← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Palace of Shame
00:28:27
Kevin Connolly suggests that two deaths in the Middle East, eight hundred years and on...
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You're listening to a download from the BBC.
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This is from our own correspondent.
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You can hear the version of the
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programme we make for the BBC World Service by visiting our site at BBConline.
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But here's the latest edition broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and introduced by Kate Ady.
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Today, hopes of a bright new future in Europe fade away for the 800 residents of the building in Rome they call the palace of Shame. The lessons from history for foreign powers trying to shape the future of Syria. A close encounter with the Hungarian Health service after our man's knocked off his bike in Budapest. And as the economic crisis drags on in the west of Ireland, spirits are lifted at a cow dung festival. The Tunisian Foreign Minister has been having talks in Italy about the problems of illegal migration across the Mediterranean. He's been to the island of Lampedusa, a favoured destination for refugees and migrants trying to reach Europe. His visit comes less than a week after a boat loaded with migrants sank 12 miles off the island. Some 50 people were rescued. Another 50 are still missing. In recent years, thousands of Africans have died trying to cross the Mediterranean, often in overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels. Thousands of others have been more successful, arriving in Italy, hoping to build new lives in Europe. But as Alan Johnstone's been learning in Rome, for many, the dolce vitas proved elusive.
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As you listen to this, it's quite possible that there's one of those boats out there right now, rising and falling in the swell. And if there is, then the men and women on board will have watched North Africa's desert coast disappear behind them. They'll be hoping for something greener to emerge from the sea. The hills of Sicily, perhaps the promised land of Europe, and a chance to change their lives. They know that many migrants die attempting this crossing, their old and overcrowded boats sinking in rough seas. And if everyone is lost, how would your family back say in a village in Sudan ever be sure what had happened? They might only know that you were planning to make the journey, but. But that you just never seemed to arrive. Recently, I met a small, softly spoken, smiling man called Barakat, who told me about the time he crossed the sea. A day after leaving Libya, the boat's fuel ran out. The water was finished too. And as Barakat put it, it was time to pray. His journey had begun back in the Horn of Africa, in Eritrea, where he had been a soldier. He'd been wounded during a war with Ethiopia and one of his arms had been paralyzed. But eventually the army posted him near the Sudanese border and one Day, Barakat took his chance. He slipped away and crossed the frontier. Much, much later, he found himself on the Libyan coast, clambering into that boat. And after it had drifted for 14 hours, Barakat's prayers were answered. An Italian naval vessel appeared on the horizon. Barakat had survived the war and the dangers of the sea, and the Italians recognized his need for asylum. He was given political refugee status and allowed to stay in Italy. But trying to live his European dream has been hard. I met him in a run down, desperate sort of building on the outskirts of Rome. It's eight storeys high and home to 800 refugees. They're from Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia. And they've been pretty much left there to fend for themselves. They're crowded into bare makeshift rooms where they live for years on the edge of destitution. They are some of the poorest and most marginalized people in Italy. Because they're illegally occupying, squatting in this building, they can't get local residency permits. That means they can't get easy access to a doctor, say, or register a child at school. They're lost in the labyrinth of Italy's bureaucracy. But what most of them want most of all, like so many people in Italy, is a job. A very tall, thin man called Gado, a refugee from Darfur, said that on his floor there were around 150 people, but he reckoned that only seven of them had work. Gado said he himself hardly had enough money for a metro ticket to go and look for a job. So in this place, you have a large number of people far from their homes and their families. Many are bitterly disappointed with what they found in Europe. Some are traumatized by what they endured in wars in Somalia or Sudan. Some have even been tortured. And inevitably, there can be tensions. One of the refugees told me quietly that sometimes there were fights and sometimes he was afraid. The Council of Europe recently criticized Italy for failing to give these officially recognized political refugees the help they need to integrate with Italian society. The Council's Human Rights Commissioner described conditions in the place I visited as unacceptable in a developed country like Italy. And some have called this building the palace of Shame, Italy's shame. But the stories that emerge from it are not all bad. Barakat, the Eritrean soldier, managed to get an operation on his paralyzed arm here in Rome, and he scraped together enough money to set himself up as a shoemaker. Now he turns out sandals that he sells to other refugees in the building and out on the streets. Mostly, though, the palace of Shame is filled with an overwhelming sense of frustration. Its residents are safe now. They've escaped the conflict and depression they knew back home. But the lives that they hope for here in Europe haven't yet begun. And as the years go by, you wonder if they ever will. As I left, a man in a red T shirt was pacing along the railings at the front of the building. Up and down, up and down, he was swinging a length of rope and every few strides he lashed it at the bars.
