← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Presidential Promises
00:28:29
On the campaign trail in Mexico, plus Zimbabwe without Mugabe - what has changed?
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- [00:00]
BBC Announcer
This is the BBC.
- [00:05]
Narrator/Reporter
Hello. Today what's it like? Zimbabwe without Mugabe? The presidential portraits have been replaced, but what else has changed? In the Philippines we meet the world class boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao, while on the west bank we're at a music festival hoping to give Palestinians a voice. And a bank robbery, a secret life, an anarchist rocker who was declared dead many years ago, and a late phone call to a lawyer. Our correspondent reveals the strange story behind a trial that's about to grip France. Soaring violence, entrenched corruption and stagnant salaries will provide the backdrop for upcoming elections in Mexico. In July, the country will have a new president as the constitution bars the incumbent from standing again. The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party's candidate is trailing far behind his two main rivals, tainted by his association with the current government, while the anti establishment populist rhetoric of the frontrunner is proving popular. Will Grant went to one of his rallies in the south west of the country.
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Will Grant
We got here late, but we got here, offered Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador by way of an apology. The crowd was beginning to feel faint, having spent the best part of three hours under a punishing sun to see the man they simply call Amlodip. One person had already completely passed out, prompting the paramedics to action. Sometimes justice is like this. It takes its time, but it comes eventually. It wasn't a bad opening line for someone not renowned for his oratory and had the effect of instantly lifting the crowd's spirits. And he knew he was among friends, that almost everyone who'd sat patiently fanning themselves with their straw hats or handing out free water would forgive his tardiness. We've waited 12 years for him, one of the announcers had said as the crowd had grown restless a little earlier. So what's a few more minutes by 12 years? He was referring to AMLO's two previous unsuccessful runs at the presidency, one in 2006, which he lost by a very narrow margin, less than 250,000 votes. He immediately cried foul and took over the main thoroughfare of Mexico City in protest, bringing the capital grinding to a halt for weeks. The other was in 2012 against Enrique Pena Nieto. Again he lost, although by a much wider margin. Now, though his followers are convinced his moment has come. The poles seem to back that up too. He's comfortably ahead by as many as 20 percentage points, according to some, and with each passing day, his grip on the presidency tightens. This rally was held in the city of Iguala, in the Plaza de las Tres Garantillas the last time I was in the square, the stifling air hung heavy with a stink of burnt plastic and a sense of dread. Iguala is the town from which 43 student teachers were abducted by local police in late 2014, and a crowd demanding answers had attacked the municipal palace with Molotov cocktails. Four years later, and there's still no certainty about where the 43 students, or more likely, their remains, might be. It was perhaps Enrique Pena Nieto's lowest ebb as president, a leader whose popularity had sunk to record lows. The disappearance of so many students seemed to say to the world that Mexico was rotten to its core, the state complicit with the drug cartels from the local to the federal level. Iguala has been something of a sore point for Mr. Lopez Obrador, too. While the majority of the blame was directed at the Pena Nieto administration, Amlo once backed the notorious mayor of Iguala, Jose Luis Abarc, who went on the lam shortly after the 43 disappeared. He and his wife were later found hiding in another state and arrested. An embarrassing photo of Mr. Lopez Obrador hugging Abarca has been widely distributed by his opponents. So this, the first visit to the town by one of the four presidential candidates, always had the potential for hostility from the victims families. In the middle of the rally, they tried to invade the stage, holding photos of their missing loved ones. Rather than turning them away, Mr. Lopez Obrador told his security to let the families up, and after his speech was over, he passed them the microphone. Tomorrow it will be 44 months since our children were forcibly taken from us, said Cristina Bautista Salvador, mother of Benjamin, one of the missing presumed dead students. Don't ignore our case. We want justice, she told him. Because they took them away alive, we want them back alive, answered the crowd, completing the family's slogan. The evening before the rally, I met Adriana Baena, a tour de force of a woman who immediately acts like she's known you for years. Her energetic personality may at times have been the only thing that helped her get by. Seven years ago, her husband, Saolo, was also disappeared. Also from Iguala, she runs a group called the Other Disappeared, who undertake DNA tests on the bodies, which turn up in mass graves in an effort to get them to their families for burial. The families of the 43 break my heart, she says. We want them back alive. Those kids aren't alive anymore, she remarks wistfully. On stage, Amlo listened intently to the family's pleas and then looked them directly in the eyes as he addressed them. He promised them he would take their case seriously and order a fresh investigation by the Inter American Human Rights Commission and the United Nations. The crowd applauded. Barring an electoral disaster or an increasingly unlikely turnaround by one of his opponents, Mr. Lopez Obrador is almost certainly the next president of Mexico. If so, the families of Iguala will hold him to those words.
