Browse content similar to 25/09/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Tonight from Syria, the exclusive testimony from one British Jihadi | :00:08. | :00:20. | |
who knew the Brighton fighter, Ibrahim Kamara from Brighton killed | :00:21. | :00:25. | |
earlier this Queening. He was an ordinary Muslim lad, he knew about | :00:26. | :00:29. | |
people being oppressed and attacked because they are Muslims and he saw | :00:30. | :00:34. | |
the solution was Jihad, and Jihad would protect them. These bombers in | :00:35. | :00:39. | |
the skies above Iraq could be joined by British planes as early as | :00:40. | :00:42. | |
tomorrow night if MPs approve it. On the eve of the vote we will ask is | :00:43. | :00:46. | |
the gaping hole in the plan actually the lack of a strategy for what to | :00:47. | :00:51. | |
do on the ground. The stories of the women who suffered at the hands of | :00:52. | :00:56. | |
nuns in Irish convants are still being revealed. And only now are | :00:57. | :01:01. | |
some mothers being reunited with the babies they were forced to give | :01:02. | :01:07. | |
away. Carmel you don't blame me for anything, I couldn't, it wasn't my | :01:08. | :01:19. | |
fault. It is an exhibition about slavery | :01:20. | :01:23. | |
from a renowned South African artist, why has the Barbican bowed | :01:24. | :01:34. | |
to activists and shut it down. An activist versus a leader of the | :01:35. | :01:38. | |
campaign. Good evening, we begin tonight with | :01:39. | :01:43. | |
an exclusive interview with a British Jihadi who knew Ibrahim | :01:44. | :01:48. | |
Kamara, the 19-year-old from Brighton believed to be killed in an | :01:49. | :01:55. | |
air strike outside Aleppo earlier in the week. As far as we know that | :01:56. | :02:02. | |
Kamara, fighting for an affiliate group of Al-Qaeda was killed with a | :02:03. | :02:07. | |
group of three other nationals. He flew out to Syria and joined a group | :02:08. | :02:15. | |
of friends in Syria. Brighton, home to Ibrahim Kamara and | :02:16. | :02:18. | |
three of his friends who also travelled to Syria. He was part of | :02:19. | :02:28. | |
the Group A l-Nursra, and killed in an air strike. It is an affiliate of | :02:29. | :02:35. | |
Al-Qaeda but less extreme than Islamic State, and has in places | :02:36. | :02:39. | |
fought against them. I spoke to his friend also from Brighton, he and | :02:40. | :02:43. | |
his younger brother are also fighting in Syria with the group. It | :02:44. | :02:48. | |
is the main base my brother, he came to visit my area, and he stayed for | :02:49. | :02:52. | |
a few days. Me and him were supposed to go back there to visit the | :02:53. | :02:56. | |
brothers out there. This happened overnight. The group he was part of | :02:57. | :03:04. | |
has been accused by human rights groups of acrossties. But Amit said | :03:05. | :03:13. | |
Ibrahim wanted to help people. He was a funny guy, and wanted to help | :03:14. | :03:17. | |
people and joked around. I have known him for six years. We used to | :03:18. | :03:23. | |
go to the gym together. We used to go to the mosque. He was just a | :03:24. | :03:31. | |
normal Muslim lad. He learned about his duty towards the people that are | :03:32. | :03:37. | |
being oppressed, and being attacked because they are Muslims, and he saw | :03:38. | :03:40. | |
the solution was Jihad thank would protect him. Can you understand why | :03:41. | :03:45. | |
his mother would be so upset, she says he became radicalised? They are | :03:46. | :03:54. | |
upset for the honour that he has been granted by Allah. Ibrahim has | :03:55. | :03:59. | |
always asked for martyrdom. He used to say he really wanted it really | :04:00. | :04:04. | |
bad. But if his family doesn't understand it is because maybe due | :04:05. | :04:08. | |
to they don't have the knowledge of the virtues of Jihad and the virtues | :04:09. | :04:13. | |
of martyrdom and sacrifice on the part of Allah. I understand at least | :04:14. | :04:17. | |
three other men of British origin were also killed? I was close with | :04:18. | :04:24. | |
them also, but I can't reveal their identity because you know when such | :04:25. | :04:29. | |
people are known to be in Syria their families get harassed, even | :04:30. | :04:34. | |
after they are killed. America says that unlike other air strikes these | :04:35. | :04:43. | |
attacks weren't targeting IS, but a group linked to Jabatha, who they | :04:44. | :04:46. | |
accuse of plotting attacks against the west? Have you heard of the | :04:47. | :04:52. | |
group? I only heard it in the media, they had to come up with the group, | :04:53. | :04:57. | |
and they were quoting America. What they need to understand is that it | :04:58. | :05:06. | |
is not seen as something beneficial to hit the west from Syria. Because | :05:07. | :05:12. | |
what that would do is it would close Syria, it would close on the people | :05:13. | :05:18. | |
inside it and it will close any support that comes outside. The | :05:19. | :05:25. | |
place where the British brothers were, they were at a recruitment | :05:26. | :05:32. | |
base where wherever there was a balancele or fight they were drawn | :05:33. | :05:36. | |
to it. Some people would say they are part of Al-Qaeda, terrorists? I | :05:37. | :05:40. | |
would say if that is what you think what else can I do for you, you | :05:41. | :05:45. | |
think that way. The majority of air strikes have targeted IS, who even | :05:46. | :05:50. | |
other groups have accused of being too extreme. The air strikes against | :05:51. | :05:56. | |
them could push them together. They are not considered people who have | :05:57. | :05:58. | |
left Islam, they have left the right way of Islam and the way of the | :05:59. | :06:04. | |
prophet in terms of extremism, but still they are Muslims. And if the | :06:05. | :06:10. | |
American allies and America come on ground to fight IS then they should | :06:11. | :06:16. | |
expect that all the other Muslims will work with IS against the | :06:17. | :06:21. | |
enemies of Islam. America says it believes all the strikes it has | :06:22. | :06:25. | |
carried out are important in combatting threats coming from | :06:26. | :06:28. | |
Syria. And it is working alongside Arab Muslim countries. Ibrahim | :06:29. | :06:34. | |
Kamara is unlikely to be the only British Jihadist to die, as the | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
