← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
The Story That Never Happened
00:27:48
It's the great reconciliation story which never happened -- Andrew Hosken in Libya on...
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Hello.
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This is a download of from our own correspondent. We make one edition of the programme
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for the BBC World Service, but this is the one broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
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Here to introduce it, Kate Ady.
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Today, the great reconciliation which never took place in Libya and probably never will. There's danger in providing a taste of home for Syrians stuck in the Jordanian capital Amman. Portugal's out on strike, but what went wrong for the people who believe they did everything right and succulent. Tale of kangaroo, anyone? Apparently it's delicious. But Australians, it seems, aren't so keen. Almost 20 months after the death of Colonel Gaddafi, Libya is still struggling to come to terms with his legacy. And the aftermath of revolution and war security remains a serious problem. At least two men were reported killed overnight in clashes between rival militia groups in the capital, Tripoli. And perhaps just as important in the long term is the issue of reconciliation. This week, the people of Tawerga had been planning to return to their town. They'd sided with Gaddafi during the fighting and afterwards were thrown out of their homes by fighters from neighbouring Misrata. 30,000 are now refugees in their own country as a result. Andrew Hosking was in Libya this week, ready to report on their return.
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I'd like to tell you about the story that never was, about the great reconciliation that never happened and about the return of a disgraced people to the city of their fathers that never took place. If that's one of the strangest sales pitches you've heard from someone of my attention seeking trade, please bear with me. I do still have a tale, a tale of two cities, in fact, and it's a tragedy in which one city utterly betrays another city and to make matters worse, a neighbour. I set off on the three hour trip eastwards out of Tripoli to the city of Misrata. In a remarkable country and Libya and its people are undoubtedly remarkable, Misrata stands out against all the odds. This fiercely independent city of 400,000 souls somehow withstood all that Colonel Gaddafi could throw at them and went on not only to save themselves, but to help liberate their country. Overpowering evidence of the terror faced by Misrata during the terrible months of 2011 is evident as soon as you enter the city. Blackened buildings line the main thoroughfare of Tripoli street, seeming to bear their shell pockmarks with pride. In the matter of fact tone of a seasoned tour guide, a man called Majdi took us round saying, that's where the two cameramen died and that's the insurance building used by Gaddafi snipers, man. It took two Months clearing out those dudes. But Majdi is not from Misrata. He's from Zintan in the western Nephewsa mountains, another rebel stronghold. In Misrata, time has not sown seeds of dispassion. Wounds are still red raw. I think the war museum on Tripoli street will become as much a must see on any future tourist trip as the ruins at Leptis Magna or the tombs of the ancient Garamantians. Outside are the war trophies, including the famous stone fist clutching a crumpled US fighter jet that Gaddafi had erected in the centre of his Tripoli compound, Abab al Azazir. Inside, among the photos of the thousands of civilian victims and the grim artifacts of war, are bundles of the fake US bills found on the corpses of his mercenaries. The Colonel had paid them with with counterfeit cash. And here we come to the great stab in the back. My guide in the museum was a former rebel fighter, Ayman Al Mani, who picked up a gun when he realized his family were facing destruction. Hesitantly, he took me to the display on the mercenaries from the neighboring city of Tawerga, which lies some 30 miles to the south of Misrata. For generations, the two peoples had lived peacefully side by side, with the Misratans, providing employment. Originally, the Tawergans were from South Sudan. Centuries ago, they were brought to Libya in chains by slave dealers and settled at Tawerga following emancipation in the late 1800s. They continued to work as domestics and farm workers for their former owners in Misrata until the revolution, which overthrew Gaddafi. The relationship was friendly, but they were never equals, however cordially disguised, the whiff of condescension is never hard to detect. The Colonel played on this uneasy history to rally the Tau Wagans to his colors, and some 10,000 marched on their neighbors with the chilling cry, death is coming to Ms. Rata. My guide's wary eyes cloud over when I ask what happened next? Please, I can't, he said, his chin dropping to his chest. Indeed, many of the accusations levelled at the Tauergans are too appalling to describe. Here they seem to go well beyond war crimes. When the battle tipped in the Misratans favor, they went to Tawerga. That city is now empty and in ruins. The Misratans were accused of ethnic cleansing. The Misratans claim the Tauergans fled before they got there. The Tauergans cut an abject sight when I visited them at their refugee camp on the outskirts of Tripoli. They fiercely protested their innocence and raged at the Misratans for detaining or killing their sons, brothers and husbands, and vowed to return to Tawerga. The government told them it would be unsafe to go. A convoy tried to return, but the Misratans stopped them at Sirte, a drive of four hours or so from the wreckage of their dead city. So the Tauergans did not go home. The great reconciliation did not take place and it probably never will. That's what didn't happen. The Tawagans have paid a heavy price for the monopoly blood money many of their men took from the brother leader
