:00:12. > :00:22.There's a full bulletin of news at 1pm. Now on BBC News, Dateline
:00:22. > :00:35.
:00:35. > :00:38.Hello and welcome to Dateline London. The bomb attack on Boston.
:00:38. > :00:41.Robert Mugabe's apparently endless rule in Zimbabwe. And as British
:00:41. > :00:44.politicians reflect on the Thatcher legacy, are any of them really up
:00:44. > :00:47.to seizing the Thatcher mantle? My guests today are Saul Sadka of Al
:00:47. > :00:49.London, Ian Birrell of the Daily Mail, Nabila Ramdani, who is a
:00:49. > :00:53.French Algerian writer and Tererai Karimakwenda of SW Radio Africa.
:00:53. > :00:57.Welcome to you all. The motivation behind the bomb
:00:57. > :01:00.attack on the Boston marathon remains a matter of speculation.
:01:00. > :01:03.Although one suspect is dead, one is in custody, and both have a
:01:03. > :01:06.background in Chechnya. What do we make of the attack itself, the
:01:06. > :01:08.possibility being discussed in the United States that the suspects
:01:08. > :01:11.radicalised themselves rather than being formally part of a wider
:01:11. > :01:21.group, and the re-shaping of both Al-Qaeda and the intelligence
:01:21. > :01:26.
:01:26. > :01:31.services since 9/11? It is still a lot of speculation, but what the
:01:31. > :01:36.image of what we know so far? need to work out what is it that
:01:36. > :01:40.sparked this sudden need for extreme violence and out the
:01:40. > :01:46.American dream turns into a nightmare? What the story really
:01:46. > :01:52.tells us is that, in my view, the UN weapons are too freely available
:01:52. > :01:56.in American society, and far too easily used. This is part of the
:01:56. > :01:59.discussion, whether this is American home-grown terrorism, even
:01:59. > :02:07.though they have roots elsewhere, or is it something else with
:02:07. > :02:17.possible links to Islam, Al-Qaeda, foreign fighters and so on. It is a
:02:17. > :02:19.
:02:19. > :02:26.simple case of gun-control. There is massive violence in the country,
:02:26. > :02:32.and they were typical American youngsters who used violence to
:02:32. > :02:39.devastating effects. One of the brothers went to Chechnya last year.
:02:39. > :02:46.There is a great deal of influence over there, I am talking about the
:02:46. > :02:56.capital city of Dagestan, where his father lives. He met with some
:02:56. > :03:11.
:03:11. > :03:14.members of a group called the grip of the -- Group of the Shariad.
:03:14. > :03:19.lot of information is available on the internet, but is your
:03:19. > :03:29.information suggest part of the group? I do not think so, I think
:03:29. > :03:32.
:03:32. > :03:35.they were individuals. The thing is, that they receive the instructions
:03:35. > :03:44.of how to prepare a pressure cooker bomb from various websites on the
:03:44. > :03:49.internet. There is Pillaton gang who were jailed for three days ago,
:03:49. > :03:55.they were getting in touch with the famous magazine of Alker leader,
:03:55. > :04:02.seeing exactly under the influence of their head preacher who was
:04:02. > :04:08.killed, how to prepare a bomb in your mother's kitchen. A person
:04:08. > :04:12.does not get radicalised from one trip to Chechnya. What was
:04:12. > :04:17.happening in his life before that? You do not just turn like that in
:04:18. > :04:22.one trip. We know that these kids did not grow up there. They were
:04:22. > :04:27.born in Kurdistan, parents moved to Dagestan when the war broke out
:04:27. > :04:30.there. They then moved to the United States. So what was
:04:30. > :04:37.happening in the United States, where they spent the majority of
:04:37. > :04:42.delights? The tie with Chechnya, it is too soon to dwell on that. Maybe,
:04:42. > :04:47.maybe not. We do not know. This has taught us a lot in terms of the
:04:47. > :04:54.media about putting out information before we are sure. As the story
:04:54. > :04:59.developed, there was lots of information, he was dead, he was
:04:59. > :05:03.shot, so we need to slow down and take time to learn what maize --
:05:03. > :05:07.made these kids this way. What we are really seeing again, as we saw
:05:07. > :05:11.in Spain and Britain, is this thing where you get second-generation
:05:11. > :05:14.kids who grew up in a society, and they go to school there and are
:05:14. > :05:18.well-educated and all the rest of it, but something turns and they
:05:18. > :05:24.become embittered about it and develop our vision of their
:05:24. > :05:30.religion and of their society, and in their anger, they find a way and
:05:30. > :05:34.a radicalised and use the internet and go to extremist sources, and go
:05:34. > :05:38.to extreme places where they carry out an attack like that. I think
:05:38. > :05:45.the link is much closer. I do not agree that it is just about the
:05:45. > :05:49.violence in America, but I think it is linked to the second generation.
