Tourist With A Blogwriter

I missed a riot

2009-06-28T08:15:00.003+01:00

I'm not a very good journalist. I missed a riot. And it wasn't a very easy riot to miss, considering it happened thirty seconds from my hotel. And it happens every Saturday at around the same time.

Normally, I wouldn't be so flippant about covering a riot. I'm not an adrenaline-junkie who likes seeing people hurt and moans that there wasn't enough blood. If people are getting seriously hurt, I'm not happy. But this was a different riot. It's being called the Sabbath Wars, and is based on the fact that God said to Jerusalem's Ultra-Orthodox Jews not to open a car park on Saturday. But he did say that in response to that car par opening you could riot and burn tires and assault police.

Then, not happy just attacking police (and getting themselves hurt in the process), they attacked journalists, forcing a Channel 2 news presenter to cut short a live broadcast. That's just a step too far. I mean, attack the police all you want, but for God's sake (no pun intended) spare the journalists.

I'm starting to think the most dangerous thing about covering this conflict is not the armed violence, it's the threat of being attacked by Orthodox rioters.

Now I'm still in Jerusalem waiting for news on my press credentials. The press officer made it very clear that they don't like freelance journalists. They probably don't like Palestinian/British freelance journalists much either, but he didn't say that. He did say that my commission from the London Bureau of Reuters wasn't good enough, I had to have it commissioned through the Jerusalem office. So I called the Jerusalem office and said "you don't know me, but..." and head of the bureau said "okay, tell the London bureau to contact me and tell me who you are". He was very nice about it, actually.

So I called the London bureau, but of course my editor is away on holiday, so I had to speak to the deputy editor and say "you don't know me, but..." You get the idea. She was also very nice about it, and said yes. At least the official paperwork will be taken care of. Now it just remains for the "other stuff" to be passed. This, from what I understand, is an intense background check the GPO does before issuing press cards. This is what the foreign press liaison said he was doing at the GPO office last time I called him.

We can only wait and see...

In the meantime, I've been finding other stories in Jerusalem. Here's another series of images that was promoted to the front page of Demotix (Ultra-Orthodox won't like this one much either, I'm afraid...)

Now, another coffee...

On a hill in Hebron

2009-06-26T13:00:00.001+01:00

"Have you been to Hebron before?" Yoav asks, sitting beside me in a large transit taxi, driving out of Jerusalem.
"No,"
"You're in for a treat," he chuckles.

Everyone has heard about Hebron - the anomaly in the Palestinian/Israeli landscape. Around 600 settlers live in the centre of a city of 170,000 Palestinians. The handful of hard-core settlers are guarded in turn by hundreds of Israeli soldiers, and the centre of town - off-limits to Palestinians - is a dead zone. All the shops on the main market street are closed, shutters pulled down over doors and covered in graffiti. We drive through a series of checkpoints, but no one stops us in our taxi with yellow license plates. The roads are completely empty. We drive through H2 (the zone of Israeli settlements) to H1: the zone theoretically under Palestinian control, but still peppered with settlers in Arab houses. It's a short walk up-hill to Issa's house, but under this sun and my heavy backpack - full of my cameras and microphones - I'm struggling. I'm also out of shape, that doesn't help my endurance much.

Issa's house is being used as the headquarters of a media project supporting the use of video in monitoring human rights abuses. So far, hundreds of cameras have been handed out across the West Bank, and these hundreds of Palestinian volunteers have provided invaluable footage to international news broadcasters, as well as filmed crucial evidence for legal appeals.

Now I've been brought here to raise the skill level a little and encourage the participants to start thinking about directing their own short documentaries, representing their own lives and revealing the human details of existence to an international audience that often has little understand of the ordinary, banal, daily life of a Palestinian.

The participants here know exactly how the international news media portrays them, and what's missing in the picture.
"People don't understand us, they don't see us as human beings."
So we talk about simple stories. Your family. Your neighbours. What it's like getting water from the well every morning. What it's like farming next to a settlement every day. Very simple stories, the sort of thing many of the participants would just overlook, but exactly the kind of stories that people outside Palestine need to see to understand the humanity of the situation.

It's not a easy project, and this isn't an easy idea to sell to everyone. Fadi leans forward, resting his elbows on his legs, and scowls at the group. He's a big guy, tall and wide. Even with a baby face, and his round bald head, he can still look intimidating. Fadi volunteered for the project, and he's enthusiastic about filming, but he's also angry.
"Why should we film? What's the point? Am I going to open a case against the Israeli courts? Then what happens? Nothing. If my son is being beaten, what am I going to do, just sit back and film it?"

Good question, of course. I'm not here to convince anyone that this project is going to save their lives and end the occupation, and I tell them that. I'm not here to tell them to stop everything and just film from now on, and I'm definitely not asking them to put themselves in danger to get evidence. But, amidst the politics and violence here, in the middle of all the pressures and strains, there is suddenly a very small possibility for Palestinians to take ownership over their own representation for once, to tell their own stories rather than having them told for them.

It's a tiny gesture: pick up a camera and film. But it can have massive consequences. I talk about how the footage is broadcast around the world. I talk about how much support the project has in the UK. I talk about the capacity of the participants to tell a story that no one would otherwise ever hear.

I realise quickly that I don't need to tell them all this, because there are others in the group already convinced of the project's potential. They tell Fadi their own stories. They describe what they filmed and what it feels like to finally hold a crucial piece of evidence when, for so long, the Israeli police and courts have asked - in answer to any complaints - "where's the evidence."

But I also know my limitations. "You know better than me what your lives are like. I can only tell you how to use this camera, where your footage goes, and what impact it can have. The rest is up to you."

"But we know the media is controlled by Zionists" they complain. It's an oversimplification I hear over and over again in Palestine, and I'm sick of hearing it. Not only because it isn't strictly true (the media is controlled by capitalists...) but because it's a phrase often used over and over again just to absolve us of our responsibilities.