strikes continue. The mother of Ibrahim Kamara has | :06:41. | :06:47. | |
said she was stunned at how quickly her son was radicalised. That | :06:48. | :06:52. | |
appears to be a pattern among young Muslim men and women who travel to | :06:53. | :06:58. | |
Jihad. Nine men including the radical preacher, Anjem Choudary, | :06:59. | :07:02. | |
were arrested as being part of a banned organisation. Anjem Choudary | :07:03. | :07:08. | |
once spearheaded a group, Al-Mahujiroun, a group disbanded in | :07:09. | :07:16. | |
2010. Rachel You have been following Anjem Choudary for many years. What | :07:17. | :07:19. | |
do you know about the Al-Mahujiroun network? He was one of the founding | :07:20. | :07:25. | |
members. The nine arrests, including Anjem Choudary as you made clear. A | :07:26. | :07:30. | |
very controversial figure, but security forces have told me he has | :07:31. | :07:35. | |
always trodden finely on the right side of the law. Another source told | :07:36. | :07:41. | |
me, Jihadis told me, amongst serious Jihadi circles he's considered | :07:42. | :07:44. | |
something of a "fool", he doesn't have a strong reputation in Syria's | :07:45. | :07:49. | |
Jihadi circles. Finally security forces told me today that the | :07:50. | :07:54. | |
current arrests in London are not connected with the on going hostage | :07:55. | :07:57. | |
crisis in Syria. So why arrest them now? Well that is a very good | :07:58. | :08:04. | |
question. Of course the why now question is absolutely fascinating. | :08:05. | :08:07. | |
The authorities have known about Choudary's network force 15 years, I | :08:08. | :08:10. | |
have been following it for about that time myself. The arrests well | :08:11. | :08:16. | |
really they raided about 19 properties today, they will be | :08:17. | :08:19. | |
looking for new evidence of fundraising, glorification, or even | :08:20. | :08:22. | |
supporting people who want to go and fight. Now if there is no new | :08:23. | :08:25. | |
evidence found WAESHGS just don't know that at the moment. Then a lot | :08:26. | :08:28. | |
of people will link these arrests to the on going, or the forth coming | :08:29. | :08:36. | |
bombing strikes against ISIS. It will take extremists off the British | :08:37. | :08:39. | |
streets, in essence. I think that is a reasonable thing to speculate on. | :08:40. | :08:48. | |
You talked about hostages, th FBI said that they had identified the | :08:49. | :08:53. | |
called "Jihadi John", the man responsible for the deaths of | :08:54. | :08:56. | |
western hostages? Certainly he has appeared in the be heading and | :08:57. | :09:03. | |
propaganda videos, the FBI have said they have identified him, he has a | :09:04. | :09:08. | |
London accent, but they have not revealed his identity yet. Britain | :09:09. | :09:15. | |
is now readying itself for combat in the Iraq calling itself IS. Going | :09:16. | :09:20. | |
back to the war in the Middle East and carrying out air strikes as | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
early as this weekend alongside other countries. When MPs finally | :09:27. | :09:30. | |
vote on the issue, David Cameron will be fairly assured of the | :09:31. | :09:33. | |
backing of the majority. Only because getting involved in Syria is | :09:34. | :09:38. | |
for now off the table. As is the deployment of ground combat troops. | :09:39. | :09:42. | |
Is there a long-term strategy for dealing with IS beyond bombing from | :09:43. | :09:46. | |
the air. This amateur footing appears to show | :09:47. | :09:51. | |
an oil refinery, hit last night. The latest strikes by the coalition | :09:52. | :09:55. | |
against self-styled Islamic State. It is It is far cry from three weeks | :09:56. | :10:00. | |
ago when President Obama seemed at sea. We are putting the cart before | :10:01. | :10:07. | |
the horse, we don't have a strategy yet. But suddenly America does have | :10:08. | :10:12. | |
a plan to curb IS. In Iraq, at least. The approach targets IS on a | :10:13. | :10:19. | |
number of fronts, from the air by American jets, and from tomorrow | :10:20. | :10:23. | |
night possibly British forces too. And there are boots on the ground, | :10:24. | :10:29. | |
not ours, but the Iraqi army and the Kurdish Peshmerga who are getting | :10:30. | :10:33. | |
training and equipment. The idea is to squeeze them from all sides. But | :10:34. | :10:38. | |
in Syria things are very different. Yes, there are air strikes, but who | :10:39. | :10:43. | |
can defeat them on the ground? That appears to be the gaping hole in the | :10:44. | :10:51. | |
strategy. America plans to strengthen the Free Syrian Army, | :10:52. | :10:55. | |
shown here in red, and other moderate rebels to fight IS. But the | :10:56. | :11:00. | |
FSA has enough on its plate, dealing with President Assad's force, which | :11:01. | :11:05. | |
holds the areas in orange. Washington's plan is to train 5,000 | :11:06. | :11:08. | |
rebel troops over the border in Jordan. But is that enough? Earlier | :11:09. | :11:15. | |
today I asked the former American ambassador to Iraq whether the west | :11:16. | :11:20. | |
was wrong to rule out boots on the ground? I do believe that and since | :11:21. | :11:26. | |
in testimony before Congress last week and said it publicly. It is not | :11:27. | :11:32. | |
good strategy to tell your enemy up front what you will not do. It is | :11:33. | :11:38. | |
unreasonable to think that regional states will put boots on the ground, | :11:39. | :11:43. | |
if we in the west are not prepared to do so. That's only one problem, | :11:44. | :11:50. | |
the Free Syrian Army is supposed to be in the vanguard against IS, but | :11:51. | :11:53. | |
they are in trouble. I think over the years we have seen dispute overs | :11:54. | :11:59. | |
who is leading the FSA, who the main generals are, they have lost some in | :12:00. | :12:04. | |
battle, others have gone abroad, so this will require restructuring of | :12:05. | :12:08. | |
force, which is not well structured, and also boosting their more rail, | :12:09. | :12:11. | |
where the more rail has been very low. The Free Syrian Army has been | :12:12. | :12:16. | |
pushed back in recent months, in May it finally surrendered in a key | :12:17. | :12:20. | |
strategic city of Homs. Two years of fighting ended with a one-way bus | :12:21. | :12:27. | |
ticket out of the city. All sides are now converging on Aleppo, | :12:28. | :12:36. | |