:05:49. > :05:53.It fits in with a narrative we are seeing too much of in America, that
:05:53. > :05:57.of young people taking up arms against their own, and surely the
:05:57. > :06:02.availability of weapons has a lot to do with that. The story is
:06:02. > :06:05.typically about young Americans living the American Dream. They are
:06:05. > :06:11.sons of immigrant backgrounds, which is what America is all about.
:06:11. > :06:15.They were described as good kids by family and friends. I see it as
:06:15. > :06:19.part and parcel of an undeniable sickness rate at the heart of
:06:19. > :06:24.American society, and the fact we have just seen the gun-control
:06:24. > :06:29.members rejected highlights the difficulty in dealing with this.
:06:29. > :06:31.do not disagree about gun control, but how does that differ from the
:06:31. > :06:37.kids in Spain or Britain who have found other ways to express their
:06:37. > :06:43.anger and bitterness, not through guns, but threw explosives? When
:06:43. > :06:48.people are radicalised, there is always a way to do it. But it would
:06:48. > :06:58.be much more difficult to express anger in that manner. But it is
:06:58. > :06:59.
:07:00. > :07:04.wrong to say this is a story about America, because those people, if
:07:04. > :07:14.you look back at their history, then this sort of nightmare.
:07:14. > :07:16.
:07:16. > :07:22.President of Chechnya said, what do you want from us? We have not seen
:07:22. > :07:26.them for the last 12 years! Can we touch on a wider point, which is
:07:26. > :07:31.radicalisation, a theme which goes to different countries and cultures.
:07:31. > :07:35.Are we in a situation where, rather like the cold war, they do some
:07:35. > :07:38.kind of security aspect, military aspect, but there is a war of
:07:38. > :07:45.ideas? There are plenty of ideas available to everyone on the
:07:45. > :07:48.internet, it is easy to get them and for some people to become
:07:49. > :07:52.radicalised, and that is what we should look at, as much as being
:07:52. > :08:00.able to pick tax on the streets because you are worried about bombs
:08:00. > :08:06.going off? There is a similarity with some of the Muslim Pakistani
:08:06. > :08:16.young generation's youth, who have been dwelling with the idea of
:08:16. > :08:18.
:08:18. > :08:22.trying to commit G -- jihad. You're right, one does not have to go to
:08:22. > :08:26.training comes, you can sit in front of the community or --
:08:26. > :08:31.computer and be influenced by head preachers and Alker you are
:08:31. > :08:41.websites on these kind of things which make them more committed --
:08:41. > :08:44.
:08:44. > :08:47.Al-Qaeda websites. There was one guy accused in the July 7th bombing,
:08:47. > :08:55.he was well-educated, well- integrated into British society,
:08:55. > :09:02.the same as these kids. The same as the Glasgow Airport bombing. The
:09:02. > :09:04.19-year-old wanted to be a doctor. Yes, a brain surgeon. Especially
:09:05. > :09:09.with his global economic downturn, a lot of kids are hanging around
:09:09. > :09:13.with nothing to do, and have access with all of this information online.
:09:13. > :09:17.They cannot get a job because they are not there, and they get under
:09:17. > :09:21.that what they call the system in general. If you have time on your
:09:21. > :09:30.hands, a pressure cooker is not difficult to find. You can buy it
:09:30. > :09:34.anywhere. We go beyond even gun control. It can be anything to
:09:34. > :09:40.motivate them. We do not know what was behind us. We might not find
:09:40. > :09:43.out. If you look at the 7/7 bombers, they talk about Iraq, Western
:09:43. > :09:52.foreign policy, so there might be a connection with that and there
:09:52. > :10:02.might not. And whether websites like Al-Qaeda And spire, all of
:10:02. > :10:04.
:10:04. > :10:14.those questions come into play. -- Inspire. These are tiny groups, and
:10:14. > :10:22.
