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The AIH Transcript for March 18, 2022

Hosts: Gillian Findlay and Chris Howden

GILLIAN FINDLAY: Hello, I'm Gillian Findlay.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening, I'm Chris Howden, this is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

Prologue

CH: Tonight:

GF: Peace through war. Russia accelerates its bombing campaign in Ukraine -- and with negotiations going nowhere, our guest says the best way to reach a settlement is to defeat Putin's troops on the ground.

CH: Taking cover and providing coverage. A TV journalist who fled Kyiv says she and her husband are determined to report on the war from the small Ukrainian community where they've sought refuge.

GF: Conflict of interest. With all eyes on Ukraine, the head of the WHO is urging the world not to forget the war raging in Ethiopia -- where a Tigrayan politician tells us the humanitarian situation is only worsening.

CH: Learning the hard way. A school teacher in Toronto says Ontario's refusal to extend the mask mandate for students suggests the province is ignoring the lessons of its very recent past.

GF: No accounting for paste. A hot young Italian chef has created an avant-garde menu of mushy, gooey or totally liquid dishes that are a feast for the senses -- if not so much for the stomach.

CH: And… when you come to a fork in the road, take it. The mayor of a small Ontario town didn't think a thief would take that mantra seriously until the three-metre tall stainless steel utensil that decorated his town was stolen.

CH: As It Happens, the Friday edition. Radio that fears the tines, they are a-changin.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Ukraine Negotiations, Ontario School Masks, Ontario Missing Fork

Ukraine Negotiations

Guest: Dmytro Natalukha

CH: Hopes of a negotiated settlement to Russia's war in Ukraine have once again been reduced to rubble. Earlier this week, there were reports of conciliatory language on both sides, but that did nothing to stop the fighting. And today, Russia expanded its airstrikes -- bombing not just Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, but also the outskirts of Lviv in the relatively peaceful western part of Ukraine. Dmytro Natalukha is a Ukrainian government MP and the chair of the parliament's Economy Committee. We reached him in Kyiv.

GF: Mr. Natalukha, what is the situation in Kyiv tonight?

DMYTRO NATALUKHA: The situation is Kyiv is under control. The city is not encircled, regardless of some news from different media. Everything is bearable. We are being shelled from time to time. Bombs are arriving at civilian resident areas. So just this morning, a rocket hit a civilian house and, unfortunately, with casualties. But all in all, this situation is bearable.

GF: I want to ask you a little bit about the negotiations that are going on. In the last couple of days, President Zelensky has been sounding… maybe optimistic is too optimistic a term, but he is saying that the talks are sounding more realistic to him. What does that mean, do you think?

DN: I think it would be… it would be appropriate for… for him or for, you know, the negotiations crew to comment on that one. But I believe that we are talking about humanitarian corridors and about some… some kind of a ceasefire, at least. People are asking frequently regarding NATO. I'm not sure we are going to. We are ready to give up on that 100 per cent. We are not giving up on any kind of Ukrainian territory that is occupied by the Russian Federation, including Crimea and the Donbas. So, I think that what he means is that we have some kind of understanding regarding the humanitarian corridors and a short cease-fire. But I might be mistaken. It would be more appropriate to ask somebody from the negotiations team.

GF: Sure, I understand you're not part of the negotiations team. But Mr. Zelensky has said as well that he understands that Ukraine is not a member of NATO and likely will not be a member of NATO. He appears to have taken that off the table. Is that your understanding as well?

DN: No, no. My understanding is that that is still on the table. The thing is that, I'll be honest with you, we are a bit disappointed with the rather hesitant reaction from NATO because there are other alternatives to a no-fly zone, there are other possibilities, and what we don't see is the eagerness that somebody is looking for from them.

GF: What are the alternatives that you would hope that NATO would… would be pursuing?

DN: So we can… we can do a no-fly zone ourselves if we have the proper military equipment, the anti-air missile systems and… and stuff like that. And we have been suggesting this for some time already. And I think that this is absolutely doable, but nobody understands this kind of… of reluctance.

GF: What is the reluctance, do you think?

DN: I think it's this kind of still persistent state of denial in the West that this is not about the West in general. This is only about Ukraine. This is this fear of starting something bigger, some kind of a World War Three. While to us, it's obvious that it's not about Ukraine, and this kind of a major conflict is already on because what we see today is not just Putin, it's a brainwashed country that has a nuclear arm, and they are literally blackmailing the whole world with it. And if he gets away with Ukraine, there is nothing that will stop him going further. So for us, it's obvious that this war cannot be won, except with a change in Russian political leadership.