previously an FSA stronghold. A recent study described the FSA | :12:37. | :12:39. | |
position as dire. A spokesman said they were fighting hard but | :12:40. | :12:43. | |
desperate for western weapons. What we need is a real sophisticated | :12:44. | :12:47. | |
weapons that we can fight and we can face ISIS with. Surface-to-air | :12:48. | :12:54. | |
missiles to avoid the aircrafts and antitank missiles and more weapons | :12:55. | :12:57. | |
to put in the hands of freedom fighters. So your message to | :12:58. | :13:02. | |
President Obama and to Prime Minister Cameron is we need more | :13:03. | :13:05. | |
weapons and we need them now? That's right. And propping up the FSA, can | :13:06. | :13:13. | |
it really defeat a fighting machine as well funded and organised as IS? | :13:14. | :13:19. | |
This is as grave a situation as I have seen in my entire career. The | :13:20. | :13:29. | |
emergence of the Islamic State, its ability to take and hold ground is | :13:30. | :13:38. | |
something we have never seen before. So Britain is about to enter the | :13:39. | :13:43. | |
fray, but just in Iraq, and that is barely half the problem. | :13:44. | :13:52. | |
General Sir Richard Sheriff has served as commander of British | :13:53. | :13:56. | |
forces in Iraq 2006, joins us now from a dinner engagment. Thank you | :13:57. | :13:59. | |
very much for joining us tonight. It is very likely that parliament will | :14:00. | :14:04. | |
pass this motion tomorrow, and therefore, British warplanes will | :14:05. | :14:08. | |
fly alongside others in the coalition and the so called | :14:09. | :14:12. | |
coalition of the willing. Will air strikes defeat IS? Not on their own, | :14:13. | :14:18. | |
no. They will cause serious damage to IS, but the only way that you are | :14:19. | :14:23. | |
going to defeat IS long-term is through a strategy and I absolutely | :14:24. | :14:31. | |
take the ambassador's point about not ruling out anything. You don't | :14:32. | :14:35. | |
broadcast to your enemy what you are going to do. You have to be clear | :14:36. | :14:39. | |
about what your end state is. You have to be clear about what the | :14:40. | :14:45. | |
enemy's centre of gravity is, what is his source of strength. Then you | :14:46. | :14:50. | |
design a strategy that targets that source of strength through multiple | :14:51. | :14:52. | |
means. Air strikes are certainly part of it. But I would say that | :14:53. | :14:56. | |
equally important, if not more important, is the ability to get on | :14:57. | :15:00. | |
the ground with regional powers and train them to enable them to do the | :15:01. | :15:04. | |
work. And part of that is certainly going to be done. When you look at | :15:05. | :15:08. | |
what is up tomorrow, ruling out, going over the Iraqi border, ruling | :15:09. | :15:12. | |
out any combat troops on the ground. Ruling out as it were a ground | :15:13. | :15:16. | |
strategy. Why do you think there is this reluctance? I think you have to | :15:17. | :15:20. | |
ask Mr Cameron that. But it is certainly from a military | :15:21. | :15:24. | |
perspective, I think we have seen a collective, in a sense a collective | :15:25. | :15:29. | |
loss of nerve, frankly. A real reluctance to get involved, and it | :15:30. | :15:33. | |
has not just been in this particular case, but I think perhaps the | :15:34. | :15:39. | |
impact, the concern, the impact of Iraq, Afghanistan, has come | :15:40. | :15:43. | |
together, and I think the current Chief of Defence Staff put it quite | :15:44. | :15:46. | |
well in a speech before Christmas where he talked about in a sense the | :15:47. | :15:51. | |
concern that character of courage is being lost. I think we are looking | :15:52. | :15:57. | |
pretty much like Johnny come latelies in the game. If we look | :15:58. | :16:02. | |
like that, is it partly because after Iraq and Afghanistan that | :16:03. | :16:04. | |
actually the mood of the British people is not to get involved in the | :16:05. | :16:08. | |
long haul and not to seek British casualties? I don't know about the | :16:09. | :16:13. | |
mood of the British people, I think that mood is we probably need to do | :16:14. | :16:17. | |
what needs to be done. It is certainly the mood of British | :16:18. | :16:21. | |
politicians though. You were a senior commander in southern Iraq, | :16:22. | :16:25. | |
as you say, the experience of Iraq particularly was not a happy one in | :16:26. | :16:29. | |
terms of that intervention. If we need to train and so forth, how do | :16:30. | :16:34. | |
we need to approach this as a bigger problem in order to solve the | :16:35. | :16:39. | |
problem of IS? Who needs to be involved? You have to have a | :16:40. | :16:42. | |
regional strategy, that is clearly coming into place. You need | :16:43. | :16:46. | |
international legality, and that equally is now pretty much in place. | :16:47. | :16:52. | |
But you have got to give the, and I accept the notion of a sort of | :16:53. | :16:56. | |
industrial scale deployment of troops as we saw for Iraq and | :16:57. | :17:01. | |
Afghanistan is probably not what is required. But what is required and | :17:02. | :17:07. | |
what mustn't be ruled out is close up proper training and capacity | :17:08. | :17:10. | |
building. You are talking about the Iraqi army, we saw what happened | :17:11. | :17:16. | |
with the Iraqi army and Mosul, who literally ran away in the face of | :17:17. | :17:20. | |
IS. If you are talking about shoring up the Iraqi army, that won't happen | :17:21. | :17:23. | |
in three months? It is not, and it won't happen. Can it be done, you | :17:24. | :17:27. | |
were there? And what we must avoid is the mistake that was made last | :17:28. | :17:34. | |
time round when Whitehall, the British chiefs of staff decided that | :17:35. | :17:40. | |
to adapt a hands-off approach to training. There is no other nation, | :17:41. | :17:44. | |
arguably, or very few other nations with the history of training | :17:45. | :17:49. | |
indigenous forces, it requires the building of trust and confidence, | :17:50. | :17:52. | |
you have to live and train together. If necessary you have to fight | :17:53. | :17:56. | |
together. That is the key thing, you cannot rule out British forces | :17:57. | :17:57. | |
fighting? And a good model, I would fighting? And a good model, I would | :17:58. | :18:01. | |
