As drug cartels expand their operations in Central America, the region is seeing the world’s highest homicide rates. Some Latin American leaders now say they are ready to discuss the decriminalisation of narcotics. We look at how the drug war between the military and the narco-traffickers impacts the people of Latin America.

In this episode of The Stream, Phil joins a discussion including Rodolfo Pastor, a former Honduran diplomat; and Eduardo Vergara, a drug policy expert. The host is Imran Garda.

After a Channel 4 documentary says war crimes were committed against Tamils in Sri Lanka’s long civil war. The government is now under pressure to investigate. Is reconciliation still possible? Phil joins Rajiva Wijesinha, a Sri Lankan MP and Advisor on Reconciliation to the President, plus
Kumar Kumarendran from the British Tamils Forum.

April 2011

Report from RT news:

Al-Qaeda says it has a new leader and the US has a new bogeyman as the long-time deputy to Osama bin Laden takes over the leadership of Al-Qaeda. He is already promising to continue the jihad against America and Israel.

­A statement announcing 59-year-old Ayman al-Zawahiri’s appointment was posted on a militant website on Thursday.

“Hereby the General Command of the Qaeda al-Jihad, and after the end of the consultations, we declare that Sheikh Dr. Abu Muhammad Ayman al-Zawahiri (may God bless him) will take over the responsibility of command of the group,” the statement, attributed to Al-Qaeda’s general command said.

The decision to appoint al-Zawahiri as leader was made out of respect to the “righteous martyrs” and to honor Bin Laden’s legacy, the announcement said.

According to Phil Rees, an expert on terrorism, many consider al-Zawahiri the “brains behind the movement.” 

As one of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists, al-Zawahiri has played a defining role in Al-Qaeda.

“There were the mujahadeen who defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan – they defeated the super power. They did not quite know what to do next. And it was Ayman al-Zawahiri who was instrumental in leading Osama Bin Laden into that faction, into the kind of global jihad that we now know that target groups like the United Nations, and like aid agencies. So really, he has been on what you might call the extremist side of the movement,” Rees told RT.

A doctor by education, al-Zawahiri founded the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ). Washington accuses him of killing US citizens, as well as conspiring to kill US citizens.

The new leader has been on the wanted list since August 7, 1998, following his involvement in bombing the US embassies in Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi, in which more than 200 people died.

The FBI is offerins a $25-million reward for information leading to the newly appointed leader, the same amount as the reward for bin Laden.

It was also said in the statement that under al-Zawahiri the fight against “apostate invaders” will continue “until all invading armies leave the land of Islam.”

“You might say that anybody who is new in the job might want to do something spectacular to impose their name. Al-Qaeda is basically a cell-structure around the world. Osama Bin Laden was not directing in any sort of immediate sense, in any operational sense.  Ayman al-Zawahiri will not be doing that either. He has been the theoretician behind it and I think he still is committed as ever to the principles of a global jihad, and that will carry on. So I think the threat to the west, indeed to Russia, is still there,” said Rees.

Zawahiri’s new appointment comes six weeks after  the previous Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed at his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by American Special Forces on May 2.

Earlier reports pointed to Saif al-Adel as al-Qaeda’s new leader.

The Good Friday Agreement was said to be Tony Blair’s greatest achievement. In an interview with Phil Rees, the former Prime Minister said that same model could be applied to the Middle East, where now he is a special envoy appointed by the UN and others. But all that seems to be unravelling after the discovery of a truck with 200 kg of explosives in January 2009 and the killing of three members of the security services. In this television documentary shown in 2010, Phil Rees investigates whether the war in Ireland is actually over.

Television documentary by Phil Rees shown on BBC2 in December 2000.

Jesus Maria Pedrosa has become another statistic in Europe’s longest insurgency. As he walked along a busy street in his hometown in the north of Spain, a man leapt from a nearby car and shot him in the head.

Pedrosa was the 773rd victim of the Basque separatist group ETA, which is demanding independence for the Basque people of northern Spain and southwest France. Since it ended a cease-fire last December, ETA has killed at least 20 people.

‘To Kill a Stranger’ examines why ETA returned to violence; it asks what the shootings and bombings can achieve. It reveals why young men and women growing up in a prosperous corner of Western Europe are prepared to kill a stranger in the name of their nationhood.

The longest insurgency in Western Europe now appears like a conflict without end. Phil Rees discovers a radically polarised society, whose divisions are becoming wider and wider with each passing month.

