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From Our Own Correspondent
Ukraine’s fading hopes
00:28:58
After ceasefire talks stalled this week, our correspondent says Kyiv faces a new reality.
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BBC Presenter
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Correspondent/Reporter
Today we're in Belgrade where smoke bombs in Parliament and the country's largest ever street protests have highlighted a deep disaffection with the political class. In Guatemala, where President Arevalo secured an unlikely win on an anti corruption platform in elections in 2023, we hear whether his rhetoric matches reality. We're in Kenya, where a new early warning system for farmers to mitigate against drought is catching on. But some communities are wary. And finally, as former Filipino President Duterte is extradited to the Hague, our correspondent reflects on a telling encounter with a priest and a pathologist. But first, diplomatic efforts to end the fighting in Ukraine continue this weekend after initial attempts to secure a ceasefire stalled. Donald Trump spoke on the phone to both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. Russia refused to support a U S led plan for an immediate 30 day ceasefire and demanded talks about its red lines. First, President Putin did agree to pause attacks on energy facilities, but was swiftly accused by Ukraine of breaking his promise after Russian drones struck a railway power plant. All the while, European governments scramble to agree ways of supporting Ukraine if any ceasefire is agreed. James Landale's in Kyiv in the heart.
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BBC Presenter
Of Kyiv sits the ancient Cathedral of Saint Sophia. Dating back a thousand years, it's the oldest building in the city, a symbol not only of the origins of Ukraine's Christianity, but also its statehood from the times of the Kivian Rus. But I'm sitting not beneath the golden domes that have adorned many a postcard, but in the old bakery to one side of the cloister where the monks used to huddle by the ovens to keep warm. Warm these days It's a bright gallery, and I'm listening to a concert by a small ensemble called Barocco Plus. As you might have guessed, its repertoire is the baroque, and the musicians are giving it Samuel. In part, they're responding to the raw emotion of the music, but they're also doing their best for their audience, for that is composed of families of those who have fallen, are missing, or have been taken prisoner in the three years of fighting since Russia's full scale invasion. Hannah Balui, the vivacious lead violinist, told me music was powerful art therapy for those waiting for relatives to escape what she called the torture chambers of Russia. It's unbearable to live every day, she said, knowing that your loved ones are being held illegally, incommunicado and in poor health. The concert is just one of thousands of small ways in which people in Ukraine have sought to keep up their spirits in a conflict that has cost them so much. But in recent days, that effort of raising morale has become much harder. The prospect of a ceasefire may be tantalizing for a country exhausted by war, but it also prompts some difficult questions for Ukraine's government and people. What price are they prepared to pay to end the fighting? And if they do accept a ceasefire, one that favors Russia, what have the many years of fighting been for? I go to see a senior member of the administration to discuss all this. I cannot name him, for our conversation must be off the record. But his anonymity allows him to be brutally frank. The biggest problem Ukraine faces, he says, is is not the loss of US Military or moral support. It is the loss of the idea of victory. President Zelenskyy still says things like we will win this war, as he did in Finland this week. But he knows and has long admitted that without significant increases in U.S. assistance, this conflict will not be resolved militarily. My off the record interlocutor says this raises what he calls the so what? Question? If we can't win, why don't we stop fighting? But if we do stop, for what purpose? Have some 40 to 50,000 Ukrainians died? There's also, he says, a deeper question. For more than 30 years, Ukraine has sought to get closer to the West. But after the election of Donald Trump, he asks, what is the West? If Trump says democracy is bad, he says, we can't explain our fight as a fight for democracy. Now we're just fighting for our freedom. I invite him to answer his own question, and he says that after any ceasefire, Ukraine will likely enter what he calls a diplomatic grey zone outside any formal alliances reliant on bilateral flows of arms and money from European partners still threatened by Russia. And that, he says, will be hard to sell to people who in peacetime, will lose the uniting adrenaline of conflict and blame the government for their plight. In recent days, I've sat across a table from President Zelenskyy as he briefed the media, and I've wondered how he will square this circle. He is still the relentless optimist, the charismatic war leader whose confidence has borne his nation through the darkest of times. He looks a bit older, more war weary, perhaps. Yet his extraordinary stamina remains. But what if even he can't promise his people either a great victory or a just peace, but something rather messy in between? We are learning that we can't trust America any more than we could ever trust Russia, a Ukrainian friend tells me. We're just going to have to learn to stand on our own two feet, rather, I think, like the musicians who play for the families of the lost.