:10:22. > :10:28.it is a worry that this might be sure rise in Islamaphobia. There
:10:28. > :10:38.was some untutored as a suspect Longley, when he was just watching
:10:38. > :10:41.
:10:41. > :10:51.the marathon. Some of the headlines were completely irresponsible, the
:10:51. > :10:52.
:10:52. > :11:02.jihad brothers. In Syria, they were quoted as saying we have a Boston
:11:02. > :11:04.every day, and the Americans do not understand. The good news from many
:11:05. > :11:07.parts of Africa in recent years is one of economic opportunity -
:11:07. > :11:10.higher commodity prices, and in many cases better governance than
:11:10. > :11:13.in the past. One exception remains Zimbabwe where the regime of Robert
:11:13. > :11:16.Mugabe clings on and where this week the country has been
:11:16. > :11:19.celebrating its independence. With so much change all around him, how
:11:19. > :11:20.does Mugabe do it? And with what consequences for what should be a
:11:20. > :11:30.prosperous country? How have the celebrations for
:11:30. > :11:32.
:11:33. > :11:37.independence been? The Prime Minister said we have... -- we have
:11:37. > :11:40.no basic freedoms. Just last week, the United Nations mission, which
:11:40. > :11:44.was going to the country to assess the situation on the ground to
:11:44. > :11:51.decide whether to give money for elections are not, was blocked from
:11:51. > :11:55.entering the country because Zanu- PF does not want conditions. He
:11:55. > :12:00.wants the money without the conditions. This was a United
:12:00. > :12:06.Nations mission blocked from entering the country. We are
:12:06. > :12:10.celebrating independence at a time where the coalition government is
:12:10. > :12:15.basically powerless. Robert Mugabe still runs the army, the police,
:12:15. > :12:20.they still back him, and he is again at his old age, the only
:12:20. > :12:25.candidate going to run for President for Zanu-PF. So he will
:12:25. > :12:30.win. You think the election will go ahead in May? He said he wants the
:12:30. > :12:33.election at the end of June, June 29th. But the other parties in
:12:33. > :12:42.government are not one that, they say it is too early. They won
:12:42. > :12:47.September. Are you disappointed about this? This, many people view
:12:48. > :12:50.the party as having become comfortable. There than a coalition
:12:50. > :12:53.government, they are good and a monthly salary, and people say they
:12:53. > :12:58.have become comfortable and forgotten where they came from and
:12:58. > :13:01.what they were fighting. We are going to have elections with most
:13:01. > :13:06.of the reforms that they agreed to when they formed a coalition not
:13:06. > :13:16.having been implemented. There is still no free media, no basic
:13:16. > :13:16.
:13:16. > :13:24.freedoms of assembly and a rate to progress. -- the right to progress.
:13:24. > :13:28.There are still no freedoms. often write about the good news and
:13:28. > :13:34.the good things that happen and Africa. Zimbabwe must be a
:13:34. > :13:38.disappointment. It is growing quite fast, so we should not forget that.
:13:38. > :13:41.Robert Mugabe is the front man for a small group of officers at the
:13:41. > :13:44.top of the army and the security forces, controlling a country and
:13:44. > :13:49.to fleecing the country and stealing the mineral wealth from
:13:49. > :13:52.the diamond mines. But it is not a unique story. You can point to
:13:52. > :13:57.other countries, a lot of the African success is despite the
:13:57. > :14:07.Government's, not because of them. The Government remains a big
:14:07. > :14:08.
:14:08. > :14:12.problem. -- poor government. You have to look at some were like you
:14:12. > :14:16.gonna wear the President says the biggest problem in Africa is big
:14:16. > :14:19.men who do not leave power. He is still there are several decades
:14:20. > :14:24.later and doing very well out of it with his big home and all the rest
:14:24. > :14:30.of it. The Governor of the Bank of Zimbabwe announced a couple of days
:14:30. > :14:35.ago that the country has only $167 in its coffers. Not in his pocket,
:14:35. > :14:39.in the entire account of the Bank of Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe
:14:40. > :14:48.celebrated his 89th birthday a couple of days ago, in a football
:14:48. > :14:53.stadium, in which he was given a huge cake and $89, each dollar for
:14:53. > :14:57.every year of his life, and the party itself cost $600,000. You
:14:57. > :15:06.should also mention that today, in Zimbabwe, there is a constitutional
:15:06. > :15:10.referendum. The referendum was held already last month. But this is
:15:10. > :15:13.after an extremely expensive outrage programme in which they
:15:13. > :15:18.went around the country asking people what they would like to see.
