← From Our Own Correspondent
From Our Own Correspondent
Three Questions for Mr Leung
00:28:04
The questions arising from a week of protest in Hong Kong are asked by the BBC's China...
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You're about to hear from our own correspondent.
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We do two versions of the programme, one for the BBC World Service and this one's a download of the latest edition from BBC Radio 4.
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It's introduced by Kate Ady.
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Hello. Today, three questions for Hong Kong's leader as a week of peaceful protest starts to turn violent. As Syria's nightmare continues. Three and a half years of war, 190,000 dead. Neighbouring Turkey struggles to cope with the consequences. Tomorrow's election in Brazil. Could a rubber tapas daughter from the Amazon emerge to lead this country of 200 million people? And we're in the Asian capital which has kept the world at bay for half a century. Not a McDonald's or a Starbucks in sight. There were tense confrontations in Hong Kong this morning between pro democracy protesters and those opposed to the movement. The worst clashes were in the commercial districts of Mong Kok and Causeway Bay. And for the first time, dozens of counter protesters have now arrived at the main demonstration site outside government headquarters after a week of mass protests. Hong Kong's leader, Cy Leung, had said the authorities were ready to talk to the activists who want fully free elections in the vote for the territory's next leader. But the talks were called off after violent scuffles yesterday. Carrie Gracey, who's been covering the protests all week, says she has three questions she'd like to put to Mr. Leung.
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My first question would be, why do they hate you so much? If Cy Leung was being straight with me, he might say it's impossible to be both Beijing's man and Hong Kong's man, and that the Chinese Communist Party is a jealous God. That legitimacy in Hong Kong would make him suspect in China because it would mean real local power and the Communist Party would see that as a threat. If this was his answer, I would broadly agree. The prevailing politics of Beijing is you're either with us or against us. The problem is this has made him nothing more than a number to many of his citizens. They call him 689. Why? Because he was elected with just 689 votes from a committee of 1200, which Beijing controls. And changing that system to allow all Hong Kong citizens a free vote for their leader is what the protest has been all about. So my second question to Hong Kong's leader why choose Beijing? Why not stand up for your citizens? I think I know how he'd answer that question, too. If we were talking off the record, he'd say he had no choice. During the negotiations for Hong Kong's handover In the early 1980s, China's then leader Deng Xiaoping told British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that taking Hong Kong was an afternoon's work for the People's Liberation Army. Now, the PLA headquarters in Hong Kong are right next door to the Chief Executive's office. If they want to remove him, China's generals can walk to the window and beckon. On second thoughts, though, his answer might be different. He might say he chooses China because that's what he believes in. He may have been educated in the UK and served as a go between for Britain and China before the handover. But many suspect Mr. Leung of being a closet member of the Chinese Communist Party. And there are aspects of his career which suggest that he picked the winning side long ago. But there's winning and winning. Every politician must surely prefer soft power to tear gas. Cy Leung came into office two years ago saying he was going to rule for the people. And unlike previous chief executives and colonial governors, he is at least of the people. His father was a policeman. So as he looks down from his office window onto police barricades protecting him from thousands of defiant students, he must wonder whether this could have been avoided. All over the city centre, there are posters which read down with 689. A bus at 1 of the protest sites has been named Route 689 Hell. And as night falls and the main thoroughfare fills with demonstrators lighting up their mobile phones like an endless shoal of silver Glofish, a giant effigy of Mr. Leung often appears swaying above the crowd. So my third question. Did you warn Beijing that this would happen? I'm really interested in the answer to this. It holds implications not just for Hong Kong, but for political power on the mainland. If the answer is yes, that Mr. Long did warn Beijing, then China's President Xi Jinping, who takes all key decisions, must have decided to show Hong Kong who is boss. If Mr. Leung didn't warn Beijing, though, then he proved the demonstrator's point that someone chosen by a tiny elite coterie answerable to a one party state is not in a position to represent his public. He'll always be accountable to Beijing rather than the people of Hong Kong. And at the end of this imaginary interview, as I pack away my microphone, there's one thing I want to say to Hong Kong's leader that as a British citizen who lives in China, my experience of the past week has convinced me that his public combined some of the best of both cultures. I've watched this crowd cope patiently with tear gas, torrential rain and tropical heat. Many have slept on the road and then got up to scrub graffiti off pavements and to sort recycling. I've seen them heckled and spat at and even physically assaulted, and they just keep telling each other to stay calm. China's state media thunders about extremists trying to undermine Beijing's rule. But as far as I can see, the demonstrators are not anti China. They're just asking for the rights and freedoms they believe they were promised. So in his heart of hearts, does Mr. Long think they're ready for democracy? Perhaps he'll return my call in the days ahead and I can ask him direct.