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Alan Johnston in Rome. Pope Benedict is in Beirut on the first papal visit to Lebanon for 15 years. He's called for an end to weapons imports, fuelling the conflict in neighbouring Syria. His trip coincides with continuing efforts to halt the bloodshed there. The international envoy Lakhda Brahimi has been having talks with the Syrian President, Bashar Al Assad this morning. So far, though, there's no sign of a let up in the violence, which has left more than 20,000 people dead. Kevin Connolly has been reporting recently from the border between Turkey and Syria. It's reminded him that Syria's strategic position has been provoking foreign interest and foreign intervention for centuries.
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The things we don't know about history will always outweigh the things that we do know. We'll never be sure, for example, if a certain Colonel Walker of the Royal Marines knew much about Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor of the Germans. On the face of it, they certainly don't have much in common. They died almost 800 years and several hundred kilometres apart. But each in his own way left us with the ultimate reminder of the temptations and dangers of foreign military intervention in the Middle East. I found Colonel Walker's name on a plaque which mourns his loss near the market in the ancient city of Acre and known in Hebrew as Ako, which is now in northern Israel. It doesn't tell us much beyond the fact that at 68, he was getting on a bit for an infantry officer. A doughty character perhaps, who led his men from the front. We'll never know. He died during the complex manoeuvrings whereby Britain and the Austro Hungarian Empire combined to remove the land that is now Syria from Arab control and give it back to the Ottoman Turks at the risk of upsetting the Colonel's family. I must admit I can't now remember why that diplomatic strategy seemed important at the time. Frederick Barbarossa was about the same age as the redoubtable colonel when he went to meet his maker in 1190. He was leading a crusade to the Holy Land on a cross country route that would have taken him through the territories we know as Turkey and Syria. Richard the Lionheart was among the Europeans who took the easier option of sailing across the Mediterranean. Frederick found himself waiting to cross a bridge which was blocked by a slow moving body of his own troops. And being seized of a kingly impatience, he decided to wade instead. If he'd taken his suit of armour off before getting in the water, the Third Crusade might have turned out differently. As it was, he drowned and they preserved his body in vinegar in the hope they'd be able to bury him eventually in Jerusalem, the holy city. It turned out the royal retinue had overestimated the power of pickling and what with the heat and so on, they were eventually forced to bury him in the city of Antioch instead, where he still lies just inside Turkey's border with Syria. Antioch and Acre were already places of great antiquity when the Emperor Frederick and Colonel Walker played out their last dramas there. The neural wiring of the world's military, diplomatic, commercial and religious networks already ran through this region, and through Syria in particular, in ways that made it compelling and dangerous. In our own time. When a country is bleeding from self inflicted wounds as Syria is bleeding now, the impulse to do something rather than nothing is strong. Western governments must be tempted to point to the success of their intervention in Libya, where Colonel Gaddafi was toppled when a handful of the leading nations of NATO offered air support to the rebellion against him. It feels like a template for similar intervention in Syria, but it's not. Libya was a one person state, more than a one party state, and change was comparatively easy to achieve. Its long term consequences may be unpredictable, but in military terms it was relatively clean and cheap. Syria is a complex multi confessional state in which the prospects for intervention are much more uncertain. It has better air defences for a start, and an army which has already displayed a certain brutal efficiency. Iran has religious reasons for supporting Bashar Al Assad, whose Alawite faith is an offshoot of Shia Islam. But it also sees Syria as a vital strategic bridge to its paramilitary force Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Tehran's first preference for Syria might be to keep Assad in power. Its second might be to create the kind of violent instability which haunted neighboring Lebanon after its own painful civil war. Russia and China can use their vetoes at the UN to frustrate any Western impulse to impose a no fly zone over Syria. It is all reminiscent of the Security Council's stalemate of the Cold War. Russia may have an eye on the interests of Syria's Orthodox Christians and it has a naval base and some economic investments at stake, too. But its main motive is almost certainly to show Washington that the process of change in the Middle east is not under Western management. For America and its allies, there are other problems, too. Their preferred solution may be some kind of national dialogue. After the removal of Bashar al Assad, it is not easy to see what they will suggest if the depth of hatred and the level of violence make dialogue impossible. And that ignores the fact that with radical foreign fighters reinforcing a splintering rebel movement, it's hard for the west to pick a preferred winner anyway. The sheer scale of what is at stake in Syria is daunting. It is one of those nation states built on the wreckage of a collapsed Turkish empire after the First World War. If it disintegrates into warring sectarian statelets or just disintegrates, how stable will the other countries created at the same time in the Middle east then look? So this is not the first time that statesmen have weighed the risks and rewards of military intervention in this difficult neck of the woods. The stories of Colonel Walker and the Emperor Frederick, eight centuries apart, show just how dangerous it's always been.