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Correspondent/Reporter
James Landale Next to Serbia, which saw the largest protest in the country's history last weekend, with hundreds of thousands gathered in the capital, Belgrade. The protest, one of several over recent months, is focused on the collapse of Novi Sad's new railway station last November, which killed 15 people. Demonstrators blame corruption and corner cutting by the ruling Progressive Party for the loss of life. President Vucic had opened the station with great fanfare in 2022 and was closely associated with its renovation. It was a key stop on the new high speed line from Belgrade to Budapest, the government's flagship infrastructure project. And although there have been several resignations, including the prime minister, the protests have only gathered momentum. Guy Delaunay has been in Belgrade.
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Guy Delaunay
I moved among the multitudes. I was nearly deafened by the whistles, but I didn't hear the sound Cannon. Belgrade's mega protest was full of humour, hope and anger, and ultimately outrage over claims that the authorities had deployed a sonic weapon against the crowds. But at least the riot never happened, despite the president's predictions and the counter protesters camped in front of his office. Frankly, that felt like a good result, because in the run up to the protest, the authorities seemed to be spoiling for a fight. And perhaps it was just me, But Belgrade seemed to be charged with nervous tension. After all, it's easy to predict a riot if you're the instigator. And the notion seemed to come out of the blue because over the past four and a half months, the students who've been leading Serbia's protest movement have shown no interest whatsoever in violence. President Aleksandr Vucic admitted as much, boasting that Serbia had demonstrated its democratic credentials by policing all the protests without so much as a baton drawn. So I asked him why it was that he thought this time might be different. The students are well intentioned, he told me. Some others he reckoned were bent on causing mayhem. He cited the smoke bombs in Parliament earlier this month, when opposition MPs disrupted a session with everything from eggs to fire extinguish. That was supposed to highlight their disgruntlement with the domination of public life by the president's Progressive party. But it just gave the government the opening to paint the opposition as revolutionaries bent on overthrowing an elected administration by force. I don't give in to blackmail, warned President Vucic. I won't allow the street to pave a horrible future for this country. But people have been taking to the streets because they feel distinctly queasy about the country's present. And the protests were triggered by a problem project that was supposed to propel Serbia into the future. The upgrade of the Belgrade to Budapest railway line will cut journey times between the capitals of Serbia and Hungary from eight hours to fewer than three. Passengers will relax in quiet, Swiss engineered Chinese funded comfort rather than endure the cacophonous clapped out carriages of the old Yugoslavia rolling stock. President Vucic had ensured that he was very visibly associated with the endeavour. Three years ago, he and Hungary's Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, reopened the renovated railway station at Novi Sad, Serbia's second city and a key stop on the line. On the extremely speedy return journey to Belgrade, Mr. Vucic plied me with Serbian wines and proudly insisted that the project would help bring modernisation and prosperity to the country. But at the start of November, a concrete canopy collapsed, killing 15 people. The outpouring of anger was instant and enormous. If this could happen to the government's signature project, what did that say about everything else the Progressive Party was doing in Serbia? The slogan we are all under the canopy soon appeared on banners at protests around the country. Alongside corruption kills and blood on your hands. Students have taken the lead, shunning the involvement of political parties. The demonstrations are now into their fifth month and show no signs of diminishing. In fact, the 15th for 15 gathering in Belgrade was the largest protest Serbia had ever seen. Even the government estimates placed the numbers at more than 100,000. An independent monitor calculated that it was at least three times that size. And far from bringing violence, the protest was more like a carnival. Some participants carried aloft papier mache figures, grotesque representations of local and International political leaders. Madonna also made an appearance, but only on a flag. She's made new Serbian fans by voicing her support for the students. Shrill blasts of whistles and the drone of vuvuzelas were regularly punctuated with chants of Poompai. The unofficial slogan of the protest movement to translates as Pump it up, which refers to increasing the pressure on Mr. Vucic and the government to reveal everything about the disaster. The protesters are demanding full accountability and transparency. A country that works, as law student Jana Vesic put it to me. Standing nearby her professor, Miya Drag Jovanovic, allowed himself a satisfied smile. They are asking for everything I've been lecturing about.