"Whoever controls the media," I answer, "Maybe this is your chance to take back some of that control..."

First day of training

2009-06-24T17:52:00.004+01:00

I spent Tuesday in a town near Nablus, running a preliminary training workshop with a media NGO here (I'll give the details once I leave..) Hundreds of cameras were distributed around the West Bank as part of a programme to document human rights abuses and so far it's been a huge success, footage broadcast around the world on international news channels. Now I've been hired to run a few workshops and training sessions - a review for some and an introduction to those who have just picked up their cameras for the first time. We're aiming to bring the skill level up a notch, to facilitate them eventually making their own short films.

There are several brave families in the room. Husbands and wives, some young children, all of them volunteered for the programme because they could both see the value of it, and wanted the feeling of having a role in documenting their own lives. Tired of seeing the news and finding so may holes in the representation of Palestinian lives. Tired of taking their cases to court only to be told "where's the evidence?" Now they have evidence. Things won't change overnight, but at the least the possibility for a video camera to empower these families is promising.

Bassam, on the right in the photograph, never used a camera before. He came to the workshops because a friend told him about it, and he liked the idea of documenting what he was going through in his village of 'Aqraba. 144,000 Dunums of farm land, it's on the border with the Jordan Valley, and as the whole of the Jordan Valley is under military law (far more strict than that in the West Bank) the authorities keep creeping into 'Aqraba. They restrict the movement of 'Aqraba farmers, they take a little more land, they take a little more water, they suddenly designate an area as a closed military zone. Things are getting worse, Bassam explains.

Maybe the cameras can help...

Back in Jersualem

2009-06-22T20:54:00.002+01:00

This is the fastest I've ever made it through Israeli security. Face freshly-shaven. Shirt, tucked in. Papers all in order. I sat for only ten minutes, they called me into the security office next to the immigration window. They welcomed me back, said they knew I'd been there many times before as a journalist, and said they wanted to get me through as fast as possible. They and asked a few simple questions.
What are you here for?
Reporting on the reconstruction in Gaza.
With who?
Reuters.
Who's your contact in Gaza?
UNRWA.

That was it. Gave them some phone numbers, and walked out - even finding my luggage still by the carousel - to meet Dori in the cafe with green chairs (we always meet in the cafe with green chairs. Although this time I went to the wrong cafe. Apparently all the cafes here have green chairs.)

I haven't seen Dori in a few years. What's new? He finally finished renovating his house. He's a grandfather - his daughter has a one year old she called Ariel, after the Little Mermaid (not Sharon). He's started driving medical school exams between the students and professors for money, apparently it pays quite well. They trust him not to look at the questions. He asks where I'm going and I tell him West Bank for a week, then Gaza.

"Oh, Gaza. Make sure you wear PRESS on your back all the time, one of our snipers might see you and know you're not from Gaza and shoot you."
"okay..."

I'm exhausted, having had too much coffee trying to stay awake. It's not working. So I'll give in and go to sleep...

Demonstration at Iranian embassy, London

2009-06-14T22:36:00.002+01:00

Following the alleged electoral fraud in Iran, protesters gathered in front of the Iranian embassy in London to demonstrate. My photos of the event made the front page of the Demotix website.

(Not sure how long it'll stay up there...so catch it while you can. If you miss it on the front page, my personal page is here.

In other news, I'm working on a lesson plan for a series of workshops I'll be holding in the West Bank and Gaza for media workers, to develop the use of video in online citizen journalism and human rights monitoring. More details to come...

Egyptian bloggers: kidnapped and tortured

2009-06-10T01:05:00.002+01:00

You may have read earlier about the time I spent waiting in Cairo for Laila El Haddad so we could both cross into Gaza together to work on a media training project. That never happened.

But while I was in Cairo, I managed to trace four Egyptian bloggers recently allegedly kidnapped and tortured by state security officials. They have all since been released, but their stories - and the revelation that government officials are virtually immune from prosecution - make for some very disturbing news.

I originally made the film for Al-Jazeera English's Focus on Gaza programme, but while in the middle of the final cut, the programme was suddenly cancelled, so the film is now looking for a new home (most probably in a slightly different form).

If you've read this far, and you're still interested, you deserve a sneak peak. This is a link to a rough preview, and you'll need the password "bloggers".

Let me know if you have any ideas...

Hard Time Killing Floor

2009-06-03T02:29:00.003+01:00

A few months ago, I (very much by surprise, and sort of by accident) became a playwright when my script Hard Time Killing Floor - about a Turkish/British man returning to London after awaiting execution in a Turkish prison for 12 years - was selected for the Angle Theatre's New Writer's season at the Hackney Empire.

I'd like to extend and invitation to everyone to the first public reading of my play on June 7th:

"Hard Time Killing Floor"
Hackney Empire Studio
291 Mare Street, London E8 1EJ
Sunday, June 7, 4:30 pm
Tickets are free but you should book through the season producer Amelia Nicholson.
Her email is amelia@iceni-productions.com

For details of the venue, click here

HARD TIME KILLING FLOOR
A man returns to London after serving twelve years in a Turkish prison awaiting execution. We don't see the crime and we don't see the violence - only the consequences of both. The question is not one of guilt or innocence, but of the process of putting your life back together after being released and allowed to return home. Things are no longer in perspective. The man can't see his friends and family - let alone himself - in the same way, and there are some questions that he can't answer.

Hope to see you there, and please feel free to let anyone else know who you think might be interested...

I See The Stars At Noon screening in London...

2009-05-07T12:04:00.003+01:00

Our first documentary, I See The Stars At Noon, is still (thankfully) being screened five years after it was made. Next week it's screening as part of the excellent installation Leaving Room, by artists Roberto Cavallini and Daniele Rugo at Goldsmiths University in London. The screening is free, and there's a Q&A with director Saeed Taji Farouky following the screening.