GF: If that… if what you say is true, what explains to you the fact that the Russians are even at the negotiating table?

DN: Because the losses are unprecedented and because the morale of the Russian army has never been lower. I mean, they're sending generals today to the battlefields because their soldiers refuse to obey the orders. They lost four generals in the… in the last couple of weeks. I mean, Ukrainian forces liquidated at least four generals. So the leadership in Russia understands what a disaster this war is and how disastrous it can turn even more if they continue this way. So for them, they're also looking for a way out, but they want to preserve their face. But there is no way to preserve their face on their terms because I mean, there is nothing that we are ready to accept from what they propose, to recognize Crimea, for instance, or to recognise Donbas or something like that.

GF: And --

DN: So it's a constant search.

GF: And yet, it is Ukrainians who are paying the overwhelming humanitarian price here. And I'm wondering, I hear what you're saying about no compromise, but at some point, is there a place? Are there things that you, as a Ukrainian politician, would be willing to concede in order to stop the fighting?

DN: Yeah, I am ready to concede this idea of destroying Moscow once we reach our legitimately… legitimately recognized borders. That is the only thing I'm ready to concede. Because I mean, what has happened is that we were a peaceful nation, and another… and another country brutally attacked us and now is demanding from us to sign, cede, concede or recognize something. Why should we concede anything? It's our territory, it's our people, it's our country, and we have been under attack.

GF: Mr. Natalukha, thank you. Thank you for your time today.

DN: Take care. Bye-bye.

GF: Bye-bye.

CH: Dmytro Natalukha is a Ukrainian government MP. We reached him in Kyiv. And you can find more on that story on our webpage at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Ambient]

Ontario School Masks

Guest: Kelly Matheson

CH: When Ontario students head back to class after March break, their face masks won't necessarily be going with them. Starting Monday, masks will no longer be required in Ontario schools, as well as in most indoor spaces, including restaurants, shopping malls and movie theatres. Toronto's Public School Board flagged concerns about the move and asked the province to wait longer before ending mandatory masking in schools. But yesterday, the province denied that request. Kelly Matheson is a high school teacher in Toronto. We reached her on vacation in Banff, Alberta.

GF: Kelly, what did you think when you heard that the province has denied this request by your school board to extend the mask mandate?

KELLY MATHESON: I was very upset. Yeah, to be clear, I am no fan of… most teachers are not, of this government. I think it's hypocritical that private schools and universities, who universities have much higher vaccine rates, are continuing with the mask mandate, and we're, like, simply not allowed to. I think it's negligent, to be quite honest.

GF: Well, according to the chief medical officer of health in Ontario, the peak of the Omnicom virus is passed and that there's no more need for this.

KM: [soft chuckle] Unfortunately, I don't trust him. You know, I listen to the science table. And when Peter Jüni says that we might be doing this a little bit too soon, I trust his words.

GF: This is the science table that advises the government?

KM: Correct. Yeah, I follow --

GF: Which has suggested that perhaps this is a little too hasty, right?

KM: Yeah. You know, I would have hoped that they would have at least waited until two weeks after March break. You know, we didn't feel comfortable leaving the country, and we chose Banff because we're having a mostly outside holiday. [chuckle] But I know for a fact my students are, many people I know, are in Mexico. They've left the country and were all coming back after, you know, a week of flying on aeroplanes, buses, sightseeing. And I just think it's negligent to insist, you know, that no, you're not allowed to continue the mask mandate. I am at a loss for words often.

GF: The government also says... and points to the high vaccination coverage in Ontario, the availability of antiviral treatments now. They say the risk of serious illness for those who are vaccinated, which is for most high school kids, is low. So… so, who are you most worried about?

KM: Well, I'm worried for my elementary colleagues. We don't know how this virus affects people. Some people are fine, others or not. I have an immunocompromised daughter. She lives with her father. So this means now that I'll have to say to her when she comes home to Toronto for her medical appointments that I can't see her. I don't trust it because I will potentially be exposed. You know, I have… I have 80 students that I see every day.

GF: Of course, nobody is saying that you can't wear a mask. People who want to can. And… and the government has acknowledged that in some cases, they should be encouraged to. But why is that not good enough for you?