Television documentary by Phil Rees, shown on the BBC2 in October 1999.

A few days before Nato bombs hailed down on Serbia, I crossed the Sava River and drove toward New Belgrade. I’d arranged a meeting with a leading Serbian political analyst, Professor Stojanovic. I explained that I wanted to ask a few questions about the rule of Milosevic. He interrupted; “There is one thing you must understand about Milosevic. Unlike most men in the Balkans, he has only slept with one woman in his life.”

I laughed but the Professor was not smiling. He went on: “His relationship with (his wife) Mira Markovic is key to understanding the events of the last ten years in Yugoslavia.”

Phil Rees reports for the BBC’s Correspondent programme on the key reason why President Milosevic and his influential wife Mira Markovic remain in power despite losing Kosovo.

“The West does not understand Milosevic. His behaviour is anti-logical. He does not conform to the norms that western journalists and politicians apply.”

I was drinking coffee with Nenad Djordjevic, once a close friend of Mira Markovic, wife of Yugoslavia’s president, Slobodan Milosevic: “Milosevic thrives on isolation. The more the West applies sanctions, the stronger his position becomes.”

I had travelled to Yugoslavia three months after the war over Kosovo to discover the fate of Milosevic and his powerful wife, Mira Markovic. Known to Serbs simply as Sloba and Mira, they have governed the strange citadel of Serbian politics like a medieval court for over a decade.

It was an autumn morning in Budvar, an elegant seaside town in Montenegro.

The happy couple in 1964

Djordjevic was vice-president of Mira Markovic’s party until he was accused of embezzling $10 million from the fund that pays the state health insurance. He served a brief prison sentence and is now enjoying the relative sanctuary of Montenegro, the smaller Republic in Yugoslavia that is no longer under Milosevic’s control.

Djordjevic pleaded innocence regarding his own case. He then went on to spend two hours describing different scams and moneymaking schemes employed by Milosevic’s ministers and supporters. On my notepad, he piled zeros onto figures for funds illegally pocketed by prominent Serbian officials.

“The only way to understand Milosevic and Mira” he said, “is to understand the Mafia”.

Never a nationalist

In the West, Milosevic is considered a nationalist. In fact, Milosevic has never been concerned with Serb nationalism. He exploited the plight of the Serb minority in Kosovo to gain power but ever since has used Kosovo as a vote bank to deliver seats for his party in the Serbian Parliament.

One of the key reasons why Milosevic did not accept a compromise over Kosovo was the consequence that would have for his power base in Belgrade.

Mrs Markovic waves after her speech to the Yugoslav Left Union in 1996

Any deal would have brought an Albanian political grouping to Belgrade that would weaken Milosevic’s control. The loss of Kosovo and the ruthless killing that accompanied it has meant that compromise with the Albanians is now impossible. Milosevic prefers to lose territory rather than lose his absolute power.

“Milosevic is not a nationalist. He has given away Serbian lands for years,” says Alexsandar Tijanic, a burly man with a square jaw and short hair, cropped in military-style.

At one time Milosevic’s Minister for Information, he wrote an open letter last year calling for Milosevic to resign. The text chronicled the damage Milosevic had done to Serbia during his rule. It also said that corruption had entered the heart of Government.

Exploiting isolation

The Serbian economy was cut off from the outside world after the United Nations imposed sanctions in 1992, during the war in Bosnia. Since then, Milosevic and Mira have exploited the economic isolation to create their alternative world.

Tijanic described how the couple had instigated “a social revolution” in Serbia that made Milosevic into a Godfather.

“They chose about 10,000 people who were loyal to the regime. These people were allowed in a very short time to accumulate great wealth. An extremely rich new economic class emerged, made up of people worth tens of millions of pounds”.

The money came from smuggling opportunities and business monopolies granted by Sloba and Mira. The couple treated state industry and government concessions as a source of largesse for their followers. The distinction between the legal and the illegal blurred.

A more recent picture of the couple

“He allowed everyone to smuggle,” says the Belgrade economist Mladjan Dinkic. “He organised everything so as to corrupt everyone in society from the top to the bottom, so that everyone is involved in corruption of some sort.”

Nebojsa Covic was the former Mayor of Belgrade and one of the few men to have broken with Milosevic on a matter of principle. “The central aim of Milosevic’s policies is to sully everything that surrounds him. He buys, places you in a role, and once he has done that it is very difficult to go back and free yourself from those claws” said Covic.