5-7pm, Small Cinema, Main Building, Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross. To find the university, visit their site here
Screening of:

Sin Papeles | Sam Stevens, 2005
I see the stars at noon | Saeed Taji Farouky, 2005

Followed by a conversation between: Roberto Cavallini, Saeed Taji Farouky, Daniele Rugo and Sam Stevens

Free entrance, no reservations needed.

For more info about the film makers:

http://www.samuelstevens.eu/

http://www.touristwithatypewriter.com/

For more info about the project:

http://bisproject.org/leavingroom/

Tourist admits defeat (don't expect it to happen again...)

2009-04-16T10:43:00.004+01:00

After ten days of waiting (it seems like longer) I've finally been urged to, and have painfully agreed to, admit defeat in the face of the Rafah border. All indications are that there's "no way" I'll be allowed in (that's a direct quote from Cairo's Ramattan Bureau. They were very helpful in offering advice and paperwork and contacts, but ultimately couldn't do anything more for me)

It was very bad timing, after all, nothing more dramatic than a series of separate incidents that all combined to make the crossing virtually impossible for me. First, Laila El-Haddad was refused entry to Egypt and detained in Cairo airport for 36 hours (sleeping on the floor with her two children, aged 4 and 1). Laila's a Gaza resident, so at least that would have made it easier for us both to get across Rafah (which is typically only for Palestinian residents, but during the war in January was open for a while for international journalists, and is still occasionally open for delegations).

Then, an undercover Hezbullah sleeper cell was apparently discovered operating in Egypt. That accusation alone would have been bad enough to close the border, if Nasrallah hadn't admitted it was true two days later...

So, with these factors piling up, crossing the Rafah border was becoming more and more difficult. Then the Egyptian Government Press Office announced it was no longer issuing papers to foreign journalists crossing into Rafah, and THEN the British Consulate announced it was no longer even issuing papers absolving itself of all responsibility for UK journalists wanting to cross! They can't even commit enough to sign a piece of paper saying I can't sue them if I die? Things are getting really bad...

By that point, it seemed the only people being allowed through Rafah were injured Palestinians getting medical treatment in Egypt or returning home to Gaza. As dedicated as I am to my work, I'm (only slightly) above pretending to be an injured Palestinian.

Oh, and a few bright sparks also pointed out that even if I did get it, it might be difficult to...what was it again? Oh, that's right. Get out.

Luckily, in the meantime, I've managed to take my stress and boredom and frustration and make another film while waiting. Of course I can't tell you anything about until I leave Egypt, otherwise it wouldn't be any fun, (and probably not a very good documentary if it was done with the approval of the Egyptian state)

Laila back in the US

2009-04-10T13:07:00.001+01:00

The latest news is that Laila finally arrived back in the US at 3am this morning, after a transfer through London. I haven't heard directly from her yet, but will let you know when I do...

Laila living in Cairo Airport

2009-04-08T18:49:00.004+01:00

Laila has now been in Cairo International Airport for 20 hours, sleeping and eating on the floor with her two kids, aged five and one and a half. After hours of arguing, the guards are now telling her nothing. Instead, they're just stalling - telling her something's happening, someone's coming to see her, a decision is coming soon. But they don't seem to know what happened to her file.

She's still not being given access to a phone, and is eating the food she brought with her and donations from the airport staff.

The whole thing is looking like a maze of bureaucracy and illogical arbitrary rules, with her and her kids trapped in the middle.

One of the guards just asked her if she wants him to put up a shelter for her, so she has the feeling she's going to be there for a lot longer...

At the moment, I don't know what else to do. Myself, her husband and father have been calling and appealing to everyone we can think of. Politicians, journalists, NGOs, diplomats - even with some high-up connections, nothing seems to be making a difference.

http://twitter.com/Gazamom

Laila in the Airport

2009-04-08T15:47:00.004+01:00

Laila arrived in Cairo at around 11:30 last night, but since then has been detained by security with her two children, Yousuf age 5 and Noor age 15 months. She's been there for 17 hours so far, and they've given her no access to a telephone. She managed to find a wireless signal in the room and has been keeping in touch with her family and I for hours, but the latest news is that they intend to send her back to the US because orders for all Palestinians to be refused entry unless Rafah crossing is open.

I'll keep you posted as more information comes in...

Back in Cairo

2009-04-07T16:38:00.001+01:00

I'm back in Cairo after only a few weeks away. (I had a feeling I'd be back so soon...)

At the moment Laila El-Haddad in on her way over (I think she's still airborne at this moment) and when we meet here, we'll start planning for Gaza. At the moment, I have no idea what the situation is with the border, when/if it will open, how/if I can get through as a journalist. I'm hearing completely different stories from different sources. The British Embassy says they have nothing to do with crossing any more - they don't provide any letters or paperwork. The Egyptian Journalists Union were providing press passes during and just after the war, but now they say go to your embassy...

UNRWA says it should be no problem going through Rafah with a commission letter from a news media.

I think we'll just end up going to the border on a rumour and taking our chances...

We are the future

2009-03-26T11:57:00.001Z

In order to keep up with the future and secure our place in it, we've signed up to Twitter. Wow. Amazing. It is indeed a revolution.

I'm sure there's a way of linking Twitter here...
But in the meantime, find us here

Cairo and Cairo again

2009-03-26T11:25:00.002Z

FROM: Saeed Taji Farouky
Sorry, we disappeared for a while there. But that doesn't mean we haven't been busy (double negative...in other words, we've been busy)

Gareth and I just got back from Cairo where we filmed and researched (very quickly) a five and a half minute film for Al-Jazeera English's new programme Empire. The programme is an hour-long round table discussion on empires, power structures, imperialism, etc and this latest episode was about Arab unity (or the lack of).

We were asked to make a film about the Arab League and how it's faired in the past dealing with regional issues itself, without foreign help. What we found was that, not surprisingly, it hasn't done well. In fact, we would call it a failure.