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Narrator/Reporter
Will Grant. When Emerson Mncagwa became president of Zimbabwe six months ago, some of his supporters brandished a cuddly crocodile soft toy in celebration. It was a reference to the nickname he'd earned for his political cunning, the Crocodile, but perhaps also meant to suggest he'd a softer image than that of his predecessor and former ally, Robert Mugabe. In power, he's promised more jobs, less corruption and to rebuild international ties, including taking Zimbabwe back into the commonwealth. The new government likes to talk of a new dispensation. But it's more than just the rhetoric that's changed, as Kim Chakanetsa found, One
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Kim Chakanetsa
of the first things I notice as I wheel my bag into the arrival's hall at Robert Mugabe International Airport is that the man himself is nowhere to be seen. Gone are the framed portraits that used to decorate the walls of the country's schools, hospitals and hotels. As I exit the sliding doors, I notice that his portrait has been replaced with that of the country's new leader, Emerson Munangagwa. The portrait itself is almost identical to Mugabe's sharp suit, bold tie, raised chin and an enigmatic half smile. When the coup that was not to be called a coup reached its final act last November, it was the portraits that people went for first. In one of the many celebration videos posted online, four women wrestle a picture of Mugabe off the walls of a swanky hotel in Harare. A brief tussle with staff ensues. The women become more animated, cheering each other along, until one of them snatches the portrait away, sprints out of the hotel and hurls it to the pavement and begins to jump on it together with her friends as they chant, ayenda. Ayenda. He's gone. He's gone. As I make my way into the city, I ask my driver if anything has changed since November. He laughs. No, nothing has changed. He tells me that for him, every month remains a struggle. To see if he can make the nursery payments for his daughter, he relies on two jobs. One hasn't paid him in five months, but he shows up anyway, hopeful that this will be the month that he finally gets his back pay. You know, you just have to make a plan. And that's a phrase you'll hear again and again in Zimbabwe. Making a plan. It reflects a hustling spirit that accepts things as they are and tries to find a way around them. As we weave into the city centre, dodging occasional potholes and packed commuter buses, I realize that we've been in the car for more than 20 minutes without passing a single police roadblock. Now that is a change. Most Zimbabweans have stories to tell of overzealous police officers racking their brains to find any pretext for an on the spot fine. I've heard of fines being issued for reflective stickers that weren't shiny enough, dirty vehicles and even for torn car seats. Cracking down on the roadblocks has won the new government some measure of goodwill, and they are going to need as much of it as they can get. The economy is still in terrible shape, unemployment is high, and there is a biting cash shortage. One afternoon, as I waited to pay for a few groceries in a local supermarket, I took out a ten US dollar note. A woman who was also waiting in line rushed up to me. Please, she asked, can I use my card to pay and you give me the cash instead? Please. The cash crisis is painfully visible in the numerous queues that stretch and curl around the city. Outside one bank on a Saturday morning, a woman holding onto a ticket numbered 146 explained to me that she'd been there since 5am I came yesterday but I got nothing. It's really a problem, she sighed. It's your money and you've worked hard for it and you can't even get it out. Something needs to change. Another woman thought things were already looking up. Before you could only get about $30 out of the machine, she explained, but now you can get 50. I think Mnangagwa is trying. We just need to give him a chance. For the most part, the president seems to be making the right noises. Earlier this year, he made a foray into social media with a slightly awkward Facebook live video from his home. Apart from some snide remarks about his sofa covers in the comments, this man of the people move was applauded. It's not something you would imagine a certain long time leader doing, but there are others who see Only a Mugabe 2.0, a man who lived permanently in the shadow of Mugabe and is somehow an extension of his rule. The truest test will come in the elections, which are due to take place in July. In the past, Zimbabwean elections have rarely been free or fair, the winner is going to be the winner is how one cabinet minister confidently put it. But Zimbabweans have been burnt before and it will take a lot to convince them. The government will have to do what citizens have been doing for years now. They will have to make a plan.