KM: Well, you know, teenagers are teenagers. I would like to believe that the vast majority will wear masks. However, I know some won't. I mean, we are constantly telling certain students at our school to put their masks on. Constantly throughout class, pull your mask over your nose. I know that there are some that won't. I know that there are some that can't wait to take their masks off, and I worry about peer pressure to have masks off. I worry that people aren't informed with non-political advice, best practice and guidance.

GF: So, you've mentioned political a couple of times. What is it, you think? If this is not based on good public health science, what's at work here?

KM: Well, I think polling numbers, I think Doug Ford is looking very closely at people's reactions. I read yesterday on the news, a very distressing article about, you know, it was a loaded question. It was very vague about people are tired of masks. Of course, we're all tired. We'd rather not wear them. However, you know, Omicron is not done with us as much as we'd like to be done with it. And, you know, he is, I think, appealing to his base. You know, the people who were in Ottawa who are protesting their freedom, ironically.

GF: You say that you chose to spend your spring break in Canada. And, of course, you know that many people have… have not done that. As I understand it, your students who are returning to Canada will still have to wear a mask for two weeks since they've been out of the country. Does that give you any comfort?

KM: I don't know. How can we ensure that? [chuckle] You know, how do we know the kids who… who have travelled outside? I don't… I just think, you know, it's so much easier to enforce a mask mandate if it is, you know, government public health mandated. It's just easier. Just please, you know, put your mask over your nose and mouth. It's easy.

GF: Yeah. Just lastly, you mentioned private schools as well. And the private school in Toronto, St. Michael's College -- which is where, actually, [KM chuckles] the education minister attended as a student -- has said that students there will continue to wear masks at least until Easter.

KM: Yeah.

GF: What do you make of that?

KM: Well, I find that it's hypocrisy. You know, why are you absolutely saying to the TDSB and other boards, no, you know, you may not have a mask mandate and that you're allowing private schools and universities? It's just wrong. You know, I think it's… I don't like the way they frame this as masks are an inconvenience. I think masks are a very… it's our last sort of line of defence. It's a very easy thing to wear a mask. And I just… I feel that it's wrong that you're setting us up for, you know, a pretty substantial peak. I mean, if you look at the countries that dropped their mask mandates sooner, you'll see the spike in cases and deaths. So it's concerning.

GF: So when you walk into the classroom Monday morning, what are you going to say to your students?

KM: Well, I will have my windows open and my HEPA filter at full speed. I probably will wear my face shield as well. And I will just share with them that I have an immunocompromised daughter, and I would sincerely appreciate the courtesy of them wearing a mask.

GF: Right. Well, Kelly, good luck. I hope it goes well.

KM: Thank you so much.

GF: Take care. Bye-bye.

KM: Have a wonderful day. Stay safe. Thank you. Bye-bye.

GF: Kelly Matheson is a high school teacher in Toronto. We reached her today in Banff, Alberta.

[Music: Folk]

Ontario Missing Fork

Guest: Brant Burrow

CH: Usually, when you come to a fork in the road, you have two options: you take one route or another. But in one small Ontario town, someone selected a third option: take the fork itself. Now, to be clear, the road is still there. And is the fork in the road -- it still splits off in two directions. But the Frankville Fork is missing. As in the three-metre tall stainless steel fork that once stood at the fork in the road. Brant Burrow is the mayor of the Township of Elizabethtown-Kitley, where the fork was located. That's where we reached him.

GF: Mayor Burrow, what did you think when you learnt that the Frankville Fork was missing?

BRANT BURROW: Well, it was a real gut punch because that's not something that I would expect to happen in… in our community. The people who live here are better than that. I don't know whether this was maybe a dare or somebody who was passing through on their way to work on a regular basis and got a crazy idea in their head one day. I really don't know what to make of it, but it was a real gut punch to what's right and wrong in the world, you know?

GF: Well, that's what I was going to ask you. Who would want to steal a three-metre tall stainless steel fork?

BB: Well, it's not the type of thing that you're going to hang in your basement, you know, as sort of a trophy piece. I think it's so… so identifiable, so unique that there's just too much risk in that. So if it was something like… like a dare, then you know, that's maybe better than… than the worst scenario. And that is that… that somebody just wanted to steal it for the scrap value. And it will end up cut up into little pieces and hauled off for, you know, 100 pounds or so of scrap metal. And I don't even know if they'll get $100 for it to tell you the truth.

GF: So is there an investigation going on to find out who took it?