This was a challenging film, we haven't made anything like it in the past. Very research heavy, relying on a lot of library footage, and most importantly VERY opinionated. It was definitely a relief to be able to say things like "The Arab solution was a failure" as an opinion, without having to write a 2000 word article on why it was a failure. So hopefully someone believes my opinion...

The show aired last night (March 25th) and should be online soon on Al-Jazeera's youtube page We'll let you know...

In the meantime, I'm back in Cairo around the 6th of April on my way to Gaza to implement a video and blog-based human rights monitoring project in Gaza (more about that later). I'm planning to make a few more films - hopefully with Gareth involved - while I'm there. Any idea? Let us know...

Last Days

2008-04-07T22:54:00.004+01:00

My time here is almost up. But I know I'll be back. Zlatko has already asked me to come back in August for another film. There's still a lot to be done, still many refugees, rebels still hiding in the jungle, crouching over their ancient Kalashnikovs in the rain, still political prisoners like Hussein Radjabu serving 13 years in prison, still a parliament paralysed by confusion.

There's one last thing tomorrow. One final scene to film before I leave. It is, perhaps, the most obvious scene, in a film about landmine clearance. But as yet, it hasn't happened. It almost happened today, but it was delayed. I'm talking about an explosion. Yes, I still haven't seen an explosion. It should be the highlight of the trip, but so far - maybe because there aren't so many landmines even remaining in Burundi - I still haven't seen it. I'm talking about an intentional explosion, not an accidental explosion - that would be terrible. No, controlled demolition of abandoned mines, one electrical spark setting off a chain reaction that takes, Zlatko tells me, one hundred-thousandth of a second to complete.

This is, incidentally, about the same amount of sleep I get every night. Pure coincidence.

Dancing at Archipel

2008-04-03T22:59:00.000+01:00

Alain and I leave the base at around 1am, we’re driving to Archipel, a club that Zlatko recommended to me while laughing, embarrassed, to himself. “It’s ridiculous,” he said “you just look at a girl and she’s all over you. It’s really...what’s the word...indiscrete. She’s touching herself and rubbing herself all over you.”

As we turn out of the FSD compound, the headlights of the car catch rows of long horn cattle in the road. Dozens of cows, trudging slowly up the main road towards us, in complete darkness and silence. “Oh my goodness, what is happening?” Alain says aloud. I can only laugh.

“At this time?” He’s already a bit drunk. I didn’t realise when I first got in the car with him, but he soon explains he’s been drinking whiskey with his parents. He stops to wind down the window and ask the farmer what’s going on. Further ahead, we see a heard of sheep, also heads bobbing, feet clicking on the asphalt. “They’re going to the Vice President’s house,” Alain explains, “because they heard that the FNL was going to steal their animals. They came from Ruigi, they started walking here at 3pm.”

For ten hours, they’ve been walking on the road, moving their animals to the only safe place they can think of – the Vice President’s house in the capital. I picture them camped outside this door, exhausted, pleading for protection.

At Archipel, men are stumbling outside drunk and aggressive. Alain’s been talking about money on the drive here, that someone was offering him 200 dollars a month to work for them. He can make that much in a week, he says. He writes one article for a hundred dollars, he says. I can’t help wondering if this is his drunken way of telling me how much money he expects when it comes time to pay him at the end of our three weeks together. “I’m not doing this for the money” he said at the time, when I asked him what his rate was. “Give me what you can,” and I told him I didn’t have much money.

There is one dimly lit dance floor in the centre of the club, everything else is so dark I can only see vague shapes moving around. Some of the shapes are couples dancing energetically, others are just stumbling around drunk. Alain points out several Burundian celebrities and government ministers. There’s an older French man in the corner, leaning on a tiny, thin Burundian girl who laughs and touches him on the shoulder. Outside, there are hookers lining the walls and talking to anyone who walks by. Inside, they’re girlfriends for hire, Alain explains. They’re not prostitutes, but they’ll ask you for money. I don't understand the difference. It reminds me of the girlfriends for hire in Morocco, and the old, French men in bars, also leaning on thin little girls.

Alain and I are moving lazily to the music with a friend of his, when a girl who looks only 16 or 17 walks over and puts her arms around me, says her name is Melissa. “It’s okay,” Alain tells me.
"French or English?" she asks
"Uh...English."
She smells of alcohol, asks me to buy her a beer. This is uncomfortable. She pulls me close and puts her legs between mine, grinding to the music. She rubs her hands hard over my chest and strokes my beard and keeps trying to pull my head to hers to kiss me. It's fun for a while - and even funny - and I’m dancing, doing my best to enjoy it. But after a few minutes it just become depressing. It's too much. I try to push away from Melissa, but it’s literally impossible. She's wrapped around me tightly, and without aggressively shoving her across the room, there's nothing I can do but play this game of trying to keep my distance and looking anywhere but at her face. She tries again to rub up against me and grabs my hand to move them over her body, I'm fighting against it, and we're wrestling like that in the corner of the dance floor. She’s asks me to buy her a drink again, she tries to hold my hand again. This is getting tedious now. Finally she tells me "I'm going home" - and I just say okay, and feel relieved that she's gone. I look at Alain and laugh.

This is what Zlatko was talking about.

Soon after, one of Alain’s friends is dancing with us. She’s very beautiful and seems to know Alain well - she's not young and desperate like Melissa. I never got her name. She looks elegant in a tight black and white dress, and she isn’t afraid to dance with Alain and I. All around me, people are crushing against each other, sweating in the humid and hot night. Men are pulling young girls closer, women are rubbing themselves against their boys. No one is embarrassed. If you want to dance with someone, pull them closer and put your arms around them. If they like it, they’ll stay. If not, they’ll move away. No one pretends that they're not looking, or not interested, or that they don't want to touch.