suggest is what has happened in Afghanistan. | :18:02. | :18:07. | |
Well we can go now to our diplomatic editor Mark Urban in the UN in New | :18:08. | :18:12. | |
York. What have you been hearing about plans for the coalition in | :18:13. | :18:14. | |
terms of any kind of ground operation? Well there are plans. | :18:15. | :18:21. | |
Indeed we reported them on Monday, in the sense that there is a clear | :18:22. | :18:25. | |
sense of who will be providing the air support, but also a clear sense | :18:26. | :18:28. | |
of who will be providing the boots on the ground. Now that's American | :18:29. | :18:34. | |
troops and possibly some British in Iraq, in the case of Syria it is | :18:35. | :18:41. | |
countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. That | :18:42. | :18:45. | |
is clear here. The real issues with the strategy is firstly that the | :18:46. | :18:50. | |
Free Syrian Army, called, is so much behind the Peshmerga and other | :18:51. | :18:53. | |
forces in terms of its capacity, it will take a lot longer to get it up | :18:54. | :18:57. | |
to any level in numbers and competence. Then as General Sheriff | :18:58. | :19:04. | |
was saying, what is the end state and what does victory look like with | :19:05. | :19:06. | |
the strategy and what does victory look like with | :19:07. | :19:09. | |
putting forward. That is very hard to define, and must, as the | :19:10. | :19:13. | |
President himself has been saying, not even be judgeable for | :19:14. | :19:17. | |
two-to-three years. In your assessment, where do the Iranians | :19:18. | :19:24. | |
position themselves selves, are they within this coalition or not? That | :19:25. | :19:28. | |
is one of the most fascinating issues. Iran is clearly playing a | :19:29. | :19:34. | |
role in Iraq, it has sent in combat aircraft and handed them over, it | :19:35. | :19:37. | |
has people on the ground trying to stiffen the defences. It is clearly | :19:38. | :19:41. | |
involved, yet today, earlier, we heard a speech by the Iranian | :19:42. | :19:47. | |
President in which he tied any further co-operation or closer | :19:48. | :19:49. | |
co-ordination on this with progress on the nuclear issue. We mustn't | :19:50. | :19:57. | |
forget in all this headline-making about the Islamic State, this huge | :19:58. | :20:02. | |
question about could the US and Iran actually become non-adversarial, and | :20:03. | :20:07. | |
even allies it is all hinged on the resolution of the question of their | :20:08. | :20:11. | |
nuclear programme. That has been the subject of intensive talks this | :20:12. | :20:14. | |
week. So far it doesn't look like there is a resolution. As long as | :20:15. | :20:18. | |
that remains the case, the President will take the line he did earlier | :20:19. | :20:23. | |
today and this arms length relationship will go on. One other | :20:24. | :20:28. | |
factor in that, the Saudis are making very big and significant | :20:29. | :20:32. | |
steps in this. We saw their aircraft in action, bombing targets in Syria. | :20:33. | :20:35. | |
We know their army will be training the FSA. We think their army will go | :20:36. | :20:39. | |
into Syria to do stuff on the ground. They may well be saying we | :20:40. | :20:43. | |
won't be part of an alliance that Iran is. We can explore that | :20:44. | :20:50. | |
further. Because joining us now from Tehran is our guest from the | :20:51. | :20:53. | |
University of Tehran, a strong supporter of the Iranian Government | :20:54. | :20:57. | |
and the Assad regime in Syria. And we have Monzer Akbik, the Special | :20:58. | :21:02. | |
Envoy for the Syrian National Coalition, a coalition of Syrian | :21:03. | :21:06. | |
opposition groups and the Free Syrian Army. Just picking up what | :21:07. | :21:14. | |
was said there. On Newsnight last week we reported a very senior | :21:15. | :21:20. | |
Iranian commander in Iraq helping the Iraqi army. Is Iran likely to | :21:21. | :21:28. | |
be, as it were, even an unofficial member of the coalition fighting IS? | :21:29. | :21:35. | |
First I would like to point out that the description of me is a bit | :21:36. | :21:42. | |
inaccurate. I think I'm just an associate professor at the | :21:43. | :21:46. | |
University of Tehran. I think that the Iranians feel that they have | :21:47. | :21:53. | |
played the most important role in supporting the Iraqi Government and | :21:54. | :22:00. | |
containing ISIL in the region. Also the fact that the Iranians helped | :22:01. | :22:05. | |
keep the Syrian Government from collapsing in the face of extremists | :22:06. | :22:10. | |
and have been supported for four years by a very unholy coalition | :22:11. | :22:17. | |
between the United States, European countries and extremist regimes in | :22:18. | :22:23. | |
the Persian Gulf that have advocated Wahhabism. This alliance has gone on | :22:24. | :22:28. | |
for decades and is basically what has led to the rise of extremism, | :22:29. | :22:37. | |
not only in Syria but also in Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria | :22:38. | :22:41. | |
and so on. The Iranian feels that while the United States and its | :22:42. | :22:52. | |
partners have played an important role the Iranians have played an | :22:53. | :22:55. | |
important role in preventing destruction. Could you see American | :22:56. | :23:01. | |
and Iranians as allies in fighting IS? The problem is the Americans | :23:02. | :23:08. | |
have a very poor track record. In the past the United States has | :23:09. | :23:12. | |
worked with these countries to support extremists in Syria, and | :23:13. | :23:17. | |
again now they have this coalition, a coalition of the guilty, which are | :23:18. | :23:22. | |
the same countries that cause the cat it is catastrophy. These | :23:23. | :23:29. | |
countries will be bombing Syria. In the past the United States and its | :23:30. | :23:32. | |
allies disregarded sovereignty and helped create a Civil War. Now they | :23:33. | :23:39. | |
are also disregarding Syrian sovereignty. Let me ask you, Monzer | :23:40. | :23:46. | |
Akbik, which is your biggest enemy, is it Assad, or is it IS? Both of | :23:47. | :23:53. | |
them. Right now there is no priority for us. About ten months ago there | :23:54. | :23:58. | |
was a war started against ISIS, and we are fighting on go fronts since | :23:59. | :24:04. | |
then. As we heard from Nick Hopkins, the FSA is in disarray, the | :24:05. | :24:09. | |