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Peter Young
He.
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Guy Delaunay
He told me the rule of law, respect for the constitution and the responsibility and accountability of public officials. The students say they'll keep going until they're satisfied the authorities have been completely honest about the causes of the novi sad disaster. Mr. Vucic says he believes they'll never be satisfied. Now the question is, who'll blink first?
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Correspondent/Reporter
Guy Delauni Guatemala has an unenviable reputation for being one of the most corrupt countries in the world. For years, state funds have ended up in the pockets of a powerful elite known as the Pacto de Corruptos, the pack of the corrupt, made up of politicians, military figures, judges, drug traffickers and business people. During the general elections of 2023, the political underdog Bernardo Arevalo managed to defy the odds and was elected on an anti corruption platform. But there's some impatience about how much he's managed to get done. After more than a year in power, many walls in the capital now feature graffiti calling him Arevolo Tibio. Lukewarm Arevolo.
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Driving in Guatemala is not for the faint hearted. On one rainy journey to Guatemala City, I counted eight crashes. Just look at the state of these roads, my friend Miguel exclaimed. One of the lanes was blocked by piles of rocks and earth which had slid down the hills onto the road. This sums up the country, he went on. The politicians who built it said it would cost millions of dollars. And then they pocketed 80% of the money meant for the new road, leaving us with one that's full of potholes and constantly needs repairing. Guatemalans have put up with this kind of situation for years. Public funds for roads, hospitals and schools have been systematically stolen, leaving 18 million people without vital public services. Miguel admits that previous governments are responsible for the terrible roads. But he does think the new president could do more too. He's too much of a politician. All talk and no action, he says about Bernardo Arevalo, who was elected on the platform of cleaning up government. We need someone young, with more energy, miguel says, someone who'll root out corruption and get the country back on its feet. Like many Guatemalans, Miguel thinks a person like President Bukele, the populist authoritarian leader in neighbouring El Salvador, would be a good option because he says he's not afraid to take on the bad guys and change the laws if he has to. When I get to interview President Arevalo myself, I pass on Miguel's concerns about not being dynamic enough. He responds dolefully. Politics is the art of the possible, and one can only operate in the conditions that exist. As we talk in his spacious office in the national palace, an imposing baroque green stone building, he comes across as a charming old school diplomat, a job he used to do. The president admits that because he has a minority in Congress, he hasn't been able to pass all the sweeping reforms he'd like to. He stresses the government is building new roads, health centres and repairing schools, as well as setting up an anti corruption commission. But one major obstacle to his success is the country's Attorney General, its top state prosecutor, Consuelo Porras. She's pursued a long term grudge against Mr. Arebalo and even tried to stop him becoming president after he was elected in 2020. She sent employees to raid the polling stations and claimed the electoral process was unlawful. The United nations said she was trying to undermine the outcome of Guatemala's elections, as did the EU, which imposed sanctions on Ms. Bordas last year. Yet many voters were determined to get the president they had voted for into power, so they mounted nationwide protests against the Attorney General, which went on for 106 days. On my way to visit the President, I passed yet another noisy demonstration outside the Congress Building calling for the Attorney General's resignation because despite her unpopularity, she's still there. The government's legally tied from expelling her, Mr. Arebalo explains. If I want to initiate a case against her, I have to do it through her office. So she has to investigate herself, which is absolutely absurd. For now, he's waiting for her term in office to end. Around half of Guatemala's population is made up of indigenous Mayan people. Many of them also protested in support of Bernardo Erevalo. Ana Alicia Alvarado is from the Mayaqueche community, and she proudly tells me what she said to the president at his inauguration ceremony when he was finally sworn in on the 15th of January 2024. Senor President, I hope you appreciate all the effort this country made for you. Now you, as the government, must show us that our efforts were worth it. Anna's cautiously optimistic. She tells me that it will take time to dismantle years of corruption, but she still believes the new government really does want to make things better. Although people like Anna know they need to be patient, there's a sense of urgency that the chance to clean up Guatemala can't be wasted. The president must do as much as he can in the years he has left to justify the faith placed in him.