At first, I’m uncomfortable holding Alain’s friend so close, I think if I put my hand here, or move like this, she’ll think I’m a pervert and slap me. But, quickly, I understand what’s going on here. It’s something we should all understand, it’s something so simple. Everyone’s enjoying themselves. The girl may not know me, but she knows Alain, so maybe she trusts me, and if it feels good to have a stranger hold you close and move his hips with yours, then why not do it. She smells of sweat and shampoo. Her dress is soaked in sweat, but it doesn’t bother me tonight. I like it. The whole club smells like this, and it’s a hot and sexual smell.

Sometimes, I move away but Alain’s friend pulls me closer. Other times, she moves away and I pull her closer.

My Lungs About to Burst

2008-04-03T22:49:00.002+01:00

I wake up early this morning, after very little sleep last night from editing. I’m ready to fall asleep in the car, but the drive to Bubanza is so beautiful I don’t want to miss it. Green, smooth hills and mountains. All lush countryside. A warm breeze brushes my eyes. For a moment I forget how exhausted I am that I’m so tired. On the hike down to the site – a suspected unexploded rocket - my legs are shaking. I haven’t been hiking in years, and carrying my equipment every day I feel like I’ve been working out regularly, so all my muscles are already tired. The ground is loose and very steep, sometimes I have to jump over a few rocks or slide down a few feet of mud.

We stop, Didier tells me looking at his GPS, only 650m from the car, but the hike down makes it feel more like a few kilometres. The team sets up their base near a collection of stone houses, a few metres above the suspected field. I haul a fragmentation protection jacket over my head, strap it around my waist and through my legs with the help of Pontien. I pull a helmet and mask over my face.

Digging through the field, following the squeals of their metal detectors, the team finds fragments of the rocket, already exploded, so they can now declare the field as safe.

In this case, the farmer decided to use his land anyway, even before knowing whether it was safe or not. In many other cases, though, the fear of a mine or unexploded ordnance is enough to keep people away from their precious land. Burundi is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, and every square inch of land is used. Yesterday, I saw a family collecting plants from in between the stones in the perking area of the FSD base.

After several hours in the sun, my skin is burning, and I’m sweating heavily under all the protective clothing. Now we have to hike back up. I didn’t expect it to be so hard. I’m immediately out of breath and my lungs are in pain, they feel like they’re about to burst. Several times, I feel like I might actually collapse. I’m dehydrated, and not in shape, my lungs burning painfully. At over 2000m, a deep breath feels like I’m just wheezing, barely getting enough oxygen. I keep repeating to myself “smooth...calm...“ with each step, just to stop me from getting frustrated and tense and losing hope. I look at the ground, watching my feet with each step, rather than looking at the steep, loose path ahead. I can hear local children laughing and running around behind me. They’re wearing only flip-flops or barefoot. I remember when I was climbing mount Toubkal in crampons, having to kick every step into the thick snow, and thinking that was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I think this beats Toubkal. At least in Toubkal I could rest when I wanted, I was climbing alone, but here I had to keep up with the rest of the group. I have to stop myself from looking up, because I knew as soon as I see the vehicles, my legs will collapse.

Stumbling to our jeep, I sit in the shade, sweat covering my face and hair, I can’t even sit down I’m so exhausted and short of breath. I’m sipping air through a straw. I suck sugar water from the strands of a chunk of sugar cane that Gabriel hands me, just to get some hydration and energy back.

From Bugume, we drive to Kayanaga where Pontien and Aaron talk to locals who say they discovered several unexploded mines. With their white Jeeps, equipment, walkie-talkies, and my two cameras, the group attracts a large crowd. Soon, kids are screaming and running around us so fiercely Dider has to ask them all to shut up so we can hear the old man describing the mines he says he found. Joseph is short, wearing a ripped tank top that barely hangs over his bony frame. He wears a rough grisly beard. I can’t understand him as he describes the mine to Theo in Kirundi, but he moves around so energetically, acting out the shape of the mine, and the accident that happened in December. At one point, after one of his short stories, everyone around him laughs. Didier and I look at Theo for an explanation, and he tells us “he was describing an accident where a man lost his testicles.”

Theo and Didier follow their incident map closer to the site of the suspected mines, and along the way they meet the local army commander, Seargent Major Theodore Ndikumana. Several accidents have already been reported here, with old and forgotten fragmentation mines surrounding the military base.

I’m so tired and hungry I want to cry. We stop in a room, a store room, with one bulb in the centre, sacks of grain stacked in the corner. I eat fried Makaki fish and friend banana, all wrapped in banana leaves and heated over open coals outside, as I watch the eight police men – our security escort – getting drunk on local Primus beer.

We Never Thought It Could Happen To Us

2008-03-31T00:19:00.000+01:00

Zlatko reads the daily incident report from the UN, reading about Bubanza province where we’re supposed to be travelling tomorrow. He’s been waiting for the UN to promise at least one open-top pickup truck full of police to, at the least, make any armed bandits think twice before attacking us. So far, they haven’t agreed, so his project in Bubanza has been delayed.
He reads down the list of attacks.
“8pm. This one’s in Bubanza. A group of armed bandits broke into a family home, throwing a grenade and killing three members. 6am, armed bandits stop a bus on the road and rob the occupants of mobile phones and wallets.”

I continue reading down the list over his shoulder. One family was attacked and killed, in another grenade attack, because the bandits suspected a member of the family of “witchcraft”. The violence seems completely unpredictable, and illogical.

Zlatko cross-checks each report with a map of Bubanza province, to see how close each attack is to his team’s proposed route and area of operations.

The violence is unpredictable, but one thing remains consistent. Even after the horrors of genocide that this country has been through, even after the sickening associations with the names “Hutu” and “Tutsi” that make me cringe to hear them, the division remains. People still refer to one or the other. I remember David Niyonzima writing “Unlocking the Horns” about reconciliation in Burundi, when he said that before Belgian colonisation, no one here knew what it meant to be Hutu or Tutsi.

