping facility your heart desires. As for evening entertainment, there are live bands playing waltzes for the old timers, exclusive VIP beach parties for the new timers, and most famous of all, Italy's top nightclubs. It's Saint Tropez meets Blackpool, Ibiza meets Bognor Regis. As tacky as it is chic, as trendy as it is kitsch. But if, like me, you prefer unspoiled deserted beaches, the Riviera Romagnola's not for you. An aerial view would look like a vast washing line of neatly hung Czech tea towels. Some hundred and forty thousand beach umbrellas for about €15 a day. You can rent one with a couple of sun loungers and inhale the suntan lotion and cigarette smoke of those next to behind you and in front of you while listening to a selection of conversations in surround sound. Most of your sun kissed neighbours probably are neighbours back home. It's the city transposed to the sand. Beach clubs are known as bagni and these holiday makers are as faithful to their bagno as a Yorkshireman to his local publishers. It's just like in the song. Laughs Camilla Stes Piaggia Ste so Mare. Same beach, same sea. Ours was bagno 146 at Miramare di Rimini. My grandparents umbrella was in the front row, so we had an unobstructed sea view. She giggles and I notice it again, that mix of pride and embarrassment. At the beach club I'm visiting, the music starts at 4pm, clashing with the next door banos. Even the sound of the sea can't drown it out. Whether your beach club favours chill out or live DJ sets, you can never escape the annual tormentone, a tormenting summer hit you hear everywhere and can't get out of your head till well into the autumn. At 6pm, a voice chirps over the Tra Cinque Minuti baby dance and 10 year old Anna darts off. Where's she going? I ask her mother. Oh, the kids. Disco. Afterwards, there's the Nutella party. I raise a quizzical eyebrow. They each get a slice of bread and chocolate spread. Anna loves it. And again that funny giggle. Anna's mother and I are having a drink here called a Happy Retivo at her family's chosen beach club. I confess I'm exhausted by all this noise, activity and organisation. I've tried the pine wood behind the beach, but I wanted to be by the sea. We come up with a plan. Next day I make my way to the beach at midday. As I walk down the avenue towards the seafront, I'm swimming against the tide. Faithful to their ritual, despite the heat, the Italians are all off home for a cooked lunch and a siesta until 3:30. At 1:00pm, almost all the sun loungers are empty and feeling like a seaside squatter, I nab one in the front row. At last I can hear the gentle lapping of the waves.
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Narrator / Presenter
Ah, Danny Mitzman finding peace at last on the Riviera Romagnola and bringing this edition to a close. Join us again next week for more from our own correspondence. Goodbye.