:00:00. > :00:45.Hello. Welcome to Witness at the British library in London. This
:00:46. > :00:50.month we have another five people who have witnessed extraordinary
:00:51. > :00:53.moments in history first-hand. We will hear from a woman who led a
:00:54. > :01:02.protest against the contraceptive and in Ireland. A student who took
:01:03. > :01:14.past in the legendary protests of May, 1968, in front. And a Cuban who
:01:15. > :01:18.protested. And for many years, two giant Buddha is carved into cliffs
:01:19. > :01:24.in central Afghanistan dominated the surrounding landscape. -- Buddhas.
:01:25. > :01:29.That changed in 2001 when the Taliban ordered the destruction. A
:01:30. > :01:51.local farmer was forced to help destroy the ancient Buddhas.
:01:52. > :05:28.And he still lives in the valley there. In May, 1971, a group of
:05:29. > :05:35.Irish feminists staged a protest calling for legalisation of
:05:36. > :05:41.contraception. This woman spoke to us about what became known as the
:05:42. > :05:49.contraception fight. I was one of the 12 founders of the Irish Women's
:05:50. > :05:54.Liberation Movement. We wanted to legalise contraception in Ireland.
:05:55. > :06:00.It was forbidden at that time. If we were caught in possession we faced a
:06:01. > :06:08.fine or a jail sentence and social and disgrace. We were all Catholic.
:06:09. > :06:19.Church and state where hand in hand. A Catholic state for a
:06:20. > :06:29.Catholic people. It was a license for sex, they said. If you had sex
:06:30. > :06:36.you had babies. 1971, the average family size was 12. Not unusual to
:06:37. > :06:43.have 13 or 15 children. Northern Ireland was under British rule. We
:06:44. > :06:47.thought, right, we will get the train to Belfast, break the law, get
:06:48. > :06:54.the contraceptives, and come back to Dublin. The contraceptive train.
:06:55. > :06:59.Some people call it the condom train. I say no. It was never that.
:07:00. > :07:06.We were never going to give control of our sexuality to main. If you
:07:07. > :07:17.call it the condom train you are drawing attention to the penis and
:07:18. > :07:31.sex. There were 40 of us. We went to the shops. I go up to the counter. I
:07:32. > :07:36.am the leader of the pack. I said, I would like, please, a contraceptive
:07:37. > :07:44.packet. And he said, where is your prescription? And I said, what
:07:45. > :07:53.prescription? I don't have one. He said you can't have any. But I said,
:07:54. > :08:02.well then, give me one. And then I had the idea, customs officers, they
:08:03. > :08:07.had never seen it. We ordered 1000 aspirin and we stripped them out of
:08:08. > :08:15.their packets. We got back on the train. We get to Dublin and the
:08:16. > :08:26.customs men are standing there at tables. I have that and I am not
:08:27. > :08:36.giving it to you. You are not getting it. Open up your bag. The
:08:37. > :08:44.rest of us lined up and they did not raise a hand. We hear shouting. Let
:08:45. > :08:48.them through! Let them through! People agreed with us. And that was
:08:49. > :08:56.massive. We were against the church. We were no longer afraid.
:08:57. > :09:04.You were touching a popular nerve. It resonated with women who thought,
:09:05. > :09:16.I do not need to get pregnant. But that day, the shouting was let them
:09:17. > :09:20.go! Let them go! And there was joy! I am not sure I have ever had an
:09:21. > :09:32.experience as joyful as that in my life. Nell McCafferty. A lifelong
:09:33. > :09:39.women's rights campaigner. In 9091, at the end of Ethiopian's long civil
:09:40. > :09:52.war, they did a deal to bring some Jews to Israel. -- 1991. It was
:09:53. > :09:56.called Operation Solomon. Daniel, 11 years old, was one of those
:09:57. > :10:23.airlifted according to the operation.
:10:24. > :10:31.The airlift of the Ethiopian Jews continued around the clock. The plan
:10:32. > :10:40.to reunite them with their families in Israel. Israel was eager to get
:10:41. > :12:00.all of them out of Ethiopian as quickly as possible.