leadership has been disbanded. You have retreated from Homs, you know | :24:10. | :24:12. | |
in Aleppo you are fighting to the bitter end. You need help and you | :24:13. | :24:18. | |
have got the Iranians calling you part of the terrorist problem. The | :24:19. | :24:24. | |
Iranians are actually helping Assad to slaughter the Syrian people into | :24:25. | :24:29. | |
submission. They are using this narrative that the rebels are | :24:30. | :24:34. | |
terrorists, actually the rebels are the Syrian people, and they are | :24:35. | :24:37. | |
being slaughtered by Assad with the help of the Iranians. They are | :24:38. | :24:40. | |
giving him all the money and the weapons and the fighters to do so. | :24:41. | :24:47. | |
But you are now going to get half a billion dollars from the Americans, | :24:48. | :24:52. | |
for arms to train you and so forth? The situation of the Syrian army is | :24:53. | :24:55. | |
not that dire, but it is very difficult, why? Because we are | :24:56. | :25:01. | |
fighting on two fronts at the same time, and we are underresourced with | :25:02. | :25:04. | |
the hardware. It would be fair to say at the moment you are not up to | :25:05. | :25:07. | |
the job, and yet what the coalition is really doing is putting its faith | :25:08. | :25:13. | |
in you to take on IS in Syria, is that realist snick We are up to the | :25:14. | :25:17. | |
job, we have done a very successful job in the past ten months without | :25:18. | :25:23. | |
the help of anybody. ISIS was kicked out from three or four provinces | :25:24. | :25:27. | |
before they seized those weapons from Iraq and came back on to the | :25:28. | :25:33. | |
offensive. We are fighting two months statement and we are | :25:34. | :25:36. | |
ininflicting a good result with our fight. At the same time, in order to | :25:37. | :25:40. | |
achieve a strategic advance, there should be changes in the way that we | :25:41. | :25:45. | |
are armed and the way that we are provided with the ambition and we | :25:46. | :25:50. | |
need sophisticated weaponry in order to achieve those advances. Now there | :25:51. | :25:55. | |
is a reason for us to be cautiously optimistic, because we have cover | :25:56. | :25:57. | |
from the air, from the international coalition, and we have the training | :25:58. | :26:02. | |
and equipping programme, so now I think the situation will even become | :26:03. | :26:06. | |
better. Very quickly, can I just ask you whether you think that | :26:07. | :26:13. | |
supporting the FSA will be an aid to defeating IS in Syria? No, there is | :26:14. | :26:20. | |
no such thing as the FSA, there are different groups, many of them are | :26:21. | :26:32. | |
very extreme, they have worked in co-ordination with JabthaAl-Nursra | :26:33. | :26:34. | |
and other groups on different occasions. The so called Free Syrian | :26:35. | :26:39. | |
Army is not a united or unified force. If the United States really | :26:40. | :26:43. | |
had so called moderates f they really wanted to find moderates in | :26:44. | :26:46. | |
the past four years they would have found them by now. But unfortunately | :26:47. | :26:51. | |
the United States is... Thank you very much I have to stop you there. | :26:52. | :26:55. | |
the United States is... Thank you We have Alistair Burt with us, the | :26:56. | :26:58. | |
former Foreign Office minister. Alistair Burt, I take it you are | :26:59. | :27:05. | |
behind the motion tomorrow? Indeed. It is ill lodge | :27:06. | :27:14. | |
It is illogical to join in air strikes with other members of the | :27:15. | :27:19. | |
coalition and limit them to the Iraqi border and no troops on the | :27:20. | :27:26. | |
ground isn't a strategy. ? Tomorrow is not covering the whole conflict | :27:27. | :27:30. | |
with ISIL, it is an opportunity for the United Kingdom to take part in | :27:31. | :27:33. | |
the first part of the containment strategy that the Prime Minister has | :27:34. | :27:36. | |
been talking about with others. If we were to have a motion with others | :27:37. | :27:41. | |
trying to encompass everything I would imagine the conversation would | :27:42. | :27:43. | |
be different. What the Prime Minister is doing is being able to | :27:44. | :27:47. | |
get support for attacking so called IS forces in Iraq with the support | :27:48. | :27:51. | |
of parliament, but that is only one part of what we have been hearing | :27:52. | :27:55. | |
about which is taking on a struggle about a complex enemy, that is | :27:56. | :27:58. | |
threatening the region and us in a variety of different ways. It is | :27:59. | :28:01. | |
extraordinary exactly how much change there has been in a year. | :28:02. | :28:05. | |
extraordinary exactly how much were disappointed because you | :28:06. | :28:07. | |
couldn't get support, very disappointed, because you couldn't | :28:08. | :28:12. | |
get support to hit President Assad last year. Now Britain seems to be | :28:13. | :28:15. | |
suggesting that you can't actually have air strikes over Syria because | :28:16. | :28:19. | |
President Assad hasn't asked you in. But the Americans don't have any | :28:20. | :28:23. | |
qualms about that, so why on earth should Britain? The problem last | :28:24. | :28:28. | |
year is we had an opportunity to have a response to someone who used | :28:29. | :28:35. | |
chemical weapons on his own people. The terrorist is Assad, he has | :28:36. | :28:41. | |
killed 200,000 of his own people. Last year would have been an | :28:42. | :28:46. | |
opportunity to put something in the balance against Assad and tilt the | :28:47. | :28:49. | |
negotiations for peace in Syria. A year has gone by. What we have seen | :28:50. | :28:54. | |
as a consequence of that, the extremists have got stronger, | :28:55. | :28:57. | |
because they FWHOSHG league with Assad against the Syrian people. | :28:58. | :29:02. | |
What tomorrow provides is an opportunity for us along with others | :29:03. | :29:06. | |
to challenge that in Syria and in the rest of the region. What was | :29:07. | :29:10. | |
also said is the best way to sort this out in Iraq is to work again | :29:11. | :29:15. | |
with the Iraqi army, shore them up, give them the capability. Meaning | :29:16. | :29:20. | |
British forces training them and perhaps fighting alongside with | :29:21. | :29:23. | |
them. Will the Government wear that, will the British public wear that? | :29:24. | :29:26. | |