Last night, Zlatko and I were discussing the war in Bosnia again (I still have a lot to learn about it). He explained that when the war started and reports would come in that the Serbs had attacked here, or the Croats had attacked there, him and his friends would listen in confusion. He comes from Tusla, a town famously well integrated between Serbs, Croats and Muslim. The town’s mayor was even nominated for a Nobel Peace prize for his efforts in keeping his community together during the worst violence. But when they heard the news during the day, Zlatko and his friends would meet later that night in a bar to ask each other,
“’What are you? Are you a Serb?’ Are you a Croat?” We didn’t know,” he explains to me, “We had no idea what it meant to be a Serb or a Croat or even Muslim. Today, when I think about it, maybe 95 percent of my friend in Tusla are Muslims, but I didn’t even think about it at the time. I didn’t even know what it meant! And my friend would go ask his parents, and he would come back the next day saying ‘Well, my parents told me that we’re Serbs.’ If we heard on the radio that the Serbs had just attacked somewhere, he would be embarrassed. If you were in a mixed marriage - and my wife is from a mixed marriage but it didn’t mean anything before – suddenly your wife’s family would look at you suspiciously. We never thought it could happen to us. Especially in Tusla. We never believed it could happen, but it happened.”

I thought about this today, as Alain was explaining to me the news that morning. The President, a Hutu, had ordered the demobilisation of a number of army officers, all Tutsi. The President being a Hutu, people saw it as an attempt to either rebalance the army (if you’re a Hutu) or imbalance the army (if you’re a Tutsi). For years, the army has been dominated by Tutsis. After all, the 1993 coup - and the subsequent vengeful killing of Hutus by the army and their proxies - was made possible because of the Tutsi control over the army. The Vice President, a Tutsi, disagreed with the President’s decree, but here it looks like that doesn’t count for much.

At the same time, FNL leaders – Hutus - are in Tanzanian preparing to meet with the government – dominated by a Hutu party - to finalise a peace deal. Today, they’re still waiting for the government to guarantee them immunity from arrest and prosecution before they set foot in Burundian soil.

Over in Zimbabwe, “the people have won” they said.

We Are All God's Children

2008-03-28T19:22:00.004Z

Early morning, and we leave the hotel at 8am. The air is cold up here at 2000m as we drive through the pine mountains of Bururi. The mist is still seeping along the road. Zlatko is analysing the convoy, because this is the area where a previous FSD convoy was attacked three weeks ago.
“Tell the first car to move forward a bit,” he tells Mathius in the back seat, who is communicating with the rest of the team by radio. “And tell the next two vehicles to move closer together.”
The first two cars are carrying armed policemen. To be honest, they don’t look to me like highly trained soldiers, but they’re better than nothing. Usually, just the sight of a group of police with AK-47s is enough to scare bandits off, many of whom may have only one gun between them, the rest just carrying machetes.

At some point, around half way through the journey, we turn off the main road and onto a bright red dirt track that brings is straight through tiny, straw hut villages and town markets. People stare as the convoy of five white vehicles, antennas waving, sprints past. We are heading this morning to a series of electricity pylons to do a final visual check of FSD’s work. They've already cleared the pylons of several fragmentation mines, originally planted by the Burundian Army to keep FNL rebels from sabotaging the power lines. But since the start of the war 13 years ago, the mines have been forgotten, abandoned, and eventually the national electricity company Regideso called FSD to clear the area and allow their workers to get back to essential maintenance work.

We park the jeeps on the tarmac road and the team collects their equipment, as children nearby sit and stare in amazement. The policemen just hang around, disinterested.

With everything in hand, the team steps off the road, onto a dirt track, into the bush. At such high altitude, even this little hike, with all my gear, leaves me gasping for breath and dripping in sweat. At the top of the path, the team sets up a camp and gets dressed in their protective gear, flak jacket and protective helmet. They tune their metal detectors, and return to the paths around the pylons.

I ask Gabriel why he does this dangerous work. “Because I want to help my brothers and sisters in Burundi,” he tells me.

When the work is finished, and we’re all back down on tarmac with the Land Rovers, it starts to rain. Just a trickle, at first, but then the warm, thick rain of the tropics. Some of the team stand under it, it’s so relaxing, rather than take shelter in the jeeps. Gabriel shares around some Kasava that he found while working, and we all take bites. The team is laughing and relaxed after a tough day. I practice more words in Kurundi.

As Gabriel offers me another piece of Kasava, he asks “Where are you from originally?” in his very specific and clipped vocabulary.
“Palestine.”
“Ah, Palestine!” he says knowingly. “We hear about Palestinians fighting with the Israelis every day here. Whey can’t they live together in peace? I have heard that they say that this conflict is in the Bible. Is it true? And that it will end when Jesus returns to earth?”
“No. There are stories about it in the Bible, but the real conflict is political.”
“Ah, okay. I have heard also that the Israelis and the Palestinians are brothers, is this true?”
“Yes, I think so.” I want to compare the situation to this country - The FNL, a Hutu military group, is fighting the government, now also run by Hutus – but I’m not sure that the analogy is right and I don’t want to say anything insensitive.

Later that night, Gabriel tells me 23 members of his family were killed in the violence of 1993, including his father, his brother and his uncle. He sees the look of shock on my face, and answers as only someone who has been saturated by such violence can: “But this is normal! This is just something that happened...” He was at the University of Kibima in Kitanga when around 150 of his classmates were burned in a petrol station.

But even Gabriel, a well-educated and sensible man, has his own version of history. Everyone here has their own version of history. The violence of 1993 was sparked after the country’s first democratically elected president – a Hutu - was assassinated by the Tutsi-led army. Hutus took revenge on a mass scale against any Tutsi they could find. In return, the Tutsi-dominated army, with proxy Tutsi killers of their own, slaughtered tens of thousands of Hutus in further revenge. But Gabriel still tells the same story those Tutsi killers told 15 years ago – those were only a few deaths, regrettable accidents that occurred during military operations in response to Hutu violence around the country. It was not a policy of killing, he insists, there were not tens of thousands of Hutus murdered, he tells me.