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Correspondent/Reporter
Jane Chambers.
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Between 2020 and 2022, the horn of Africa suffered its worst drought in at least 40 years. Consecutive failed rains meant that more than 30 million people across the region, mostly in poor areas, regularly didn't have enough to eat. Scientific research has since found that carbon emissions have made devastating droughts like these 100 times more likely. The United nations has thrown its support behind an effort that it hopes will help farmers fight drought through early warning systems. Peter Young has been to Kenya to find out more.
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Peter Young
When Theresa Kehinde harvested nearly two tonnes of maize from her modest farm in 2022, the neighbors accused her of witchcraft. Many of her fellow farmers in Kenya's eastern county of Kilifi had not even produced a single sack of the staple crop, following what was the desperate fifth consecutive season of almost no rain. For them, a successful harvest was unthinkable, impossible amid such tough, arid conditions. They said I was a witch, but it's not true, recalled Kehindi as we strolled through her abundant fields of black eyed peas, mung beans, finger millet and sunflowers under an increasingly fierce late morning sun. We can't continue to farm like we used to do, added the 53 year old mother of two, a sturdy but gentle matriarch with cropped black hair. Traditionally, Kehinde explained to me, farmers in Khalifi have long relied on local knowledge like observing the behaviours of birds and butterflies and tracking the stars in order to judge when to begin sowing seeds and preparing land. But as climate change makes weather across the globe more extreme and unpredictable, those traditional methods aren't as helpful as they once were. Instead, Kehinde's drought defying harvest was thanks to a sophisticated new system that includes cutting edge meteorological data, radio and text alerts and on the ground teams who ensure communities can take pre emptive action to avoid crop losses. The future of world food production Finding a way to minimize the chance of failed harvests amid a heating planet could rely on early warning systems like these. They can now detect with high certainty that drought will occur nearly a year in advance. Even I have to admit that sounds like sorcery. But it's down to improved data collection, satellite imagery and scientific knowledge of the complex climatic conditions that drive drought in the Horn of Africa. The idea is if farmers are warned about impending extreme weather early enough, they can take action accordingly, switching crops, planting seeds earlier or later, vaccinating or selling livestock, or building flood defences and irrigation systems. In Kenya, millions of farmers like Hindi, are now receiving these forecasts through radio, television, SMS and WhatsApp messages, as well as on the ground teams made up of a patchwork coalition of NGOs and local and national government agencies. In Kehinde's case, back in March 2022, a month before the rainy season was due to begin, she was advised to adapt her plans at a seminar for farmers run by local officials. So following the guidance, she prepared her plots with manure to enhance water retention, covered the soil with dry grass mulching to reduce evaporation, and planted drought tolerant maize seeds which need less water and mature faster than other varieties even if the overall yield is lower. Knowledge can transform farming, Kehinde told me. She too is playing her part. Every day she records the amount of rainfall at her farm. Many other farmers across Kenya are doing the same. One study found that thanks to early warning, a million fewer people in Kenya were left severely hungry during droughts in 2016 and 2017 when compared to similar droughts in 2010 and 2011. Research also suggests pre emptive intervention can save billions of dollars, too, when compared to the cost of post disaster relief. But while Kenya's early warning system is now highly accurate at predicting natural disasters, critics say that decision makers don't always act on time or with enough financial support to make it count. Farmers also say that they need more training. Another major challenge is getting the warnings through to rural populations. In Kenya's southern county of Kajaido, home to the Maasai people, drought warnings are sometimes not understood due to illiteracy, or they may not even be delivered at all due to gaps in government or humanitarian resources. Often the meteorological information just doesn't reach them, moses Saini Capenta, one of just three officials who work on agriculture for the Kajado north subcounty, told me. And even when the message does arrive, some Maasai are skeptical, since they believe that the rains are controlled by gods. But disaster is forcing mindsets to change. I spoke to Ole Muato, a Maasai herder in his 40s who lost 20 cows and 80 goats in the 20202022 droughts amid the barren lowlands surrounding us, baked under the sun with no glimpse of green in sight during the dry season, Mwato told me that he wants to learn how to take preventative action. It's a lot of pain to lose these animals, he told me. There was no grass, no water. That's why they died.