We will have to see, we are a long way from that. What will happen | :29:27. | :29:31. | |
first is the Iraqi Government gains the support of the Sunni community | :29:32. | :29:36. | |
in Iraq. The Iraqi army have to be strengthened. The people fighting at | :29:37. | :29:41. | |
the moment are the Peshmerga, and if the United States can provide half a | :29:42. | :29:44. | |
million dollars support for them, why can't we. That is the ground | :29:45. | :29:47. | |
support that can then accompany the air strikes and begin the | :29:48. | :29:51. | |
containment strategy before other actions are needed fully to degrade | :29:52. | :29:55. | |
what IS is doing throughout the region and us? The film Philomena, | :29:56. | :30:05. | |
starring Judy Dench, showed one woman's experience of the horror | :30:06. | :30:10. | |
kind convent calls. It seems the revelations never end. The Irish | :30:11. | :30:14. | |
Government has announced another inquiry, the sixth into what went on | :30:15. | :30:18. | |
in the institutions run by nuns for most of the 20th century. The home | :30:19. | :30:25. | |
for single mothers, the orphanages and the infamous Magdelene L | :30:26. | :30:49. | |
Laundaries. The discovery that some 800 babies had died at the home and | :30:50. | :30:55. | |
their bodies put in unmarked and horribly inappropriate graves | :30:56. | :30:58. | |
shocked the world. It is a sewage tank, why are there children buried | :30:59. | :31:05. | |
in a sewage area. The subsequent outrage emboldened survivors of the | :31:06. | :31:09. | |
homes, run by nuns all over Ireland to speak out. There were thousands | :31:10. | :31:16. | |
of babies born here, there were hundreds of babies died, and I | :31:17. | :31:20. | |
remember the nuns carrying down the brown shoe boxes to bury the | :31:21. | :31:24. | |
children. There have been five KWIERNies into Ireland's religious | :31:25. | :31:27. | |
institutions so far. Now there is another. Into the mother and baby | :31:28. | :31:30. | |
homes. The survivors say they won't be fobbed off. We have found our | :31:31. | :31:35. | |
voice and we're not going to be silent any more. They are determined | :31:36. | :31:42. | |
not least because earlier reports, like that into the Madelene | :31:43. | :31:55. | |
Laundaries failed to tell the truth. Laundaries where those deemed to | :31:56. | :31:58. | |
have fallen short of the Catholic Church's strict code were forced to | :31:59. | :32:04. | |
work, unpaid. At the birth of the Irish state in 1922, a cash-strapped | :32:05. | :32:09. | |
Government was happy to delegate most welfare duties to the religious | :32:10. | :32:14. | |
orders. It meant a girl born in a mother and baby home might go on to | :32:15. | :32:19. | |
an orphanage, aptly called "industrial schools" at the time, | :32:20. | :32:34. | |
and then on to a Magdelen home, so living her whole life in the | :32:35. | :32:38. | |
institutions. Questions about the homes were asked when in the early | :32:39. | :32:45. | |
1990s, the nuns who owned the convent in Dublin wanted to sell the | :32:46. | :32:49. | |
land, where now there is a car park. The problem was that the plot they | :32:50. | :32:54. | |
wanted to sell, which back in 1993 looked like an empty green field, | :32:55. | :32:59. | |
was in fact filled with the bodies of former workers. I tracked down | :33:00. | :33:07. | |
the gravedigger employed by the nuns to dig them up, and he agreed to | :33:08. | :33:13. | |
give his first television interview. The nuns were trying to sell the | :33:14. | :33:17. | |
place, and it was big money, so they didn't want anyone to know what was | :33:18. | :33:21. | |
going on. It was all hush, hush. We were supposed to tell no-one about | :33:22. | :33:28. | |
it. The nuns told him there were 133 women's bodies buried in the plot. | :33:29. | :33:32. | |
So we kept bigging and bigging until we dug out the whole lot, we ended | :33:33. | :33:37. | |
up with 22 more that we didn't even know were there. So 22 bodies that | :33:38. | :33:42. | |
the nuns didn't know were there. And he found something else inside the | :33:43. | :33:47. | |
grave. A lot of plaster of Paris, which was on their wrists, their | :33:48. | :33:53. | |
arms, their legs, their feet, their ankles, there were broken arms and | :33:54. | :33:58. | |
broken legs, it seemed to me like. The women were too small, they were | :33:59. | :34:07. | |
too frail for that kind of work. People were shocked by the tale of | :34:08. | :34:11. | |
unrecorded burials and broken limbs and began to ask what had been going | :34:12. | :34:17. | |
on in the homes and why were so many sent there. Like Mary, born in a | :34:18. | :34:23. | |
mother and baby home and sent to an orphanage, where, one day, she was | :34:24. | :34:27. | |
so hungry she took an apple from an orchard. The nuns sent her to work | :34:28. | :34:35. | |
in a laundry in Dublin. They took me to Hyde Park Convent, and they left | :34:36. | :34:40. | |
me there and said now you stay there until you learn to stop stealing. | :34:41. | :34:45. | |
How long did that take? I was 14 years there. Did you ever ask why | :34:46. | :34:48. | |
you were there for 14 years for stealing an apple? I did ask them, | :34:49. | :34:53. | |
and I asked was I ever going to get out of here, and am I going to die | :34:54. | :34:58. | |
here. One of my jobs was to help to lay out the women when they died. I | :34:59. | :35:05. | |
was happy to do it because at least the women were getting out and their | :35:06. | :35:10. | |
suffering was over. When women like Mary told their stories, people | :35:11. | :35:14. | |
asked how arbitary detention and slave labour were allowed to happen? | :35:15. | :35:24. | |
The Government called on a senator, Martin MacAleese to start an | :35:25. | :35:28. | |
inquiry. When he published his report last year, survivors were | :35:29. | :35:32. | |
astounded that he didn't report on the conditions at the laundries, | :35:33. | :35:39. | |
despite the many women who spoke of ill-treatment. Mary told him that | :35:40. | :35:44. | |
she was so desperate that she broke a window and ran into the town and | :35:45. | :35:49. | |
begged a priest for help. He raped her. I had never been out in the | :35:50. | :35:53. | |
world in my life. And I had no idea what was going on, I was crying my | :35:54. | :35:57. | |
eyes out and I said you are hurting me. Then when he was finished he | :35:58. | :36:02. | |