When I ask if he is a Tutsi or a Hutu, he laughs, just as Alain laughed when I asked him casually over lunch a few days ago. It’s still an awkward question to ask, and I think Alain and Gabriel were only laughing out of politeness. “ I will tell you,” he said, “but I also want to say that I don’t like to make these divisions. I believe in God, and I believe we are all in God’s image so we should not make these ethnic divisions between us...”

The Mountains

2008-03-27T18:58:00.002Z

In the afternoon, I finally leave the centre of Bujumbura as we drive in convoy to the province of Bururi. Some areas there are still threatened by FNL, the last armed rebel group holding out for a separate peace. Zltko spent the morning meeting with the UN, trying to arrange a security convoy for the group after one of his teams was attacked by an armed ambush two weeks ago on a similar route. That time, a bullet pierced the vehicle’s radiator and skimmed one of the de-miners’ skulls. He went to hospital with only slight injuries – that time he was lucky, but Zlatko was furious. The UN wasn’t offering his team daily incident reports, so he had no idea that route was dangerous, and now the UN was refusing to arrange a security convoy for the next trip. Maybe they couldn’t be bothered, maybe they didn’t like giving the impression that the country wasn’t safe.

As soon as we leave the Bujumbura city limits, we climb into the mountains of Burundi. I soon understand why they used to call this country “the Switzerland of Africa.” It’s high altitude pine forests, and thin cool mountain air. I remember my family holidays in Switzerland when I was 12 or 13. The air is thin, it gets harder to breathe as we approach 2000m. The roads are lined with coffee plants, piles of wood burning for charcoal, papaya plants. It’s hot, despite the cold mountain air. Rain comes in for a few seconds, then dissipates.

We pass crowds of Burundians, walking through markets, stacked between the dirt road and the soaring mountains behind them. There are misty green forests all around us, and crowds of excitable children staring at the convoy, waving passionately and yelling “Muzungo! Muzungo!”. Zlatko laughs every time. “Yes, here I am. I am the Muzungo!”
I practice my Kirundi with Mathias in the back seat. “I learned this the other day: ‘sin do Muzungo. Do Muarabo!” I am not a white man, I’m an Arab. Mathias laughs with approval.
“What’s the difference?” Zlatko asks. He puts his arm next to mine as he holds the steering wheel. His skin is tanned, and darker than mine.

I tried to convince a nurse the other day that I was half African. “My mother is Egyptian,” I told her. But she laughed off my explanation. If you’re not black, you’re a Muzungo.

The drive is long – we son get bored. I ask Zlatko to give me a brief history – once again – of the Balkan wars. “Don’t worry,” he reassures me, “Even Bosnian’s find it complicated,” and he tells me the story of the day his city of Tusla came under attack from the Serbs. Despite being a Bosnian Serb himself, he joined the local militia to defend the Muslims, and defend his town. For months, they didn’t trust him, he says, “I knew there was always someone at my back with a gun, ready to kill me.” But he soon proved himself, and he rose through the ranks of the once-guerrilla army to become a counter-intelligence officer. When he would return home from the front every few months, his villagers would throw him a welcome party, offering what little they had as gifts.

We reach Bururi by 5:30pm, here to do quality assurance on the latest phase of FSD’s mine clearance operation. We order brochettes for dinner, and I have to accept that I’ll be eating meat for the first time in maybe 18 months. There’s nothing else available. With a local Primus beer, I sit with Zlatko and his Burundian team in the tin-roofed back room of the restaurant, one naked light bulb above our heads and a tropical rain splashing down outside the glassless window. Near the end of the night, an older man leans over to Gabriel, one of the team members, and says something as he motions to Zlatko. Gabriel translates in very polite, accented English.
“He says he is surprised to see a white man sitting with him and drinking and eating normally.”
“Tell him,” Zlatko replies, “there is no difference between him and me except for a little more pigment in his skin.” Gabriel translates. The older man nods in agreement, and stands up to shake Gabriel’s hand, then Zlatko’s hand, with a smile.

“You know,” Gabriel continues, “because we had colonialism here and it was very bad. It meant white men would sit alone and separate from black men. So for this man to see you sitting here with us and sharing food with us is very special.”

Burundi

2008-03-24T21:10:00.005Z

It's been five days so far in Bujumbura. This is my first experience of Central Africa, and the first time I've been south of the Sahara since South Africa, when I was still only a little boy (now a big boy), in 1994.

The nights are hot and humid, geckos are climbing the walls. In the mornings, I look out of my window and see mist over the mountains. I can hear the sound of tropical birds. It's already warm by 8am, and I climb out from under my mosquito net, still drowsy after some very vivid dreams brought on, I think, by malaria medication.

I'm here to cover a landmine clearance operation, one that - when completed within the next two months - will make Burundi the first 100% landmine free country in the world. Burundi, as tiny and internationally obscure as it is, has its own horrific past of genocide and civil war. One thing it doesn't need now is landmines and unexploded ordnance littering the country. Violence continues despite a 2000 ceasefire and the parliament has been paralysed for over two months after Alice Nzumokunda - the head of the ruling party CNDD-FDD - was dismissed for "undisclosed" reasons.

I interviewed the new head of CNDD-FDD, Colonel Jeremie Ngendakumana, and asked him directly why Alice was removed from office.

He smiled and said "This is internal party matters, I don't think it is right to discuss it with people outside of the party."

The Colonel had, so far, refused to discuss his party's reasons with anyone in Burundi, neither journalist or non-party member. "But everyone in the party knows why," he assured me. This wasn't a good answer from a Colonel, in a country accustomed to military coups, who is now being accused of being a dictator.