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Narrator/Reporter
Kim Chakanezza Mani Pacquiao has come a long way since he first started boxing at the age of 14. Back then he was living on the streets of Manila, having left home and quit school. Since then, the 39 year old has won world titles in eight different weight classes. In 2007, he finally earned the equivalent of a high school diploma, an experience he described as worse than 15 rounds of boxing. And he was elected to the Philippine House of Representatives later that year. Since 2010 he sat as a senator and is even talked of as a possible future president. And yet, when Howard Johnson was offered the chance to interview the national hero, he went along with a sense of foreboding.
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BBC Announcer
One of Manny Pacquiao's mansions is located on a dusty, nondescript road on the outskirts of General Santos City. I'd been waiting outside its fortress like walls for nearly an hour. I made a calculation. In total, I'd been waiting to interview the decorated boxer and senator of the Philippines for more than seven hours. Last time he cancelled on me at the last minute at his mansion in Manila. But this time I was on his home turf and I wasn't leaving without the interview. I began meditating. Finally, a large SUV rumbled up the road. It was Aki, Manny pacquiao's press advisor. 50 year old Aki is a quiet man with a calming presence. He has the physique of someone who jogs every morning with a world class athlete. His kindly smile reassured me the interview was still on. We walked together to a security gate. A guard slid open a peephole. Magundang Tanghali, sir. Good afternoon to you too. We were in. A gleaming basketball court came into view, complete with supporters stands. When Manny Pacquiao isn't busy being a boxer, senator, actor, entrepreneur, singer, church pastor or family man, he also plays basketball and was until only recently a player coach for a league team. We walked further into the compound on our left, a neatly manicured lawn with bonsai trees and raked gravel. A Japanese Zen garden. Surely this was a sign. Be patient. Relax. The calm was instantly broken as two dogs came rushing over to us. That one's called Pac man, the security guard told us, pointing at a lively Jack Russell. It turns out that Pac man also Manny Pacquiao's nickname is the son of the dog from the Jim Carrey film the Mask. Aki then led us into a long banquet hall adorned with oil paintings of the boxer in various guises. We sat opposite one of him wearing a Barong Tagalog, a traditional loose fitting Filipino shirt. In each corner of the room sat a different party of petitioners. One was a business delegation, another a local family hoping for counseling from Senator Pacquiao. Forty minutes later and a group of security men entered the room and checked behind the sofas and curtains. Was the long wait finally over? Then Pac man walked into the room. The dog, not the boxer. He made a beeline for our camera gear, sniffed the tripod bag, cocked his leg and urinated on it, then proudly trotted off again. Aki smiled at me. We'd run out of small talk. Then it happened. Pac man, the boxer walked into the room. He was dressed in a short sleeved shirt and smart slacks, his hair full and thick, styled like his childhood hero, the martial arts artist Bruce Lee. We all stood to attention. He went straight to the family. A terse looking debate followed. It transpired one of their brothers was in trouble for dealing drugs, a grave offence during Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs, a campaign which has seen thousands of suspected dealers and users killed during police operations. Manny Pacquiao is close friends with the President and openly supports his drug war. Then finally, it was my turn. The sportsman walked over with a welcoming smile. I shook his right hand, a hand that has landed him 59 professional wins, 38 of them by knockout. Like Aki, Manny Pacquiao has a calming presence. We sat down and began the interview. Time for some awkward questions. The boxer is now 39 years old and lost his last fight to part time Australian schoolteacher Jeff Horn. Had he considered calling it a day? There was a long pause. I'm sorry, came the reply. Either I'd offended him or I had blurted out the question. I asked again. He sighed. This fight is to answer all those questions. If my body doesn't respond, what am I pushing myself for? Was he thinking of running for president? I don't have that in my mind right now, he replied. He didn't rule it out. We finished the interview and true to Filipino hospitality, Manny Pacquiao invited me to dine with him. The rest was a bit of a blur. But I do remember him doing an impression of a Scottish warrior from the film Braveheart and talking about his love of playing darts with the British boxer Ricky Hatton. As I left the compound, it dawned on me that the outcome of Pacquiao's next fight will be crucial if he is to restore his image not only as a successful boxer, but as but also as a politician who can deliver results. And getting an interview with him at this crucial point in his career was definitely worth the wait.