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Andrew Hoskin in Libya. A UN brokered attempt to set up a peace conference on Syria ended this week with no agreement between US and Russian officials on key elements of the proposed talks. The US Secretary of State, John Kerry is expected to discuss the issue next week with the Russian Foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, but the UN special envoy lacked us. Brahimi said it was very doubtful that the conference would take place next month. The continuing strife in Syria is playing havoc with the economy, but there are local companies still doing business, some in neighbouring countries. Nigel Wilson's been finding out about one providing a taste of home in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
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He's got to be the hardest working car valet in Amman, forehead soaked, whistle dangling, somehow managing an ever multiplying swarm of vehicles. But the people sitting on this narrow terrace don't even notice. They've got ice cream on their minds. I'm so happy it's open. The last time we came, they'd run out. Oh, it's delicious. It's more expensive, though. Three times what you pay in Damascus. Come, come and meet us. Join us for ice cream. We're at Bagdash Yallabay. Renowned across the Arab world for its rambunctious atmosphere and stellar traditional ice cream, Bagdash is a Syrian institution. It's been serving its famous fair in Damascus since 1895. But with the number of Syrians now living in Jordan's capital multiplying daily, one of Syria's most celebrated brands has set up shop here too. Judging by the amount of customers pouring through the door, it was a good business decision. Wading through a sea of excitable children, I spy an empty table near the back of the cafe where Yarob, the owner, joins me. Have you tried it yet? He asks as a waiter duly arrives with a glass bowl overflowing with the classic milky ice cream, generously covered in fresh pistachios. This one's on me. You can pay next time, he jokes. Yarob's a Jordanian who bought the franchise rights to Bakdash in Amman when he saw the number of Syrians in the capital rising. Lots of our customers are Syrians, over half. But people from all over the world are coming Iraqis, Saudis, the Gulf, Europeans, Americans, he says, scanning the diverse crowd. We're very popular at the moment. We even had to close a couple of weeks ago because we ran out of ice cream. He grins. Unfortunately, what's good for business isn't always good for the neighbors. Some local companies complain that they can't find parking spaces nearby anymore, Yaob admits. You should have been here last night. We had to have three policemen managing traffic on the street. Bagdash, in Damascus isn't having the same problems, but it remains open, and the ice cream I'm enjoying has been imported from Syria, with orders having to be placed two weeks in advance. Getting the product into Jordan is an arduous task fraught with danger. Roads around the Syrian capital are often closed, and the countryside farms they used to buy their milk from have become battlefields. But somehow they're still managing to make the product in Damascus before sending it through contested areas and checkpoints in a trade convoy bound for Jordan. The supply chain is risky. It's difficult for staff in Syria to move around. Some of them are sleeping in the shop, yairob says. One of the staff was killed in the countryside. Shot dead, he says, wide eyed. Whilst the boss may be Jordanian, the majority of the employees here are Syrians. At 20 years old, Hamza is already a veteran of the trade. He's been working for Bagdash since he was 12. Tonight, he's in charge of smashing the white and pink blocks of frozen ice cream into the soft, gummy substance that's diminishing in my bowl. Armed with an enormous wooden mallet, he tosses a block into a stainless steel drum and begins pounding out a rhythm that wouldn't feel out of place at a street party. Seemingly from every corner of the shop, children rush towards the drummer, followed by parents who hoist them into the air for a better look. The ritual is completed with a customary photograph. I must be in a thousand Facebook pictures, Hamza laughs. Whether young or old, Syrian or Jordanian, everyone here talks about Syria incredibly fondly but wistfully. Inviting me to sit with his wife and three daughters, Abdul Mahdi, a Jordanian, recalls how before the uprising, they were regular visitors to Damascus. Before the revolution, we used to drive to Syria once a month and we'd always go to Bagdash. Of course, the ice cream was amazing, but there was such an atmosphere more so than here. Syrians are such vivid people, full of life. I'm worried that the country may never be the same again. Hamzah, the man with the mallet, agrees. I'm so proud to be doing this job. Amman's a nice city and I like working here, he says shyly. But really, I would love to go back.