Christmas Songs

2007-12-28T01:02:00.000Z

We are invited to Campbell's for Christmas dinner. His entire family is there, all 21 of them (with Robert and I added as last-minute guests), too big to fit in their home, so they rent out an entire bed-and-breakfast for themselves. They are, on the surface, a typical mid-west family: sweet, polite, apple pie and gingham shirts. Campbell's grandparents introduce themselves: "I'm grandma," his grandmother chirps and shakes my hand. "And I'm grandpa!" his grandfather chimes excitedly. It's all so sweet and bible-belt looking it's easy to forget these people are actually fairly radical pacifists, many of them willing to break federal law to help "fugitives" escape from the U.S. military.

My first impression of the sweet, harmless family is quickly shattered when we start talking about international politics. There aren't many Mid-west Christian families who can talk confidently about Palestine and Israel, some of them from first-hand experience having worked there in peace-making and human rights teams.
"What do you think of this Annapolis Conference?" Campbell's uncle asks, smiling deviously and sarcastically fishing for a reaction. "They've never tried that before have they? It looks like it'll be sorted within a year..."

When Campbell's grandfather bows his head to say grace before our meal, he asks if anyone would like to sing a song before we start. Dara, one of the younger granddaughters, requests "Joy to the World," and I expect (as I'm used to hearing at impromptu family sing-a-longs) a half-hearted, off-key rendition. But I'd forgotten the Menonite tradition, explained to me earlier by a proud Campbell, for spontaneous group singing in harmony. In Campbell's family, they take this tradition particularly seriously.

"Joy to the World" was a rousing, beautiful ode in four-part harmony, with everyone knowing their part perfectly. I struggled to choose a key. Robert was hopeless. As the family finished the meal and moved into the living room to read the Christmas story and sing more hymns and carols, it became increasingly clear that Robert had absolutely no hope of singing anything in key. He couldn't even follow the melody. I tried to throw in a few harmonies to impress the family (no one noticed) but as I filmed Robert, I started to feel bad, slightly embarrassed for him. He really was terrible. At times when he did actually make a sound, it was way off. Not even close to the tune. I was filming him closely for the documentary, but it ended up looking like an exercise in humiliate him, and getting it all on tape for future humiliations, possibly broadcast around the work on Al-Jazeera International.

No one said peace-loving, Christian army deserters had to be able to sing.

A Few Days Waiting

2007-12-27T15:56:00.000Z

The next few days pass slowly. Robert and I have little to do, except wait for something else to happen. The weather is well below zero in Northern Indiana, and the hotel room's heater barely works. I watch cheap tv at night because I can find little inspiration to do anything else. I go for short runs while the sun is still up, slipping on ice in the road and running straight into snow and oncoming car headlights (there are no pavements in this part of the city).

Because Robert has no plan of his own - he is working based on Campbell's advice - he's often left waiting for Campbell before making any real decisions. He's very much alone in this - without family or friends to support him. On the days Campbell spends away from us, with his family, Robert is lost. He often asks me about the process, about how military law treats people like him (what should we call them? Conscientious objectors? Deserters? Criminals? Patriots? It depends on who you ask) Robert asks me about turning himself in, about protocol and procedures. I know only what I've been reading lately about it, but I try to put his mind at ease as best as I can. He switches quickly and constantly between acting very confident, and showing his true vulnerable self.

Most of the time, he considers everything he wants to say very carefully. Listening to his reasoning, his intelligent speech, you would never guess he was only 19. Most of the time he presents himself as a very relaxed, but angry kid.

But one night he gets a little drunk and I finally see the angry teenager. He vents his anger at the military, yelling at me in the deserted hotel bar as though I was the military.
"You just degrade me like that, trying to make me feel less than human! Everything is designed so that the men who were once soldiers being picked on and beaten up then become officer, and they pick on you and bear up the soldiers under their command because that's how they were treated. You de-humanise everyone! How can you ask me to respect when you treat me like shit!"

It goes on like this for almost an hour - occasionally looking up at the television above his head to distract myself - before I have to ask Robert to calm down, and I leave for my room to watch more cheap television and fall asleep.

This Small Town

2007-12-26T00:24:00.000Z

As Campbell drives us through this small town in Northern Indiana, Robert and I slump into exhaustion. He jokes with Campbell about the experience, about the state Trooper who was only interested in questions about videos on YouTube, the moment we thought he would surely be arrested. I laugh with him, somewhat reveling in the fact that we're finally safe. I'm tired and hungry, looking out the window, into the freezing night, watching the quintessential American signs pass us by: the glowing MacDonalds logo, petrol stations, green road signs, stick on lettering in front of Churches wishing me a Merry Christmas and reminding me that Jesus loves me.

As he drives, Campbell calls his father asking where he recommends as a safe house for Robert. We pull into a Motel where we'll be staying for two nights until the safe house is confirmed. We pay in cash just in case the FBI are looking out for credit card transactions. After dumping our bags into our rooms, Robert and Campbell sit on opposite beds, eating the pizza we ordered for dinner (everywhere else was closed...) and falling into theological debates. They're not arguments, though Robert enjoys being combative, perhaps knowing that his knowledge of the Bible and its interpretations is immense. They discuss drinking, is it written in the Bible that Christians shouldn't drink, or just that they shouldn't get drunk? Robert's Chaplain in the army who - amongst other things - advocated hitting your children believes the Bible instructs Christians not to drink at all. He also believes the war in Iraq to be one battle in a major Christian-Muslim Holy War, so I wouldn't take his opinion as gospel. Anyone whose job it is to provide religious justification for war should be suspect...

Pizzas finished, we head to the bar downstairs for a drink. It was closed when we checked in, and the receptionist told us that Christmas Day it wouldn't be open. But the bar-tender agreed to open it just for a few drinks for his friends. Then we found it open so he could hardly refuse to serve us (though he did demand exact change). We sit in the cold bar, right beside the speaker churning out loud hip-hop, with the dance floor empty beside us. On the tvs above our heads various sports games are playing. The Patriots are set to be the first team in history to finish a 16-game season undefeated. I don't care about American football, but Robert seems excited.