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Kevin Connolly, who's back now at his base in Jerusalem. The Zimbabwean authorities have announced they're seeking millions in financial help from neighboring South Africa to try to reverse 10 years of economic decline. The economy has shown signs of recovery since the veteran president, Robert Mugabe formed a unity government with his longtime rival, Morgan Tsangirai. But the authorities in Harare say they need more cash to resuscitate both the public and private sectors. During the years of instability and violence, millions of Zimbabweans left the country. Today, some are coming back, but Jenny Cuff's been finding out that they're not all being welcomed home.
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The vegetable plot is mouth watering. More than a thousand sturdy cabbages, rows of beetroot and carrot, frosty green iceberg lettuces and spinach ready to be picked, its oily, dark leaves shining in the evening sun. This is what Ian has planted since coming home to Bulawayo three months ago, and he wants to buy more land and be part of a country that can grow its own food again instead of importing expensive South African produce. Ian is one of between 3 and 4 million Zimbabweans who have fled the country since 1997, when the economy went into free fall. That's a quarter of the population. He's what President Mugabe's party, Zanu pf, scornfully refer to as a BBC or British bum cleaner, a bank Manager with years of experience who found the only work he could get in his 10 years in the UK was as a care assistant, doing double shifts since so that he could support relatives back home. And it's people like him sending foreign currency who kept their countrymen from starvation during that bleak decade when the Zimbabwean dollar was worthless and its politics bloody. Then the broad colonial streets of central Bulawayo, designed so that an ox wagon could turn full circle, were empty of traffic. But now they're lined with shining new cars and drivers no longer have to queue all day for diesel. In residential streets around Coronation park, the Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow trees are alive with purple and white blossom and the blue jacarandas are coming into flower. Guesthouses built by returnees with plenty of cash invite visitors to enjoy air conditioned rooms and drinks on the veranda. Other Bulawayans are setting up in business with a few delivery trucks, some chickens or a couple of sewing machines. Which isn't to say that all in the garden smells sweet. When ian returned after 10 years, he found the in laws had neglected his property. Two family photos and some furniture were all that was left of the life he once had. The bungalow needs a new roof and complete renovation. The breeze block wall surrounding his plot has collapsed and the lawn is yellow and parched. At least he's got his own bore hole. His neighbours are often short of water and and no one in the street can be sure the lights will turn on. Nor is everyone welcomed home. It depends how much you bring. I meet a young writer called Tinashe, fresh from gaining his doctorate at a university in England. When the UK refused to extend his visa, he had nothing to bring back but the clothes he wore and a few books. Wiping his glasses on his sleeve, he tells me about the postcards he sent his grandmother showing the exciting new places he'd been. What are these? She asked his younger siblings. Does your brother think I can eat these cards? Although his parents are glad to see him back, he knows they're embarrassed when neighbours shrug as he boards the local bus. What, he's been to the UK and he doesn't even have a car? A Catholic priest who stayed in Bulawayo throughout the years of ruin reckons that half the residents had family members abroad, but worries about the chasm that separates them from the rest. On a tour of Makakoba, the township where he grew up, he points out the densely packed two room dwellings, dank with years of neglect and the frayed ribbon of tarmac that was once a road Zimbabweans work incredibly hard and they'll always find something to make or mend, buy or sell. But youngsters from the Ndebele tribe here in Matabele land complain that it's the majority Shona who get the real jobs. This stronghold of opposition to ZANU PF bears the scars of violent reprisal. The current political stagnation with an unsigned constitution and uncertainty about the coming election leads to a kind of fearful inertia. Referring to the president, the priest says, we're just waiting for the old man to die, though after that all hell might break loose. You'd think the government of National Unity would encourage the vast diaspora with its skills and expertise to return it. But if anything, it deters them by refusing dual citizenship. So a lot of people keep their foreign passports and apply for Zimbabwean residency. Not Ian, though. He never wanted to become a British citizen. As the evening cools and we walk to his gate, I suggest he's taking a big risk in coming back now, with the future so uncertain. Not at all, he says with a grin. My wife, now, she has a British passport, so we can always leave if we have to.