Most of the wealthy in Serbia have made money illegally and Sloba and Mira use this knowledge to deter those who might consider disloyalty. The couple have compiled files on both friends and foe – files that contain evidence that could be used in a court of law.

Dusan Mitevic was a friend of Sloba and Mira for three decades. “They use everything” he told me, “whatever contributes to them achieving their political interests. Blackmail, bribery, patronage. Everything is used, everything is allowed in the game.”

Nenad Djordjevic – who I later found out owns the hotel where I was sipping coffee – was a secret policeman in the old Communist regime.

He reminded me that Milosevic retains absolute control of today’s secret police. “While Serbia remains isolated,” he said, “Sloba and Mira can do what they want and will remain in power for years”.

Television documentary by Phil Rees, shown on the BBC in October 2002.

Teenage boys in Japan’s cities are turning into modern hermits – never leaving their rooms. Pressure from schools and an inability to talk to their families are suggested causes. Phil Rees visits the country to see what the “hikikomori” condition is all about.

I knew him only as the boy in the kitchen.

His mother, Yoshiko, wouldn’t tell me his name, fearful that neighbours in this Tokyo suburb might discover her secret.

Her son is 17 years old. Three years ago he was unhappy in school and began to play truant.

Then one day, he walked into the family’s kitchen, shut the door and refused to leave.

Families adjust

Since then, he hasn’t left the room or allowed anyone in.

Sprawling city suburbs harbour hikikomori sufferers

The family have since built a new kitchen – at first they had to cook on a makeshift stove or eat take away food.

His mother takes meals to his door three times a day.

The toilet is adjacent to the kitchen, but he only baths once every six months.

Yoshiko showed me pictures of her son before his retreat into isolation; he was a plump, cheerful young teenager, with no symptoms of mental illness.

Bullying tipped the balance

Then a classmate taunted him with anonymous hate letters and scrawled abusive graffiti about him in the schoolyard.

The boy in the kitchen suffers from a social disorder known in Japan as hikikomori, which means to withdraw from society.

One psychologist has described the condition as an “epidemic”, which now claims more than a million sufferers in their late teens and twenties.

The trigger is usually an event at school, such as bullying, an exam failure or a broken romance.

Dr Grubb: “I’d knock the door down and walk in”

Unique condition

Dr Henry Grubb, a psychologist from the University of Maryland in the United States, is preparing the first academic study to be published outside Japan.

He says that young people the world over fear school or suffer agoraphobia, but hikikomori is a specific condition that doesn’t exist elsewhere.

“It’s really hard to get a handle on this” he told me, “there’s nothing like this in the West.”

Dr Grubb is also surprised by the passive, softly, softly approach followed by parents and counsellors in Japan.

“If my child was inside that door and I didn’t see him, I’d knock the door down and walk in. Simple. But in Japan, everybody says give it time, it’s a phase or he’ll grow out of it.”

‘Crammer’ schools wield heavy pressure

If children refuse to attend school, social workers or the courts rarely get involved.

Most consider hikikomori a problem within the family, rather than a psychological illness.

Historical origins

Japan’s leading hikikomori psychiatrist, Dr Tamaki Saito, believes the cause of the problem lies within Japanese history and society.

Traditional poetry and music often celebrate the nobility of solitude.

And until the mid-nineteenth century, Japan had cut itself off from the outside world for 200 years.

More recently, Dr Saito points to the relationship between mothers and their sons.

Most hikikomori sufferers are male, often the eldest son.

Dr Saito is critical of the mother and son relationship

“In Japan, mothers and sons often have a symbiotic, co-dependent relationship.

Mothers will care for their sons until they become 30 or 40 years old.”

After a period of time – usually a matter of years – some re-enter society.

The mystery remains

Increasingly, clinics are opening, offering a half-way house for recovering sufferers.

Another sufferer, Tadashi, spent four years without leaving his home.

Two years ago, he sought help and now has a part time job making doughnuts.

Tadashi is slowly re-entering society.

He still fears meeting strangers and is petrified that neighbours will find out that he once suffered from the disorder.

Hiroshi Sasaki’s self imposed exile has shattered family life

But what bothers him most is not understanding why he lost four years of his life.

“I want to know the reasons,” he told me. “You could say it’s related to Japanese traditions.

“I just don’t know. I suppose people are still trying to find out what hikikomori is all about.”