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Cary Gracie in Hong Kong, Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutolu has said his country will do whatever it can to prevent the Syrian border town of Kobani falling into the hands of Islamic State militants. The predominantly Kurdish population of Kobani is under sustained attack by the jihadis. This week, Turkey's parliament authorized military operations against rebels in Iraq and Syria who threaten Turkey's security. The MPs also agreed that foreign troops could use Turkish bases for the same purpose. Mark Loewen, who spent time in the border area close to Kobani, says the authorities in Ankara are having to make difficult decisions.
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The roar of the explosion stunned us deep and sudden, acrid black smoke enveloping the air. Just meters away, a mortar fired from Syria had landed in Turkey itself, perilously near to where we were perched among a pack of other journalists. Then came another thundering through the sky. The nightmare scenario that the war against so called Islamic State in Syria could spill over into Turkey had come a leap closer. Until recently, the Turkish government had a catchy phrase to define its foreign policy zero problems with neighbors. The idea it promoted was dubbed neo Ottomanism, embracing those countries once part of its all powerful empire. But Turkey placed the wrong bets, backing the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt since deposed and turning against President Assad in Syria, still in power now caught in the crossfire on its long and porous border, it faces a reality of zero neighbors without problems. But those problems don't just come from outside. Within its borders, Turkey is now embroiled in a crisis of astonishing proportions, as 160,000 new Kurdish refugees have poured over from Syria in the last fortnight. Flee fleeing Islamic State terror. We met some at the border crossing of Yomurtalik, sitting on scorched earth around us, a dust storm gathering strength. Some clutched a bundle of blankets, others tiny children, whatever they could carry as they ran from their homes. They were held inside a police enclosure Registered and vaccinated against polio, exhaustion etched on her face, Nesra rocked her one day old baby, desperate to calm him down. She winced in pain from the labor. We had to get out, she said. Islamic State are burning our homes and beheading our people. All tell of atrocities, of militants seizing girls, of livestock set on fire, of indiscriminate killing. That natural human inclination to flee danger and seek sanctuary has placed Turkey under immense strain. Some stay with relatives here if they have them, but most bed down in parks, mosques, schools, anywhere they can as Turkey struggles to manage them and and they await news of the fate of their hometown. In a makeshift tent, a hundred refugees were taking shelter from the sun. One of the youngest with down syndrome lying in the corner. Next to him, a 15 day old baby, his mother unable to produce milk. The elderly have come too. Some carried others limping over the border with walking sticks. Nasdaq said she didn't know her age, around 82, she thought her face was heavily lined, her chin bearing traditional Kurdish tattoos, which are supposed to ward off evil. As she wept from the ordeal, her son picked her up on his back before shuffling away. What have we done to deserve this? She asked. Mixed with the pain of the journey is anger towards the country they've had to enter. There is little love between Kurds and the Turkish state, a civil war raging between the two. Until recently, Turkey fears the Kurds will take up arms and launch fresh attacks here. Kurds say Turkey has supported militant groups in Syria several times. While I was at the border, I was caught up in tear gas fired by Turkish police to stop refugees trying to cross back into Syria to fight. They hurled rocks back. What is Turkey doing? Screamed one Syrian Kurdish man, hoarse with anger. They are stopping us from going back to help our brothers. They are arming the terrorists and they see Kurds as the enemy. We are not the enemy. State is. When will Turkey learn, for all this country's ambitions, of one day joining the European Union? It is increasingly entangled in the web of Middle Eastern chaos. It's struggling to cope with the overspill from Syria, from the refugees and by allowing fighters and weapons to enter Syria through its borders. But now it seems to have woken up belatedly to the threat down south, its parliament voting to join the coalition against Islamic State and its troops, tightening control of the frontier. I accompanied the military on the border as they showed off new thermal cameras, promising that Turkey could keep the jihadis out. The criticism against Turkey is completely unjustified, a presidential advisor told me. The west is just looking for an excuse for its failed policy in Syria. Three and a half years of war, 190,000 dead, 3 million refugees. Syria's nightmare goes on. For all the numbers, it's spending time with the people that drives it home. Like Amira, sitting where she and her children could still see their hometown in Syria, her youngest, 4 years old, simply could not stop his tears. I reached out my hand to shake his, hoping for a smile. He held up his palm and spread his fingers, making a V for victory.