BB: Yes. So Bill Gibbons, who used to operate Gibbons Maple Syrup, is an avid art collector. He has a private studio that he opens up every now and then to… to the public. And so he was the one who came to the township council with the idea of putting literally a fork in the road where there's a fork in the road. So he noticed because he lives just a little bit beyond the fork in the road. He noticed that it had been vandalized and reported that to the police. And then it was only a few days later, this past weekend, that it was stolen. And so he reported that to the police as well. And as far as I know, there is a file open on it, and they're… they're trying to get to the bottom of it.

GF: So it was vandalized before it disappeared?

BB: Yeah, I think from… from what I saw, it looked like it was an attempt to remove it from its base, which is a, you know, a large boulder. And… and it was bent right over. So it looks like they weren't successful on the first attempt. And they brought back some… some tools, and I'm guessing it happened in… in the cover of night sometime over the weekend. And this time, they were successful in… in their original quest.

GF: Tell us a little bit more about why your town has the fork? It was Bill Gibbons who… who commissioned the piece. What was… what was your reaction when he came to town council and pitched it to you?

BB: Oh, we all thought it was… it was a fantastic idea. It's one of those whimsical things. You know, I mean, it takes a certain mind to come up with something like that. And… and when we were discussing it at the time, I remember council saying, gee, I hope this is the start of… of a whole string of really interesting ideas. Wouldn't it be great to get some kind of an… of an art tour? And for the township to become known for its… its quirky outdoor art? And unfortunately, then COVID hit. And so we didn't really, you know, we haven't had an opportunity as a world to... to entertain those types of thoughts, but I'm looking forward to some… some better things ahead on that front.

GF: And was it positively received by people in the town?

BB: Oh, absolutely. It's quirky, and it gets talked about all the time. And never mind, just people in the town or in the township. It's known far and wide. You know, this particular story has really captured the hearts of people, even… even beyond the nation. It's just been fantastic to see the response. You know, people are quite sad that it's gone.

GF: [chuckle] People who've never even seen it, perhaps?

BB: Oh, absolutely. And again, I guess there's a… I guess it probably sparks people's memories of anybody who's seen the… The Muppet Movie, you know, will probably make a link there. There's a scene where Kermit is navigating, and he tells Fozzie to turn left at the fork in the road. And this was… this was kind of like that.

GF: Lo and behold, there really was a fork in the road.

BB: Absolutely. Yep, for sure. And I can't… I can't resist telling people when… when they ask me, you know, how I feel about it. But when I first got… got the news that the fork was gone, it cut like a knife.

GF: [laughing] Oh my goodness. My goodness. [both laughing] Tell us about the road itself. Is there something particularly important about this… this fork in the road, where the roads actually split?

BB: Well, when… when Gibbons was up and running as a… as a maple sugar bush, of course, they used to give tours and so on around the boiler room and whatnot. And… and maybe, you know, I'm sort of speaking for Bill here, but… but maybe he just got tired of telling people, turn left at the fork in the road. [GF chuckles] It's… it's quite a shallow angle. You know, there's… there's a Kitley Line 8 and Leacock Road meet at this… this particular intersection. And it is, it's a very shallow angle. So depending on which direction you're travelling in, it can be a little bit confusing when people are trying to tell you, you know, how to reach their homes or what have you. So I don't think that anybody has had any trouble with their directions since we put the landmark at the fork in the road.

GF: Well, presumably, a giant fork can't be that hard to find. Are you optimistic it'll show up?

BB: Yeah, Bill and I between us are just sort of biding our time a little bit, hoping, especially with all the attention that its disappearance has garnered, that maybe whoever took it is having second thoughts. And Bill has said outright, you know, at this point, just say to yourself what a dumb idea was. Drop it off at his house sometime when he's not there, in the middle of the night. He doesn't care. No questions asked. You know, it would be… it would be a shame to just have it assumed that it's been cut up for scrap. But one way or another, there is going to be a fork at that location again. You know, Bill and I are both determined. Council hasn't had a chance to talk about the mechanics of how that might happen, but… but that can come in due course. But I'm pretty confident in saying that at some point in the future, there's going to be another utensil there. [GF chuckles softly] This community does not have to move forward without a fork in the road.

GF: All right. Mayor Burrow, thank you so much and good luck. I hope you find it.

BB: Thanks very much. Have yourself a great day.

GF: Bye-bye.