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And that was Jenny Cuff. Now, while the correspondent will often have to travel by plane, you can rest assured that in these austere times there aren't many of them travelling up at the sharp end. And our man in Central Europe, Nick Thorpe, is surely a favourite of the BBC expenses czars, as he gets about whenever possible by bicycle. His latest project has seen him cycling through Hungary, compiling a series of interviews about the River Danube. But all, it seems, did not go according to plan.
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Like all good sagas, this one begins with a long, heroic journey. One fine September morning, I set out from the town of Mohac in southern hungary to cycle 140 miles up the Danube to Budapest. Let other chroniclers tell the story of those five glorious days. I'll jump straight to the hero's arrival in the nation's capital. It was 8 o' clock in the morning. I was cycling slowly in the rush hour traffic on Chepel island, half an hour from my home. A car coming the other way saw a gap in the traffic on my side and shot through it into a side road. The problem was that that wasn't a gap. That was your correspondent. My dismal failure to dress up as a car that morning nearly cost me my life. The next thing I knew, I was flying through the air in the heroic style and landed on my lower back. So sorry, said the driver, rushing to my rescue. Are you all Right, Just a bruise. I'll take you home. But by then the pain was getting worse. So I curled up on the curb and shut my eyes. First on the scene were the police. First task, to breathalyse us both. Fortunately, not a trace. Not drunkards. Then the ambulance arrived, sirens blazing. I write the stories here, I wanted to say. I don't want to be the story. As I lay in my vacuum bed in the ambulance, I overheard a conversation between the driver and his mate. Where shall we take him? Broken back. Let's try the Meeregny. I'd never heard of a hospital of that name, but it sounded like Meren Let, which means an assassination attempt. I would have laughed if it didn't hurt so much. Surely they didn't think the guy was trying to kill me. At the hospital, I was rushed down a corridor full of folk with slings and crutches to the front of the queue. But as soon as I was laid on the X ray table, it broke down. Technicians with screwdrivers appeared, as if by magic. I wondered if they were going to fix my back, but they concentrated on the machine. Finally it was working and the results came back. Bad news, said the doctor. You've got a broken vertebra. I experienced a horrible sinking feeling. Visions of wheelchairs began to haunt the young hero's fragile eggshell mind. The driver, meanwhile, let's call him Charlie, arrived at the hospital and seemed even more upset than I was. He was so concerned, the staff assumed he was a relative and asked him to sign a form. No, no.
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He fumed.
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I'm the perpetrator. He sat down beside me and slowly we became friends. He taught at the University of Homeland Security, he said. My reporter's instincts took over and I questioned him about his work. It took my mind off my back. Life in the hospital ward followed certain protocols. All six of us had spinal injuries, four from cycling. The high point of the day was when the nurses brought us our painkillers. I learnt to urinate into a plastic bottle known as a duck. The ablest of the cripples represented the other men as ambassador to the nurses. By the second day, it was me. I was feeling a lot better. Must have been the long ride, said the doctors. If you're in good shape, the impact does less damage. On the third morning, the white haired one, as the nurses called the chief doctor, toured the ward. Where's the American? He boomed. I swallowed my British pride in the hope of hard information and waved a limp hand.
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Good news.
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He beamed. Less bad break than we thought. You can go home this evening. The story of the last year has been one of frustration and physiotherapy, insurance claims and encounters with the criminal justice system. Charlie admitted full responsibility, bless him. I agreed not to prosecute. The state appointed a mediator. I was body searched on my way into his office to make sure I wasn't going to knife Charlie. Little did they know that he rings me nearly every week to ask how I am and tell me his troubles. His car was stolen, his living room was flooded, he can't sleep. At night. He helps me deal with his insurance company. We shake hands and it's all over. The other day I girded my loins, summoned my courage, and cycled again in heavy traffic. The drivers haven't improved. The reckless bravery of the other cyclists astounds me, like spiders dancing through moving machinery. My back still hurts. Sometimes I can't run anymore, but I can cycle. Charlie still rings, and the Danube beckons me back.