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That's Mark Lohan, back now at his base in Istanbul. Brazilians vote for a new president tomorrow. And the winner could be Marina Silva, a mixed race woman, an environmentalist who was born into poverty deep in the Amazon jungle. Her critics say she's an idealist, a dreamer who flits like a butterfly from cause to cause, who talks glibly about a new way for Brazil without providing detailed policies. The other main candidate is the incumbent, President Dilma Rousseff. Her policies, she says, have lifted millions of Brazilians out of poverty. Yet during her tenure, the country's extraordinary economic growth has ground to a standstill. Wira Davis has been travelling around Brazil talking to people about their politicians and their promises.
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It's often difficult to talk about a typical Brazilian characteristic or trait, because in this large and diverse nation, for every rule there's an exception. For every positive, there's a negative. In that spirit, and to find out more about the person who could be the next leader of this dynamic country, I headed backwards in time and motion to Brazil's past, to the jungle state of Acre, well to the west of the original Treaty of Tordesillas line that once divided colonial South America between Spanish and Portuguese control. The area was part of Bolivian territory until the beginning of the 20th century. It was here that Marina Silva's story began. It would be hard to find another person who has risen from such adversity to the verge of global leadership. Marina didn't even learn to read and write until she was 16 years old, partly because she was helping to supplement her parents meager income by collecting rubber from trees in the forest. It made the difference between a family going hungry and being able to put some food on the table. The region encapsulates many of the differences between the dynamic modern Brazil and and the wild frontier country that those who live there seek to protect. After overcoming several bouts of illness directly related to her impoverished upbringing, the young Marina became influenced by the renowned environmentalist and union leader, Chico Mendez. He fought and eventually paid with his life to protect the rights of rural workers in the face of large agro businesses and ranchers who saw the jungle as a resource to be exploited to its full potential. Mendez and his followers, including Marina Silva, drew the world's attention to the plight of the Amazon, its biodiversity, and its people. Chico Mendes wasn't the only rural leader to be murdered for his beliefs. And even today, journalists, campaigners, and others who get in the way of entrenched political and business interests are not safe. Now, thanks to the two main personalities in Brazil's general election, how to pursue the nation's physical and economic growth is again center stage. Like Marina Silva, Djilma Rousseff was not born into privilege. The economic student and political activist was imprisoned and tortured by Brazil's military government in the early 1970s. The two women were ministers in the government of Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, and both lay claim to his political legacy. But it was Rousseff who followed Lula into the presidency as his chosen successor. Her vision for Brazil centers around economic growth and social justice. A comprehensive welfare program has lifted as many as 40 million Brazilians out of poverty, not just through state handouts, but also by ensuring that children get a guaranteed education and are well nourished. It's a policy that's not only paying dividends in the poor, shanty towns of Rio, but also up here, thousands of miles away in the jungle, deep in the Mata, or the forest. After driving for hours on increasingly precarious dirt tracks, we came across three open classrooms that served as a rudimentary but functioning school for the children of forest workers. The rooms were basic, open to the elements, and with simple wooden desks and chairs. But the children read textbooks, were writing with pencils, and there were trained teachers in charge. When Marina Silva was growing up here, such basic rights and services were simply unavailable. And therein lies the dilemma for Brazil. Few people here subscribe to the sanitized Western view of an Amazonian utopia, where the forest remains completely untouched and all development ceases. That is why, even here, in the very state where she was born, Marina Silva might not get the level of electoral support she needs. Uncertainty over her opposition on environmental grounds to some of Brazil's big energy and agricultural projects leads many to conclude they don't know what kind of leader she would be. At least, so, the argument goes, with Djilma Rousseff, jobs and social mobility would be clear electoral priorities, even if the protection of the environment is not as important as it would be under Marina. The sprawling urban metropolis of so Paulo, where the horizon is punctuated through the smog by skyscrapers, not trees, is a world away from the dense green jungles of Acre. But they are two halves of the same country, a country where this weekend people will vote for the eighth time since the end of the dictatorship in a democratic election. And that in itself is surely a sign of progress and stability.