:15:18. > :15:23.It was approved by 95%. But the problem is that what the people
:15:23. > :15:29.said what they wanted in terms of the constitution, was then ignored
:15:29. > :15:35.because Zanu-PF, Robert Mugabe's party refused to honour much of
:15:35. > :15:39.what the people said they wanted, and they pretend their own demands.
:15:39. > :15:49.-- they put in their own demands. But was negotiated between the
:15:49. > :16:04.
:16:04. > :16:10.rounded up, lawyers were taken in. Although it was peaceful, the
:16:10. > :16:13.indication is that it will be a horrific run-up to the election.
:16:13. > :16:19.Unfortunately Zimbabwe does not have much to celebrate. There is always
:16:19. > :16:29.something deep Lee depressing about a country which has been led by the
:16:29. > :16:32.
:16:32. > :16:40.same person for decades. We we have Robert Mugabe marking 33 years in
:16:40. > :16:49.power. He has come to symbolise everything that is wrong with
:16:49. > :16:53.Zimbabwe, and a racy it, Africa. Political strife and oppression,
:16:53. > :17:03.poverty are all commonplace. He has stated that the aim of his land
:17:03. > :17:04.
:17:04. > :17:13.reform, which was to take white owned commercial farms and give them
:17:13. > :17:23.over to black hands, -- to being black lands, led to a disaster.
:17:23. > :17:29.
:17:29. > :17:34.People living on green handouts. Mugabe is just the front man. It is
:17:34. > :17:43.easy to get too hung up on Mugabe. He is at the front of a small group
:17:43. > :17:46.of people who are running the country. We have to be careful to
:17:46. > :17:56.draw a comparison with the whole of Africa and there is. It is 50
:17:56. > :17:56.
:17:56. > :17:59.countries. You are totally right. We have diamonds that discovered in
:17:59. > :18:08.Zimbabwe now. It hundred million dollars worth of diamond exports
:18:08. > :18:11.last year brought money to the country, but only �45 million -- $45
:18:11. > :18:17.million made that to the National Treasury, so all that money is going
:18:17. > :18:27.to supporting the Mugabe regime. Many American politicians have tried
:18:27. > :18:28.
:18:28. > :18:37.to were the mantle of Ronald Reagan. And no the new Venezuelan president
:18:37. > :18:40.is trying to emulate Hugo Chavez. Is it dangerous for politicians to make
:18:40. > :18:46.any comparisons with big figures from the past because of comparison
:18:46. > :18:50.is not good for the image. What you make of all of that. It has been an
:18:50. > :18:57.extraordinary week with the funeral of Mrs that. Is there a Thatcher
:18:57. > :18:59.mantle that people want to grab hold of? I think it has been difficult
:18:59. > :19:07.for the government and the Prime Minister in particular to negotiate
:19:07. > :19:17.its way through this. People always look at the past. Thatcher was a
:19:17. > :19:23.divisive figure in this country. Some of his early modernisation was
:19:23. > :19:28.against what she said, but some of it is extending and continuing it.
:19:28. > :19:31.He has managed to navigate his way quite successfully, whereby he is
:19:31. > :19:36.avoiding too much comparison and equally avoiding too much criticism
:19:36. > :19:44.over it. I take it nobody will be trying to have their mantle of
:19:44. > :19:53.Maghaberry. But there is one African leader, and who will be able to live
:19:53. > :19:58.up to him. Nelson Mandela. He left power. Exactly. That is a lesson
:19:58. > :20:05.that they all should have learned. Nelson Mandela can still walk around
:20:05. > :20:11.the purest parts of Africa alone with no bodyguard. From an African
:20:11. > :20:17.perspective, it has been interesting what other leaders have said about
:20:17. > :20:21.her. It says a lot about the lady. There was an interesting piece
:20:21. > :20:28.written about her, which said that Margaret Thatcher helped to bring
:20:28. > :20:35.peace to South Africa and independence by bringing together
:20:35. > :20:39.the last president under apartheid and Nelson Mandela. He said that she
:20:39. > :20:49.was able to see that change was already coming to South Africa by
:20:49. > :20:49.