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There's no place like Syria, and that's Nigel Wilson. At least a million Portuguese workers are said to be out on strike this morning in protest at the government's austerity measures. The country's mired in its worst recession since the 1970s, and unemployment, running at 17%, is at its highest ever level. The unions are unhappy at the austerity terms imposed on the country in return for a 70 billion pound cash bailout two years ago. Marie Keyworth has been finding out how people there are coping during this long economic crisis.
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It's a hot afternoon and we're stuck in the traffic along Lisbon's waterfront. There's a holiday feel in the air. Car windows are rolled down, sunglasses are on, and locals and tourists wander along the pavement by the water, easily overtaking the stationary cars on the road. None of the traffic dampens the mood of my companion, Barbara. She sticks her head out of the window and basks in the sun's rays on her face. We needed this, she says, smiling. It puts everyone in a good mood. Eventually we head out of the city towards Biovilla. It's Barbara's business project, an eco farm offering courses on sustainable living nestled in a National Park 40 minutes drive south of the capital. The air is rushing through the open windows of her old and slightly grubby sports car. As we tear down the motorway, Barbara turns to me, shouting over the sound of the wind. I love my country, and she looks like she means it. Barbara is all tan health and glowing optimism. She has the air more of a student than of a young businesswoman managing a project worth a million euros of government loans. The thing is that Portugal hasn't always been loving to Barbara. Last year she had to fire all six of her staff and rework her business plan. But rather than complain, she says it made her company stronger and better able to cope with a tough economic environment. But then, Barbara is exceptional and by far the most positive person I've met here. A more common sight is the one that greets me when I turn my key to the front door of my lodgings. While in Lisbon, I'm renting a room from Christina. She's 33 and has been unemployed since January. Renting out the nicest room in her flat is her way of making ends meet. She lives in the popular tourist district of Alfama, all old, narrow, winding streets and steep stairways. It's the Lisbon of postcards, where small restaurants are tucked away amid a maze of cobbled passages and where you can still eat while listening to the traditional Portuguese fardo music, a kind of Iberian blues. While I pop in and out of the flat, Christina mainly stays in with her pets, a serene white and grey cat and a very affectionate, needy, curly haired dog. She has a signature posture, sitting on a bean bag by the window of her balcony, enjoying the sun and the breeze and hunting for jobs on her laptop. Christina used to work for a cruise company. It was driven into the ground by its joint Portuguese and Greek owners. The worst possible combination. We both laugh at the irony. It seems that for Cristina, if she didn't laugh, she'd cry. She's of the generation whose parents lived through Portugal's 50 year dictatorship, which ended in 1974. They suffered the hardships of that time and told their children to study, go to school, graduate, go on and be somebody. Cristina did that, and now she's in her early 30s, without a job or any prospect of finding one. Soon she has an air of bewilderment I'm familiar with. Here in Portugal, people were certain of a future in Europe with higher living standards. Investment in education was supposed to mean better jobs. Now the sums are just not adding up for the Portuguese, who feel they did everything right back in the sweltering Lisbon traffic jam, even Barbara isn't immune to doubt. Her mum used to own a small tea shop, but she had to close a few months ago because the higher tax rates made business impossible. Her dad, she admits, is moving to Brazil. I was arrogant about the crisis, barbara accepts. I thought, just work hard, get more education and you can get better. But now I see there are fewer opportunities. We crawl past a billboard and I have plenty of time to admire suggests everything's the fault of business. Fat cats turn the crisis on its head. Shouts the bright green billboard of the anti austerity bloco Scareda party. A picture shows the familiar mustachioed figure from the board game Monopoly tipped upside down, Euro coins falling from his top hat. But Barbara still has a kind word about Portugal's government. She looks over to the roadworks holding us up. They're giving the riverside back, she says. This area was closed to the people and now it's being opened up. They do make good investments and good decisions as well.