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Narrator/Reporter
Howard Johnson the history of the Israeli Palestinian conflict is long, complicated and contentious, and both sides want their version of that history to dominate as they try to win over the foreign diplomats, politicians and the wider world. Violence brings one set of headlines. Cultural events and exchanges are seen as another way of achieving that. A festival was held in the west bank recently, aiming to give the growing Palestinian music scene a major boost and to amplify the voices of ordinary Palestinians. Robin Denslow was in Ramallah.
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Robin Denslow
There's nothing else like this, said Martin Goldschmidt as he looked down at the capacity crowd cheering a Palestinian hip hop band playing in a vast tent in the west bank city of Ramallah. They're so isolated from the rest of the world. This is building a great bridge and it's changing stereotypes about Palestinians. The young audience had traveled to the Palestine Music Expo, or pmx, from right across the west bank, negotiating the Israeli checkpoints On the way. They included a group of hospital technicians from Nazareth who told me they were here for the beer, the music and the tolerance. PMX began after Goldschmidt, the boss of an independent British record label, was invited to a music event in Israel but insisted on visiting Ramallah as well. He was so excited by what he saw and heard that he got together with Palestinian musicians and a journalist to co found the organization. Its aim is to create a new Palestinian music industry by staging concerts inviting visiting delegates to advise local musicians on anything from copyright law to songwriting, and to give those visitors a distinctively Palestinian view of the place and its problems. This year there were over 40 music industry insiders attending, including music promoters, bookers and lawyers from around the world. They were welcomed by the Palestinian Minister of Culture, Iher Basso, for whom PMX clearly had political significance. Promoting culture in Palestine is absolutely crucial, he told me. It's a form of resistance, protecting the national heritage. The minister, who enthused about the years he spent studying at Cardiff University, gave us a personal tour of an uncompleted but palatial new building on a Ramallah hilltop. Originally intended as a grand guest house for visiting dignitaries, it's to be Palestine's new national library and cultural hub. Culture was important for establishing links with the outside world, he said, and to create dialogue through Music and art. He claimed that what is happening on the cultural front in Palestine is a miracle. It's exceptionally hard to achieve under occupation. And he went on to recite the everyday problems of checkpoints and restrictions on movement. They organized a trip to show their foreign visitors their side of the conflict. We were driven out through Kalandia checkpoint, where Israeli troops looked through our passports and then taken to the bitterly divided city of Hebron. In the Israeli controlled sector, settlers live alongside the Palestinians, who complain to us how many of their shops have been closed, how they need nets to protect their market from rocks thrown by settlers, and and about the streets where they claimed they were now banned from walking. Over the years of conflict, Palestinians have attacked Israeli soldiers with knives and rocks too. And the small settler community says it also fears for its safety. But being seen here with a Palestinian guide was clearly dangerous. A car apparently driven by an angry settler narrowly missed our group, then did a U turn and drove back at us again at speed. One record industry executive would almost certainly have been hit if he hadn't been pulled back. Other excursions included a visit to the overcrowded Shuafat refugee camp hidden away behind walls and a checkpoint in Jerusalem. Here, a young hip hop group gave an impromptu performance to the delight of a Korean delegate who invited them to perform in Seoul this summer. They were clearly astonished. As for the three main shows in Ramallah, they were remarkable for the sense of enthusiasm, the quality of the staging and lighting and the variety of the music, from jazz to satirical political rock songs, Balkan Palestinian fusion and angry hip hop. Musicians from Gaza had been refused travel permits to attend, but there was an extraordinary video from a rapper who calls himself MC Gaza, filmed amid the violent and bloody Great March of Return protests on the border with Israel. The most famous band of the bill was Le Trio Jau Brain. When they are in Britain, these masters of the Oude, the Middle Eastern lute, perform in hushed concert halls. But here they played to a young audience who cheered ecstatically. This is the only way to fight back against the occupation, band member Adnan Dubran announced on stage. Later, he told me, it's trying to delete our culture. This is how we say no. The industry professionals were clearly impressed. Several bands have already been offered recordings or management deals, so could now launch international careers on the West Bank. News like that is a welcome rarity and will be seen by some as a small political victory.