CH: Brent Burrow is the mayor of the Township of Elizabethtown-Kitley, Ontario, and that's where we reached him.

[Music: Calypso]

Lasagna Toothpaste

CH: Sometimes, when you go out to dinner, you want something that will really stick to your ribs. But true culinary geniuses often create dishes that go nowhere near your ribs. Symphonies of pure flavour. Or, in this case, puréed flavour. At Ristorante 1978 in Rome, wunderkind chef Valerio Braschi is deconstructing, reconstructing, and re-deconstructing some of the great Italian classics. If you've ever wished you could eat pizza and still be very hungry, good news: the 24-year-old Mr. Braschi offers a "Marinara Pizza Sachet". A small bag full of powder. When you sprinkle the contents on your tongue, it tastes exactly like pizza. And if you've tired of using your overworked teeth to bite and chew stuff, you'll be pleased to hear Mr. Braschi's "Bruschetta Test Tube" offers all the flavours of the bruschetta, in convenient liquid format. And then there's his "Lasagna in Tubetto". It's lasagna, reduced to a paste, and served in what looks like a toothpaste tube. The visual echo is deliberate: Valerio Braschi told CNN, "The idea is to mimic the ritual of washing your teeth with the lasagna ingredients." After which you drink -- or gargle with -- a shot of parmigiano reggiano cheese water. It also sounds perfect for the kind of adventurous diner with an appetite for the unusual, but not an actual appetite. And, look, I know I've made fun of the dishes a bit, but if I ate at Ristorante 1978, I'm sure I'd be eating humble pie. Or probably drinking it.

[Music: Spanish guitar]

Part 2: Ukraine Journalist, Tigray Update

Ukraine Journalist

Guest: Sasha Ambroz

CH: The war in Ukraine is creeping closer to Sasha Ambroz. Ms. Ambroz is a TV journalist who fled Kyiv following Russia's invasion last month. But while millions of Ukrainians have left the country to seek safety abroad, she and her husband wanted to stay and work in the country they love. They found a temporary home in a town outside Lviv, well west of the initial invasion. But this morning, Russian missiles struck near an airport on the outskirts of Lviv. We reached Sasha Ambroz near there.

GF: Sasha, until now, Lviv has been considered a relatively safe haven for people. But after the attack near the airport last night, how safe does it feel to you?

SASHA AMBROZ: We are not in Lviv. We are like 150 kilometres, so where we are staying is, first of all, it's small. And secondly, we don't have here any airports, any military bases, so we believe that it's safe, still a safe… still a safe town.

GF: I'm wondering what it's like as you… as you watch the pictures and hear the stories from Kharkiv and Mariupol and places like that? What's that like for you?

SA: First of all, it's still not real, you know? Because you haven't seen it with your own eyes, you still watch it on the TV and I'm an international editor of International News. I've been writing news about international conflicts for like 15 years, so I've seen a lot of war. Also not physically, but through the television, through my work. And still, some parts of your brain doesn't believe it's real. But when you see bombings, when you see destroyed houses on the streets you were walking like two or three weeks ago, you see places you went on vacation or something like this, then you… then you grasp this reality. So it is very… it's unimaginable and difficult for me. And also, I feel… I feel guilty all the time because I left. I didn't suffer like thousands and hundreds of Ukrainian suffer, and this feeling of guilt is also very, very strong.

GF: Was it a difficult decision for you to leave?

SA: It was a very difficult decision for me because my parents and my grandparents stayed at Kyiv. Before the start of the war, we decided at the first bombings that we should leave together. But when everything started, my grandparents said, no, we won't go. We were staying here. It's difficult for us to leave because my grandfather can't walk. And my parents said, okay, you go. We’ll stay with them. And it was… I cried. I begged them to go because together it's easier. But they were against leaving. So we had… it was difficult because we had to change our first initial decision to leave together. So, of course it was… it was very difficult.

GF: And how are they faring? Are you in touch with them?

SA: Well, we talk. Yeah, we talk. Every time we talk. We message each other all the time. They are okay. They say they're okay, but I can… I can hear that they are… physically everything is fine. There are no problems with food. It's not Kharkiv, so it's it's just very quiet and… and some of the buildings are bombed, but very few of them so far. But, of course, mentally they are… it's tough for them. I talk to my father every day and I can hear that sometimes there are some good days, but there are some bad days also. He's exhausted.

GF: Right. Have you been in touch with Russian friends or colleagues? And if so, what is their perspective on what's happening?