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Nick Thorpe, and he told us he was playing football the other day. Must be on the mend now in the Republic of Ireland, the long economic crisis drags on. Like several other Eurozone nations, it's struggling under a heap of debt, its people buffeted by talk of bailouts and public sector cutbacks. Jobs are scarce, and emigration, that old barometer of tough times, is on the rise. But over the summer months, people seem to have been going to some lengths to make sure that amid the austerity, there was fun as well. Kieran Cook, in the far west of the country, says some found it in the special world of seashore horse racing.
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It's not exactly the Derby, or come to that. Much like any other race meeting, there is no top hats, no fancy Ladies Day outfits, not a bottle of champagne in sight. Come to Guilsala and see the races on the Strand. That's along the seashore, said the notice in the local paper. Excitement and fun was promised. There'd be bookies, a bar, plenty of entertainment. First race at 1pm Only it wasn't. Time in the west of Ireland tends to be a highly flexible, sometimes an extremely vague concept. The first race finally got underway over an hour late, which was just as well. Getting to the remote community at Gwilsala, overlooking Blacksod Bay in County Mayo on Ireland's west coast, and took some time. Miles of bogland had to be crossed, occasional stunted trees bent sideways with the wind, mighty puffs of clouds skittering across a threatening sky. Strictly €10 each per entry, said a sign at the gate. The ticket man leaned in the car window. 1, 2, 3, 4. That'll be €20, he said. In the west of Ireland, you're never sure who's kidding who. Ireland might be on its economic knees, up to its tonsils in debt, but people certainly haven't lost the capacity for enjoying themselves. The bookies at Guilsala are doing a roaring trade, fistfuls of notes going in and out of big leather pouches suspended beneath the betting boards. The race crowd, perched high on sand dunes above the Strand, watches intently as the horses race along the ocean's edge, hooves kicking up spray, legs silhouetted against the blue of the sea. Truly a magical sight. Until, that is, my horse decides not to make the turn for home but carries on running into the far distance. A stall sells locally caught mackerel that melts on the tongue. It clears the veins. No better food for you, says a passerby with a bloodshot wink. Time to move into the bartent as racing is interrupted by a torrential downpour moving in from the Atlantic. My son is in conversation with a man who's had a handsome win. Only the lucky tipster leaning on the tent's side keeps disappearing from view, engulfed by canvas and then magically emerging again, drinks still in hand, to happily chat away. Outside, a rather sad looking, half inflated, bouncy castle is threatening to break its moorings in the wind and lollop its way across the Atlantic. Perhaps all the way to New York. Almost every day, all summer long, and indeed for a lot of the rest of the year, there seems to be a festival of some form or another in Ireland, as people come up with ever more imaginative ideas for having a good time and raising much needed funds in the process, as well as the frequent musical gatherings up and down the country and the earnest meetings held in memory of various Irish writers, there are the more eccentric events. Swimming and snorkelling in the bogs, or the donkey derbies or the races. Not for the horses, but for hens. My particular favourite is the Cow Dung Festival, also held in County Mayo. It's clearly an occasion for anyone with a taste for the bazaar. A Cow Dung Festival queen is selected, not, perhaps, an accolade you'd readily put on your list of accomplishments. Then there's the highlight of the day. Cow Dung bingo. A field is divided into squares. When names are gathered and bets placed, Betsy, the festival cow, is ushered in. And yes, it's the squares on which Betsy decides to drop our cow pats that are the winners. It's all highly scientific. Laser measuring devices are used. The tension can be intense. Last year it took Betsy, obviously playing to the gallery, an hour and a half of wandering before deciding where to do her business. This year, blood pressures were eased with Betsy lifting her tail after only 15 minutes and a lucky cow dung bingo player walking away with a thousand euro prize. Unfortunately, I won nothing at the races on the Strand. For all I know, my horse is still out there trotting along the seashore. But no matter. It's been a special day, everyone exhilarated by the wind and the fresh ocean air. Safe home, says the man on the gate. You'll be back to wind next year. That's more than likely. In fact, I'll put a bet on it.
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Kieran Cook on the shores of Blacksod Bay in County Mayo, still waiting for his horse to cross the finishing line and bringing this edition to a close. You can bet on us being here on both Thursday and Saturday next week. Do join us. Goodbye.