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Marie Keyworth in Lisbon the European Union may not have had the best press in some member countries recently, but in Croatia it seems there's enthusiasm at the prospect of joining the Euro Club. The country will become a full EU member on July 1, and the occasion will of course be marked by much flag waving in the capital, Zagreb, and doubtless a few airings of Beethoven's Euro anthem, the Choral Symphony. Mick Webb tells us that Croatians are hoping that becoming part of the European family will help them deal with such matters as high unemployment and an economy languishing in recession.
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Horec is one of the attractive towns which decorate the western coast of Istria. Its historic centre boasts Roman remains, Venetian palaces and a stunning mosaic filled basilica. But on the day I visited, the main focus of attention was a futuristic building on the ring road. Once a year it fills up with small tractors, stainless steel containers and a whole host of tools for pruning and caring for vines. And above all, lines of stalls showcasing the products of Istria's winemakers. The three day exhibition is called Vinistra and this year marks its 20th birthday. Apart from those in the wine trade, a good crowd of local people, many of them young, had put on their Sunday best and and paid the €10 admission charge, which entitles you to an almost endless supply of tastings. The atmosphere by the end of day one was, as you might expect, most convivial. Among the exhibitors there was much talk of an elegant tulip shaped glass which the Vinistra association had commissioned from a world famous glass maker to promote Istria's most renowned wine, Malvasia. A more contentious subject though, was Croatia's imminent accession to the European Union and in particular the issue of Tehran, Istria's other indigenous grape variety. The neighbouring country of Slovenia, which also owns a slice of the Istrian peninsula and also grows the Tehran grape is already in the eu and Slovenia's Tehran wine is now protected by an EU designation, meaning Croatia can't market its own product under the name Tehran. It's a complete disgrace, we can't use the name, producer Bruno Trapan told me as we sipped a glass of the deep, earthy flavoured wine at the centre of the row. The Slovenian wine isn't even made from the true Tehran grapes. We have scientific proof of that, he added. Even the laid back president of the Vinistra Association, Ivica Matosevi, was fuming. It's a very unworthy and underhand move by Slovenia, he told me. We're going to have Real trouble contesting this decision now. It's something that our politicians in Zagreb should have dealt with earlier to defend our interests. Another of Istria's gourmet offerings is its olive oil, produced here since Roman times. At Vinistra, I learned how to appreciate the difference between varieties, warming up a little plastic container in my hand, swirling the contents round in my mouth and trying not to choke embarrassingly on the extraordinarily rich, spicy flavours. It is, however, very expensive for local people to buy, and EU entry will almost certainly bring shoppers cheaper imported oil. For producers, though keen on expansion, the outlook is less rosy as EU rules state that no new trees can be planted for two years after accession. It's a rule that's been engineered by Spain and Italy to protect their interests, I was told by Melinda Cosetto, who represents the olive growers. Not surprisingly, Istria has seen a recent rash of olive tree planting to beat the deadline. Most of the people I spoke to during my visit felt that Croatia's central government could be doing a lot more to explain what opportunities and challenges membership of the new club will really bring. Despite that, I found a generally positive attitude. It will definitely help reduce corruption, was one common refrain. It will bring more tourists, another. A hotel owner in the little resort town of Novigrad, just a few miles from the border with Italy, said, the good thing for me is that I'll be able to find skilled Italian workers like waiters in Trieste, so much closer than Zagreb. Away from the coast. In Istria's wooded hills, where the valuable white and black truffles grow in abundance, I met the Jankovic family, who have started their own business making honey, as well as a dangerously beguiling honey infused grapper and other bee products. They're hoping to get an EU grant to help them improve their premises, currently a converted garage, and to buy a small crane to make shifting their hives easier. Last year, a European Commission survey found that 60% of Croatians were in favour of joining the EU. Istrians tend to feel that their complicated recent history has made them particularly well prepared to adapt to new realities on the ground. There are only 200,000 of them. And even more than other Croatians, they've already lived through a sequence of large scale political upheavals and changes of ruler Nada Boncha, a tourist guide who I met in the largest town, Pula, put it succinctly. My grandparents were born in Austria, my parents in Italy, I was born in Yugoslavia, my children in Croatia, and my grandchildren will be born into Europe, and we have never even moved from Pula.