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Correspondent/Reporter
Peter Young and finally we're in the Philippines, where former President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested last week and flown to the Hague. There he faces charges of crimes against humanity over his deadly war on drugs. He's the first Asian former head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court. During his term from 2016 to 2022, his so called war saw thousands of small time drug dealers, users and others killed without trial. Tim Mansell was at Manila Airport shortly before the former president was arrested and recalls an illuminating encounter last year with a priest and a pathologist.
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Tim Mansell
It was quiet in our part of Manila International Airport. Elsewhere, apparently, it was mayhem. The former president Rodrigo Duterte, was flying home after a short visit to Hong Kong and rumor had it that he would be arrested on arrival. My colleague had worked out that there would be three flights arriving that day from Hong Kong on one particular airline. One of them was due in soon. He stood poised at the huge glass windows that look onto the Runway, camera in hand, hoping to record the historic moment. My thoughts, meanwhile, drifted to Father Flavi Villanueva, with whom we'd had lunch a couple of days earlier. Over A bowl of noodles in a Vietnamese restaurant. He'd regaled us with his recent appearance at a Senate hearing to which Duterte had been summoned. Father Flavi is a short, twinkly man who smiles a lot. He has a past as a heavy drinker and drug user and driver of fast cars. Today he ministers to the very poorest in Manila and provides shelter for the homeless. He's also been an outspoken critic of Rodrigo Duterte. He was at the hearing to speak on behalf of the victims of the former president's war on drugs, themselves often drawn from the very poorest sections of Philippine society. Had he not been intimidated, I asked, to be in the presence of a man who's accused of running a death squad of bounty hunters responsible for more than 6,000 murders? No, he said simply. I was boiling with anger. I'd first met Father Flavie a couple of years ago in a vast cemetery in the north of Manila, one where remains are not buried underground, but rather laid to rest in concrete vaults stacked one on top of another. Father Flavie was there to exhume three bodies, a rather shocking process in which a man with a sledgehammer smashes the front off the vault and then pulls out whatever remains are left, stowing them in a black zip up body bag. In the Philippines, the very poorest can rent space in a grave for only five years. Typically, the remains, once removed, are thrown into a communal pit. But Father Flavi raises money so that the families of the dead are spared this indignity. He ensures that each one is individually cremated and then hands back the ashes at a special ceremony. We went to one. It was very moving. Before some of the cremations, however, Father Flavy takes the exhumed body to the hospital, where he hands it over to Raquel Fortun, a forensic pathologist. This happens if the remains belong to one of the suspected victims of Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs. Dr. Fortun goes through the contents of the body bag with painstaking care. What was she looking for, we asked. Evidence. She said she wanted to find the real cause of death, not the one given on the death certificate, which in the case of drug war victims, was often something medical, like heart failure. Dr. Fortun said that sometimes, when inspecting those apparently unsuspicious deaths, she'd pulled a bullet from the body bag or found the hole the bullet had made. This is the evidence she was after, evidence that, as she told US back in 2023, she One day hoped to show to a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. That same year, we went to the Philippines Department of Justice to ask questions about the war on drugs and specifically about the Philippines non cooperation at that time with the International Court. The Philippines argued then that the ICC had no business interfering in its own domestic judicial process. By chance, we had a meeting last week with the very same official at the Department of Justice. We'd been told beforehand that on no account were we to mention Duterte. There'd been a lot of speculation on social media, and the presence of camera teams outside the DOJ building only increased our interest. Our interview ended and microphone switched off. Our interviewee volunteered that he was having a busy day. I asked him if he had anything to tell us. Nothing, he said. There's nothing to say. Less than 24 hours later and Rodrigo Duterte was back on Filipino soil. My colleague sadly didn't get his shot at the airport window of Duterte returning to face justice. In fact, Duterte didn't stay in the Philippines for long. The 79 year old was packed into a private jet bound for the Hague that same day.
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Correspondent/Reporter
Tim Mansell and that's all for today, but you can hear more stories on the from our own correspondent podcast on BBC Sounds, including a dispatch from Quentin Somerville who followed the drug cartel's exporting fentanyl. We'll be back again next Saturday morning.
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