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Wira Davis in Brazil Burma, now generally known as Myanmar, was once the arrival point for millions of migrants, most of them from the Indian subcontinent. After decades of dictatorship and isolation from the rest of the world, there are today only occasional reminders of what a cosmopolitan capital, Rangoon, now Yangon, used to be. With the country now in the throes of economic and political development, Andrew Whitehead has taken to the water, a ferry across the Yangon river, to see for himself the changing face of the city.
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The turning to the ferry jetty lies just opposite the Myanmar port Authority's imposing 1920s headquarters. The track funnels through food stalls, vegetable vendors, a tangle of cycle rickshaws, young men pushing bikes, laden down with a live cargo of dazed upside down chickens and an endless press of pedestrians. At first it feels like gridlock, but this is a well rehearsed routine. You don't have to wait too long. With two large boats perpetually plying to and fro on the 15 minute river crossing, the crowd quickly shuffles on board. And that's when the bazaar really starts. The ferry is a floating market on both decks. Vendors set up stalls on the floor selling everything from cheap toys to cigarettes. Scores of pedlars, men and women, saunter between the packed benches, several bearing large wicker baskets full of tiny boiled eggs in speckled shells. Quail's eggs. I discovered a popular snack. Those eggs make you fat, my neighbour warned. Too much fat. He worked in the tourist industry and clearly wanted to practise his English. Shortly after the boat set off, another young man, confident, articulate and to my untutored ears, persuasive, stood up and began to orate. An itinerant preacher perhaps, or a political activist? No, my neighbour whispered, he's selling medicine. A cream to clear the complexion. Heading back across the river, I glimpsed a view which millions must have seen down the decades and at a life changing moment. The colonial era, rooftops of downtown Yangon and the church like tower of the Port Authority building. Standing proud. It's difficult to imagine now, but this was once on one of the world's busiest migration routes. In the century before the Second World War, almost 30 million people moved by boat across the Bay of Bengal between India, Burma and Malaysia, with Rangoon as it then was a principal destination. As Asia's rivers go, the Yangon doesn't have the mightiest of reputations. Not a match for the Yangtze or the Ganges, the Mekong or the Indus. Overshadowed nearer to home by the Irrawaddy, whose vast delta is Myanmar's and historically the region's rice bowl. But on its banks lay one of Asia's most cosmopolitan cities. It had a Jewish mare. A century back, an Armenian family set up what is still the city's grandest hotel. There's a Chinatown dating back to the 1850s. And South Indians came over in huge numbers. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Burmese were a minority in their own capital. Then there was a rupture, a profound break with the past, Japan's wartime occupation of the country. Then, after Burma's gaining of independence From Britain in 1948, a succession of military led isolationist governments changed all that. Many of the moneyed classes, particularly those of migrant stock, moved out. Patterns of migration across borders were disrupted beyond repair. In the heart of Yangon, an old Armenian church and a synagogue set up by Baghdadi Jews are testament to two all but disappeared trading communities. They are still going in buildings which speak of the wealth and influence those communities once enjoyed, but with congregations in single figures. Other places of worship established by migrants, mosques, Hindu mandirs, Methodist churches are better patronized. The Indian origin community is still evident, but diminished in numbers and even more in influence. Myanmar's long years of isolation have had the incidental benefit of conserving the city's colonial architecture. Often as dilapidated as it is splendid, it doesn't have the antiquity or inspire the awe of the Shwedagon Pagoda and the city's other rich Buddhist heritage. It's not quite a match for Calcutta's older, grander remnants of empire. But it is a more complete colonial city centre than survives perhaps anywhere else in Asia. And not a McDonald's or Starbucks in sight. There are some Japanese and Korean brand names making their marks and some malls where doughnut shops are starting to compete with the street food. But Yangon is a city which has largely kept the world at bay for half a century. The pace of change is quickening, however, in the wake of both a political and an economic opening up, a new bout of mercantilism, of globalization, is starting to make its mark in Myanmar. A new type of migrant is moving in. The diplomats, the development agency bosses, the business executives are more in evidence. Though these Days they don't come by boat.