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Big web in Croatia. Cooks around the world these days make a big thing of using local ingredients, locally sourced meat and seafood. Foraging's much in fashion, with kitchen kitchen staff scouring the landscape for edible berries or disturbing the golfers by searching for wild mushrooms. By the 18th tee, it's all about rediscovering native fare. So when Fuchsia Dunlop visited Australia, a country proud of its own blossoming food culture, she was sure she'd find local chefs clamouring to work with indigenous produce. But it wasn't quite as she had expected.
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The restaurant was perched on the brink of the Torrens river like an elegant dragonfly. After a quick aperitif on the terrace, we took our places inside for a taste of some of Australia's native produce. There were sweet quincey quandongs, also known as desert peaches, a chutney made of muntry berries, and a sort of crocodile fish cake. Most excitingly for me, there was kangaroo. We ate some of its rosy, sweet cured meat as an appetizer, and then a great tranche of seared kangaroo steak as part of a mixed grill. The grilled kangaroo, cooked medium rare, was lean and tender and reminded me of venison. Like many foreign cooks visiting Australia, I was dying to try some of the country's unique local ingredients, and none of them more than kangaroo. I knew that kangaroo meat had much to recommend it. It is free range, low fat and rich in iron. It is also plentiful and sustainable. But if kangaroo meat sounds like the perfect Australian food, I quickly discovered that most Australians refuse to eat it. On my first days in Adelaide, I scoured restaurant menus in vain for kangaroo dishes. The Greek, Korean, Chinese and Afghan restaurants I visited were an advertisement for the multiculturalism of the Australian diet. But their menus maintained a studious silence on the subject of kangaroo. The only place I found it on the menu was at that riverside restaurant, the Red Ochre Grill, which specialises in indigenous ingredients but is mainly frequented by out of town visitors like me. Most Australians I talked to in Adelaide and Sydney said they felt funny about eating kangaroo. After all, one young woman explained, it's our national emblem. She confessed that the only kangaroo meat she'd ever had in the house was fed to her kittens. And everyone mentioned the 1960s TV series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, which encouraged Australians to see kangaroos as far too adorable to cook for dinner. Eating kangaroo, one chef told me, was a bit like eating Bambi, that doe eyed young deer in The Disney film. In the past, kangaroo meat was more widely accepted. It was always eaten by Aboriginal Australians, for whom the succulent tail, roasted in a pit full of embers, is a particular delicacy. The early European settlers ate kangaroo out of necessity, and many eventually came to enjoy a red meat that didn't really taste so different from venison or beef. According to historian Barbara Santicha, kangaroo recipes appeared regularly in cookbooks until the 1930s. It was only with the rise in living standards and increasing urbanization of the 20th century that it and other so called bush tucker fell out of favour. Although kangaroo meat does have a few Australian devotees, over 70% of the meat is exported mainly to Russia. Much of what remains is used as pet food or served in restaurants catering to tourists. A few pioneering chefs are now trying to interest the Australian public in eating kangaroo, or at least its smaller, daintier cousin, the wallaby. One of them, Kylie Kwong, welcomed me into the kitchen of her Chinese restaurant, where she conjured up a plateful of red braised wallaby tail with native fruits and another of stir fried wallaby tenderloin with black bean and chili. The tail was meltingly delicious, like an Australian oxtail, and the tenderloin as tender as its guests, with a delicate, gamey flavour that reminded me of pigeon breast. There's certainly nothing weird about the taste or texture of either wallaby or kangaroo. But Australians hang up about eating their most available meat is not particularly surprising. For me, it was a reminder of the deep irrationality of human food choices. Most people in the west, for example, will eat shrimps, but not insects, but pork, but not dog and beef, but not horse meat. But experts are now telling us that we will have to challenge our prejudices as we face the twin crises of population growth and environmental degradation. The United nations is promoting insects as a sustainable source of protein. And perhaps in the future, once again, Australians will come to enjoy kangaroo soup for their dinner.
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Fuchsia Dunlop there savouring the taste of kangaroo and wallaby and bringing us to the end of another edition. We'll have more exotic fare for you on Saturday morning at half past eleven. Until then, goodbye.