:20:49. > :20:52.1983. So-called coloured and Indian people had been included in
:20:52. > :20:57.Parliament. Extensive rights had been given, and the government was
:20:57. > :21:01.realising that they would have to give more rights to black people.
:21:02. > :21:06.Thatcher saw that that was changing and did not want to jeopardise that
:21:06. > :21:08.speed of reform. But the rest of the world did not see this and they
:21:08. > :21:16.wanted to redouble the sanctions that were being put against the
:21:16. > :21:20.apartheid regime. And because Margaret Thatcher said let us not
:21:20. > :21:30.double the sanctions and engage the South Africans without any more
:21:30. > :21:35.
:21:35. > :21:39.colossal white, he credits her -- without any more like -- killing, he
:21:39. > :21:44.credits her with bringing that about. It is dangerous to make
:21:44. > :21:49.comparisons with the past, do you think? Whatever your views on
:21:49. > :21:55.Margaret Thatcher, she was a woman of her type. She was a beast who was
:21:56. > :22:00.there to fate the great battles of post-war Britain. We live in a farm
:22:00. > :22:03.more consolatory and consensual age. We have coalition government.
:22:03. > :22:10.And discussions are far less polarised. The Telegraph are
:22:10. > :22:15.actually asking today, does David Cameron have the stomach for a
:22:15. > :22:20.fight? The straightforward and is no. He has proved to be a likeable
:22:21. > :22:29.precisely because the Conservative party had this tag about being the
:22:29. > :22:33.nasty party, and he has undone all of that. She had great majorities
:22:33. > :22:42.for the Tory party and he has not done that. She had the dog a
:22:42. > :22:50.determination that we do not see any more. Do is really politicians tried
:22:51. > :22:58.to measure up to the past? That would be a catastrophe. I was
:22:58. > :23:08.covering as a journalist Margaret Thatcher's to previous terms. I had
:23:08. > :23:12.
:23:12. > :23:17.a lot of respect for her, but I was that after she died. She was
:23:17. > :23:22.pestering the following Prime Minister is about her funeral. It
:23:22. > :23:30.made me feel uncomfortable about this. They'd had a political
:23:30. > :23:36.undercurrent to it which I did not like. This put her in a slightly
:23:36. > :23:40.relatively negative weight as far as I am concerned. I you surprised
:23:40. > :23:47.about your reaction to that, given that you admired many of the things
:23:47. > :23:54.that she did? I think that she saved Britain from being a third World
:23:54. > :24:00.country run by hotheaded trade union bosses, but after the while she lost
:24:00. > :24:06.the plot. I understood why her so-called friends wanted to get rid
:24:06. > :24:11.of her at the end of the decade. important thing about being strong
:24:11. > :24:15.willed is that when you are right and you stick to it works very well
:24:15. > :24:18.and when you are wrong and you are not open you could do damage to a
:24:18. > :24:26.lot of people. I think the consensus among global leaders is that that
:24:26. > :24:30.was a good quality to have, but when you come back home here, that is
:24:30. > :24:33.when a lot of the damage was done and people are unhappy with it.
:24:33. > :24:38.you think any of this has changed David Cameron underway that he
:24:38. > :24:44.approaches things? He does not have a majority so you cannot do and
:24:44. > :24:47.Margaret Thatcher, whatever people say. But he has to be resolute
:24:47. > :24:53.because he is set on an economic course and it would we disastrous to
:24:53. > :24:58.turn us back. In many ways it is as tough as what Margaret Thatcher had
:24:58. > :25:03.to do. Given the economic circumstances and his reforms. They
:25:03. > :25:07.can benefit to some extent when people delve below the terrible
:25:07. > :25:11.headlines and the silliness of the coalition politics and look at some
:25:11. > :25:21.of the things he is doing. You can actually see a lane between the two
:25:21. > :25:24.
:25:24. > :25:31.leaders despite the fact that there are so different.
:25:31. > :25:34.That would depend slightly more on the British waters. Do you think in
:25:34. > :25:40.terms of the funeral, after this has settled down, do you think there
:25:40. > :25:47.will be a lot that still lasts of the Thatcher legacy. Are we all
:25:47. > :25:53.Thatcher rates now, or is that a bit of hyperbole? I think it was
:25:53. > :26:02.emotional. It will feed into the past. It allows the country to come