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Andrew Whitehead. And from Burma to Baghdad, a fairly normal day there yesterday. Three explosions, one in a cafe, four dead, 18 injured. Earlier in the week, there was fierce fighting to the west of the city. Government troops were battling the so called Islamic State militants. The advance of the rebels was reportedly held off with the help of US led airstrikes. The the video released last night of the beheading of the Salford aid worker Alan Henning is just the latest evidence of the Jihadi's commitment to terror tactics. And as Lise Doucet tells us now, the suggestion that IS fighters were just a few miles away from the centre of Baghdad has frightened many living in the capital.
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In Baghdad, you have to look hard, look carefully everywhere you go. Most of all, you have to look out for checkpoints. That's not too hard. They're everywhere. On almost every street, gleaming coils of razor wire snake along the roads. Blast walls loom around every corner. Usually it's soldiers or police in mottled green or blue camouflage who stop every vehicle. Sometimes it's black shirted Shiite militia with black balaclavas, or it's the casual baseball caps of private security guards, pistols carefully tucked away but still plainly in sight. You can't see the enemy in Baghdad, but you can feel its presence. You hear it. There are explosions almost every day. A car bomb at one intersection, a suicide attack on another. Is it always the work of what are known as Islamic State or IS fighters? No one can say for sure. One day, I ask an Iraqi army officer I meet on the streets, how close is is? He traces a circle in the air with his finger, a silent gesture to indicate the enemy is all around us. So we ask to go to the furthest point we can safely go, to see where the IS fighters are, to see whether the capital is in their sights. We're driven west of Baghdad not by soldiers, but tribal sheikhs in black flowing robes trimmed with gold braid. They are chiefs tasked with bringing men from their tribes to join the army in this fight. I travel with them in their luxury, four by four, flanked by pickups bristling with guns. One of them, Sheikh Mohammed, heads the Bani Tamim tribe in the area. It's one of the biggest tribes across the Middle east, and he wants to ensure I understand what that means. My grandfather met Elizabeth, he says, referring to the Queen. It was in 1955, the year of the Baghdad Pact, created by Britain and some of its allies to stop the Soviet Union from infiltrating this region more than half a century on, Britain has now joined Iraq and its allies again to stop the new enemy. We drive out of a city clogged with the traffic jams created by so many checkpoints, past groves of date palms, past villages where we're told IS fighters attacked only weeks ago, and then, on a narrow dirt road on the edge of a vast, empty plain, we screeched to a halt. This is as far as we can go, sheikh Mohammed tells us. Our advice to you don't stay long. There are no sandbag positions, no gun emplacements. The sheikhs point to the horizon, already formed by a thin line of burnished gold as the sun starts to sink in the sky. How far is that? I ask. Five miles, comes the answer. Not close enough to see the black flags of is, but close enough to ask Iraq's prime minister when we meet a few days later. Is Baghdad still under threat? We've pushed them back, haider al Abadi replies, telling me what we'd seen was just pockets. Three months ago they encircled the capital, he admits. Now, he insists, the danger of an assault is gone. But enemies like IS also fight by fear. That hasn't gone. You can't see fear, but you can feel it. Iraqis talk about it. I don't go out anymore, layla tells me emphatically. Where would I go if I went out? Another friend laments. And yet, mixed with fear, there is also fervor. Why do you stay? I ask any rocky businessman with two foreign passports and young children aching to return to the West. Iraq is like a mother to me, he explains. How could I leave her? An Iraqi doctor chimes in. If we leave, the enemy will have won. She tells a story about her teenage son, Laith, eating breakfast at 7am When a loud blast shatters the morning calm. Is it a bomb? Laith asks, his spoon laden with cereal. Everyone knows the answer is yes. But little 8th finishes breakfast, picks up his backpack and heads to school. In Baghdad, you don't have to look hard or far to find the spirit of a people both stoic and sad in their suffering, who still find black humor to brighten dark moments, who are still wonderfully generous to guests. The spirit of this city, its people, is breaking under so much weight. But it's not yet broken. All I have now is one dream, an old friend remarks. All I want to see is my children playing safely in the park once again.
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And with that, from Lee's Doucet in Iraq, we've run out of time. More dispatches from correspondents around the world next week on both Thursday and Saturday mornings. Do join us. Goodbye.