said, now, this is between us, I'm going to give you sixpence, and this | :36:03. | :36:06. | |
is between us he said, don't tell anybody. He said I'm only trying to | :36:07. | :36:12. | |
help you. The police took her back to the laundry. The nuns didn't | :36:13. | :36:16. | |
believe about the rape and put her in the punishment cell for running | :36:17. | :36:21. | |
away. One of the nuns came down and cut my hair to the bone. Then I was | :36:22. | :36:29. | |
taken up and I was made kneel in a room with all the women there, kneel | :36:30. | :36:33. | |
down, kiss the floor and say I was sorry for what I did. By this stage | :36:34. | :36:37. | |
Mary had been there for 12 years. sorry for what I did. By this stage | :36:38. | :36:42. | |
And was afraid that she might never get out. After all, there were women | :36:43. | :36:55. | |
who died there. Sue, that was my friend, Mary. She worked for the | :36:56. | :37:01. | |
laundry for 56 years. And yet, according to the report, the | :37:02. | :37:08. | |
average, or median duation of stay in the laundry was approximately | :37:09. | :37:16. | |
seven months. By comparing head stones with electoral rolls, Claire | :37:17. | :37:20. | |
discovered that for one ten-year period, most women at the Hyde Park | :37:21. | :37:24. | |
laundry were there for a minimum of eight years. We have looked at | :37:25. | :37:32. | |
electoral registers from 1954-1964, looking at Hyde park in particular, | :37:33. | :37:39. | |
he we have been able to show at least 46% of these women from | :37:40. | :37:45. | |
1954-1964, they never got out. I asked the nuns who | :37:46. | :37:49. | |
1954-1964, they never got out. I for an interview, but they reviewed, | :37:50. | :37:53. | |
we called on the headquarters in Dublin. I'm Sue Lloyd Roberts, I'm | :37:54. | :38:02. | |
here from the BBC, this is a former laundry worker. You have already | :38:03. | :38:06. | |
sent in a request and you got your answer to that request. Which is no. | :38:07. | :38:11. | |
We have been refused an interview, but we have important questions to | :38:12. | :38:14. | |
ask. All I wanted was fleeing somebody to give me an apology for | :38:15. | :38:18. | |
what happened to me. That is all I wanted. We were clearly not going to | :38:19. | :38:27. | |
be invited in. Goodbye now. The senator also turned down my request | :38:28. | :38:33. | |
for an interview. But I was invited to meet with Ireland's Deputy Prime | :38:34. | :38:36. | |
Minister. When I speak to these women, what they want is the truth | :38:37. | :38:41. | |
to be told. Well we now have under way the process for preparing a full | :38:42. | :38:48. | |
judicial report by very experienced judge who was involved. You admit | :38:49. | :38:58. | |
the inquiry was less than thorough? The MacAleese inquiry was an inquiry | :38:59. | :39:04. | |
at a point in time. It was recognition for what women had | :39:05. | :39:06. | |
experienced and gone through. The women said it didn't, because for | :39:07. | :39:10. | |
example the glossing over of the abuse, theturation of stay? I do | :39:11. | :39:15. | |
know -- the duation of stay? I do know what is important for a lot of | :39:16. | :39:19. | |
the women is that they would receive a redress payment. Compensation, or | :39:20. | :39:25. | |
redress, as it is called in Ireland, is being paid to former laundry | :39:26. | :39:29. | |
workers. But the Irish taxpayer is footing the bill. The nuns say they | :39:30. | :39:36. | |
can't afford it. The nuns told the inquiry that they didn't make money | :39:37. | :39:49. | |
from the lawned Laundries, but we found ledgers showing very healthy | :39:50. | :39:53. | |
businesses. We have the airport, one of the country's main train | :39:54. | :39:59. | |
stations, airlines, Government departments, like the Department of | :40:00. | :40:07. | |
Fisheries, hotel, private individual, convents and seminaries. | :40:08. | :40:17. | |
No wonder trade unions and commercial owners of a laundry | :40:18. | :40:21. | |
business complained, they were competing with the nun who is had | :40:22. | :40:25. | |
free and forced Labour. After they closed the nuns made more money from | :40:26. | :40:30. | |
property sales. They have asseted estimated at over 1. 5 billion euro, | :40:31. | :40:35. | |
but refuse to give any to survivors. That is you when you were baby. When | :40:36. | :40:43. | |
they took you away from me. After Mary was raped she gave birth to a | :40:44. | :40:48. | |
daughter, Carmel, the baby was taken by the nuns and put up for adoption | :40:49. | :40:52. | |
and Mary was sent back to work in the laundry. For 40 years she only | :40:53. | :40:58. | |
had a photo. You have to keep them forever now. I will. I will treasure | :40:59. | :41:03. | |
them. I will treasure them. They will go into frames. Mary now lives | :41:04. | :41:09. | |
in the UK. A few years ago with the help of British Association workers, | :41:10. | :41:15. | |
Carmel found her. Mary is desperate to assure her daughter that she | :41:16. | :41:19. | |
didn't give her away willingly. You don't blame me for anything? No. God | :41:20. | :41:26. | |
no, don't. I couldn't, it wasn't my fault. We are not ashamed any more, | :41:27. | :41:34. | |
we will speak out and fight back. Survivors argue that all the | :41:35. | :41:37. | |
religious institutions are linked and they should be investigated | :41:38. | :41:46. | |
together. Justice for our mothers and for the babies that's here. But | :41:47. | :41:51. | |
the indications are, that when the Government announces the parameters | :41:52. | :41:54. | |
of the new inquiry, any day now, it will have a narrow remit. They don't | :41:55. | :42:02. | |
want to join the dots, we believe, between the mother and baby homes, | :42:03. | :42:10. | |
and the laundries, they want to do the least amount possible. There | :42:11. | :42:17. | |
were complaints the report wasn't thorough enough. Where. We believe | :42:18. | :42:25. | |
the same will be the case with the next report. The survivors are | :42:26. | :42:30. | |
afraid the story will never be told. I want somebody to apologise, the | :42:31. | :42:34. | |
nuns, the church, the police, somebody to apologise to me, before | :42:35. | :42:41. | |
I die. Are there limits to artistic | :42:42. | :42:45. | |
freedom, this perennial debate has been given sharp focus by the | :42:46. | :42:49. | |