:12:01. > :12:08.At least 15,000 were flown to Israel in the operation, which lasted less
:12:09. > :12:11.than 24 hours. The seats were taken out of civilian airliners so that
:12:12. > :12:21.the refugees could be crammed on board. One jumbo jet carried more
:12:22. > :12:25.than 1000 passengers. It is a great, historical moment for us. It
:12:26. > :12:30.is one of the greatest humanitarian relief operations of all time. One
:12:31. > :12:32.of the greatest, one of the swiftest, and one of the most
:12:33. > :13:51.successful. Daniel Nadawo, who still lives in
:13:52. > :13:55.Israel. Remember, you can watch Witness every month on the BBC News
:13:56. > :14:01.Channel or you can catch up on over 1000 radio programmes in our online
:14:02. > :14:09.archive. Just go to BBC .co .uk /witness. In 1968, disaffected
:14:10. > :14:12.students and workers in France came together to protest badly run
:14:13. > :14:19.universities, the war in Vietnam, and low wages. Our next witness
:14:20. > :14:25.helped to produce posters to illustrate the frustration of the
:14:26. > :14:28.country's youth. Paris, the worst street fighting in the French
:14:29. > :14:34.capital since the liberation in 1944. Students and police clashed
:14:35. > :14:45.following extremist action following the war in Vietnam.
:14:46. > :14:56.Paris was full of young people in 1968. The protest came because too
:14:57. > :15:05.many people were at the same moment unhappy. The strike, the university
:15:06. > :15:14.were on strike, everybody decided to go down in the street at 6pm, it was
:15:15. > :15:22.the 13th of May, that is when the workers and students were together.
:15:23. > :15:26.During the early hours of this morning, the student leaders were
:15:27. > :15:31.meeting in Sorbonne to plan their next moves. The most solid evidence
:15:32. > :15:45.of course of the political tie-up between the students and unions was
:15:46. > :15:49.when a crowd marched through Paris. They were fighting for their rights.
:15:50. > :16:03.They were fighting to get a better life. I met my friend, and we
:16:04. > :16:09.decided to go back and try to get involved with doing posters to
:16:10. > :16:15.illustrate the movement. The first thing we did was to organise
:16:16. > :16:25.meetings and give paint and brushes and paper to all the people coming
:16:26. > :16:28.to the Beaux-Arts. The Beaux-Arts became very famous, and everybody
:16:29. > :16:34.wanted to get posters to stick on the wall. My job was to work at the
:16:35. > :16:38.Beaux-Arts, get the paper and the posters out. Get the posters on the
:16:39. > :16:44.wall, get contact with the factories, and we had a meeting, a
:16:45. > :16:49.special meeting so we could decide which one was good, was not good,
:16:50. > :16:54.and everybody has to say something about it. We did the posters at
:16:55. > :17:00.night, the next morning it was on the wall. We worked like workers. We
:17:01. > :17:13.can make late 2000 posters, make one big poster, with UUU. That was the
:17:14. > :17:20.beginning of the saying that the workers on the street are going to
:17:21. > :17:25.work together. What the government was trying to separate the people.
:17:26. > :17:30.They thought it was the end of society, instead of that, the young
:17:31. > :17:48.people, the young students and workers, think they can do a new
:17:49. > :17:53.republic, we can work together. Philippe Vermes is a renowned
:17:54. > :17:59.photographer still based in Paris. And for our final film witness has
:18:00. > :18:02.travelled to Cuba. For almost 20 years the Nobel prize-winning author
:18:03. > :18:10.Ernest Hemingway had a house on the Caribbean island. Alberto Ramos
:18:11. > :18:12.worked there at as a cook. Now in his 80s, he shares his memories of
:18:13. > :21:40.the novelist. Alberto Ramos, remembering one of
:21:41. > :21:45.the great American authors. And that's all from us this month. I
:21:46. > :21:50.hope you will join me next month, a care at the British library. We will
:21:51. > :21:55.have five more extraordinary account of history through the eyes of the
:21:56. > :22:00.people who were there -- back here at the British library. But for
:22:01. > :22:05.now, from me and the rest of the team at Witness, goodbye.