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Narrator/Reporter
Robin Denslow what to do when the spotlight moves away from you is a question faced by many musicians. Refuse to retire, carry on Reinvent yourself maybe, or go out with a bang. Others lie low until the moment is right or their depleted finances dictate it's time for a comeback. Chris Backman has a tale of a punk rocker who returned to France after decades of self imposed exile. A criminal who's come back from the dead. There will be no stadium tour, but he will be appearing in court next month in a trial that's expected to grip the nation.
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Chris Bockman
One of France's best known criminal lawyers, Christian Attilin, was sitting at his desk just over a year ago, contemplating retirement, when he received a phone call that stunned him. Firstly because the caller had been declared dead many years ago, and secondly because it was about a notorious armed robbery which happened nearly 30 years ago. The voice on the other end of the phone was that of Gilles Bertin, a one time nihilist punk singer with a Bordeaux group called Camera Silence. With a passionate following amongst anarchists and extreme left wing youths who thought there was no future for them. At least Britain had Sid Vicious and the Sex Pistols. Gilles Bertin was France's equivalent in the late 1980s. The group and their hangers on were destitute despite their success and addicted to drugs. Many were HIV positive after sharing contaminated heroin syringes. They figured they didn't have long to live, so they decided to go out with a bang, mount a massive armed robbery and then blow it all until they died. And that's exactly what they did. Stealing 12 million francs or 2 million euros, a fortune from a Brinks deposit in Toulouse on 27 April 1988. They even called the local newspaper afterwards, boasting of their feet. No one was injured in the robbery. The police quickly realized they were dealing with amateurs and everyone was caught within a year, except Gilles Bertin. Hardly any of the money was retrieved and several of the anarchist robbers, already very sick, died of AIDS related complications. The others, after spending a short time in jail, returned to obscurity and some even took nine to five jobs in his absence. Gilles Bertin received a ten year sentence. As the years passed, both the robbery and the punk movement faded from view. The singer turned armed robber was declared dead. His family didn't hear from him again, not even the young son born during those wild years in Bordeaux. And yet Gilles is very much alive when I meet him for lunch at a crowded ancient brasserie called the Cafe de la Concorde in the heart of Toulouse. Tall, with shaggy hair, now blind in one eye, he tells me a little about those 28 years on the run and why he's returned. I'm surprised by how incredibly polite and shy he seems. After the robbery, he was carrying bags of banknotes, so he headed to Portugal, where he opened a record store. All paid for in cash, of course. Occasionally, a traveling French music fan would recognize his face, but Gilles would always deny it was him. Every time he saw a car with French number plates parked outside, he was convinced he was being monitored or followed. After 10 years running the shop, he thought the French police were on his trail. So he headed to Barcelona with his Spanish girlfriend. She ran a bar with her family and he became a barman. They even had a child together. Only his girlfriend knew about his background. To everyone else, he was a man with no past. But he says today, when he was hospitalized with near fatal hepatitis and was treated by hospital staff for free and with no questions asked, it was a turning point. It was time to confront his past and be honest with his son. His life had been saved while he'd given nothing back to society. Hence that phone call. He crossed the border by train to Toulouse and with his lawyer, turned himself in at police headquarters, expecting to be jail immediately. To his complete surprise, he's been allowed to remain free until his trial, where he plans to plead guilty. He says the decision not to imprison him has made him even angrier with himself for what he did. Some might find his past romantic, he says, but he wants to make it clear he would never want his old life back. For three decades, he confides he lived a lie. Constantly feeling like a hunted animal, he living with permanent paranoia as he awaits trial. He's writing about his experience on the run and has even reunited with his elder son, now 30 years old. When it comes to the money, he insists he spent it all a very long time ago. As for his 74 year old lawyer, Christian Attila, who spent his career defending far left terrorists, jihadists and gangsters, he's decided to put off his retirement for this last trial. This was a case he just couldn't let go.
- [27:51]
Narrator/Reporter
Chris Bockman and that's all from us today. We'll be back with more from our correspondence on Saturday morning. As usual, do join us. Goodbye.
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BBC Announcer
This is the BBC.
- [28:03]
Robin Denslow
In June 2017, the fire at Grenfell
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Chris Bockman
Tower in West London killed 71 people.
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Robin Denslow
Now a public inquiry is underway to establish what happened and and what caused it. Alongside the inquiry, a new podcast reporting. Every day the inquiry sits, explaining the evidence and demystifying the jargon so we can all better understand what this important inquiry is doing. That's the Grenfell Tower Inquiry podcast with me, Eddie Mair.