decision of the Barbican in London to pull a major exhibition about | :42:50. | :42:54. | |
slavery after claims by protesters that the exhibition was offensive, | :42:55. | :42:57. | |
despite the fact it was previously shown at 12 cities, including the | :42:58. | :43:01. | |
Edinburgh Festival. Exhibit B, as it is called by the South African | :43:02. | :43:07. | |
artist, Brett Bailey, involves 12 tableaux that represent zoos and | :43:08. | :43:12. | |
ethnic displays of the 19th century, that displayed Africans as objects | :43:13. | :43:16. | |
of scientific curiosity. Here is a clip of it. | :43:17. | :43:36. | |
Joining me now are the actress in the exhibition and the woman who led | :43:37. | :43:45. | |
the boycott. First of all, what was the value to you of this exhibition? | :43:46. | :43:52. | |
RMT The value of the exhibition was it was a piece about dehumanisation | :43:53. | :43:59. | |
and humans created the base of art. A lot of words were thrown about | :44:00. | :44:07. | |
chains and slaves, we looked Atajic toweds today in terms of immigrant | :44:08. | :44:17. | |
-- we looked ed at attitudes today. Looking at the very near under | :44:18. | :44:22. | |
colonialisation about how attitudes of supremacy lead people to believe | :44:23. | :44:25. | |
colonialisation about how attitudes they are better and above and can do | :44:26. | :44:29. | |
whatever they want. Why did you want an exhibition like this shut down? I | :44:30. | :44:33. | |
didn't want it shut down, I wanted it withdrawn, I wanted the Barbican | :44:34. | :44:38. | |
to understand it was offensive to the memory of our ancestors and | :44:39. | :44:41. | |
offensive to the black community, the larger black community that | :44:42. | :44:45. | |
spoke out. This isn't about individualism, it is about a | :44:46. | :44:47. | |
collective of people saying actually this has gone too far, we have not | :44:48. | :44:52. | |
received an apology for what happened, we haven't received | :44:53. | :44:57. | |
holistic reparations which isn't about money, but holistic | :44:58. | :45:00. | |
reparations. It was in very, very bad taste to our community. I would | :45:01. | :45:05. | |
obviously completely disagree with that. I mean I am of Caribbean | :45:06. | :45:11. | |
descent, I'm a direct descentant of slavery and I didn't feel the piece | :45:12. | :45:16. | |
was offensive in any way. I thought it was thought provoking and | :45:17. | :45:19. | |
educational for people. I didn't hear about human zoos until I came | :45:20. | :45:24. | |
across it, they didn't tell us about that at school. There | :45:25. | :45:34. | |
the Bronx Zoo up until the 1970s. Across the board anyone objectified | :45:35. | :45:37. | |
I thought this was a relevant piece for that. Do you think there should | :45:38. | :45:41. | |
be limits of artistic freedom, isn't it up to artists in way to break | :45:42. | :45:47. | |
taboos? I think artists are free to create whatever they want. I'm not | :45:48. | :45:54. | |
the cultural art Pleurx police, I think in this case there were so | :45:55. | :45:59. | |
many underlying questions. This discussion we are having now, this | :46:00. | :46:02. | |
should have happened before. It should have happened before. But if | :46:03. | :46:08. | |
it happened before, presumably you would have felt you wanted to alter | :46:09. | :46:12. | |
the artist's vision in some way? Not necessarily. You might have been | :46:13. | :46:16. | |
happy to see the exhibition stand as it is? With the right consultation. | :46:17. | :46:19. | |
What happened is there is no whiteness in that exhibition, all | :46:20. | :46:26. | |
there is is black people standing in various cages with chains, they are | :46:27. | :46:32. | |
very evidently there. Let's take one example that a French colonial | :46:33. | :46:40. | |
military man used to tie up African women and rape them, and that way | :46:41. | :46:44. | |
they would get money to feed their children. The dilemma was the | :46:45. | :46:48. | |
children starving and did they put up with it. Are you saying what you | :46:49. | :46:52. | |
wanted to do in that example was to have a white representation there? I | :46:53. | :46:55. | |
think that needed to be there and balanced. Would that be too literal | :46:56. | :47:01. | |
or not? This is history, these things actually happened, the artist | :47:02. | :47:06. | |
didn't inthe treatment that happened, whether 200 or 400 years | :47:07. | :47:10. | |
ago, if black people were used in the exhibitions the first thing that | :47:11. | :47:13. | |
would have said is this did not happen to white people, why are they | :47:14. | :47:20. | |
in the exhibition. They did it. Who did it? White people are responsible | :47:21. | :47:26. | |
for the enslavement and colonialism. You are saying to use them in a | :47:27. | :47:31. | |
tableaux based on a historical fact. It is the artistic eggs | :47:32. | :47:35. | |
presidential. It is un-- expression. It is unbald. It is not, it is true. | :47:36. | :47:40. | |
Do you think there is any relevance in your critque of this that the | :47:41. | :47:45. | |
artist is white a privileged South African? He is privileged and a | :47:46. | :47:50. | |
white South African. Does that make a difference to you? It needs to be | :47:51. | :47:54. | |
questioned what his motives were. If a black person had done this crassly | :47:55. | :47:59. | |
I would have still gone with the petition. Because it is about | :48:00. | :48:03. | |
dignity, the dignity of our ancestors it is about their memory. | :48:04. | :48:07. | |
Do you accept that for some people it might be offensive for this | :48:08. | :48:13. | |
portrayal? Sorry, it is not a portrayal, this actually happened. | :48:14. | :48:17. | |
Thank you very much. I am afraid that is all we have time for | :48:18. | :48:35. | |
tonight. Good night. A windy night across Scotland, rain that should | :48:36. | :48:38. | |
get blown out of the way. A lot more cloud in southern areas, misty first | :48:39. | :48:42. | |
thing, but milder to start. That wind though making it feel chilly, I | :48:43. | :48:45. | |
think, across parts of Northern Ireland and Scotland, compared with | :48:46. | :48:50. | |
today. So 15-16 as opposed to the high teens, in fact across parts of | :48:51. | :48:55. | |
eastern Scotland we had temperatures up to 21 today which is | :48:56. | :48:57. |