SA: I've had a lot of friends in Moscow and St. Petersburg. We talked a lot. We fell apart after the 2014 revolution in Ukraine because they were all very liberal about Ukraine up until the point we decided to go to enter the European Union in 2014.

GF: Um-hmm.

GF: Sasha, if the fighting were to come to the western part of Ukraine and near where you were, what would you do then?

SA: If anything happens, then… then maybe I will leave, or maybe I will go further west because we have… there is some space [chuckling] to move inside the country. But so far, we don't believe that it will be so dangerous here that we will have to leave.

GF: All right. Well, I hope you're right, Sasha. And I really appreciate you talking to us today.

SA: Thank you so much for your interest.

CH: Sasha Ambrose is a Ukrainian TV journalist. We reached her in western Ukraine.

[Music: Ambient]

AB Rats

CH: Karen Wickerson is on high alert. Ms. Wickerson is Alberta's chief pest program coordinator. For more than 70 years, Alberta has prided itself as Canada's only rat-free province. But last year, 31 rats were found. That's up from 26 rogue rats found in 2020. Now, Karen Wickerson isn't scurrying to any conclusions. But she admits there's a hitch in the historically airtight system. And it's even more terrifying than the spike in numbers: the rodents have started hitchhiking.

[sc]

KAREN WICKERSON: You know, it varies every year. The majority were single rats that hitchhiked into the province, either from the east or the west.

MARK CONNOLLY: Hitchhiked?

KW: Umm-hmm.

MC: So what does that involve exactly? Do they have thumbs? I don't know.

KW: [laughing] Yeah, I don't… I don't think people would stop. [both laughing]

MC: Yeah, you're right.

KW: Yeah. So they crawl up into a vehicle or a holiday trailer and then, unbeknown to them, make a journey to Alberta. And when they get here, they're usually hot, dehydrated, tired, hungry, and they hop off in search of food and shelter and usually perish shortly after.

MC: Now, why do you think this… however, it is slight, but this slight increase in rats creeping over the borders this year?

KW: Yeah, um, I don't know if we have one sure reason why? But certainly, we know a lot of Albertans travel to B.C. -- anywhere from Salmon Arm down… down to Penticton. And there are a lot of rats there. Yeah.

MC: Ugh!

KW: So yeah, it's a good idea when you're coming back from B.C. to just open up the… the hood of your car and have a look inside and make sure you don't have any critters hitchhiking.

MC: There is a rat hotline. Are you on the end of that hotline? Like if someone calls, do they get you?

KW: That's right. Yeah, yeah. We have an email set up: 310rats@gov.ab.ca. And I do… either myself or my colleague monitors it daily.

MC: Mm-hmm.

KW: And we encourage people to send a photo, if they can, of the offending critter. And that way, we can just identify right away whether it is a rat or not, and we need to respond.

MC: You know, people from Saskatchewan who are very accusatory often say, what do you mean Alberta doesn't have rats? I heard you had two dozen last year. So what is the upper limit of rats that we, you know, we would say that if we got over that limit, we wouldn't be rat-free anymore?

KW: I think it's more that we know that they get into the province. Definitely, right?

MC: Yeah.

KW: There's no way I can stop them coming over the border, but we don't allow them to permanently establish. And that's the big thing.

MC: We are still rat-free? Officially, everything's good?

KW: Yep. Yep, feel confident in that.

MC: Okay.

CH: Karen Wickerson, Alberta's chief rat patroller speaking today with Mark Connelly, host of Edmonton AM.

[Music: Acoustic guitar]

Tigray Update

Guest: Hailu Kebede

CH: While the world watches the war in Ukraine, the director of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is urging everyone not to forget Ethiopia. He says there's "nowhere on Earth" that people are more at risk than Ethiopia's Tigray region.

[sc]

DR. TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS: In Ethiopia, six million people in Tigray have been under blockade by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces for almost 500 days, sealed off from the outside world. There is almost no fuel, no cash and no communications. No food aid has been delivered since the middle of December. Eighty-three per cent of the population is food insecure.

[/sc]

CH: That was Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the WHO. Fighting between government forces and the Tigray Liberation Front has been raging in Ethiopia for more than a year now. It's estimated that half a million people have died, and more than two million have been displaced. Hailu Kebede is a Tigrayan politician. We reached him in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

GF: Mr. Hailu, do you agree with the WHO director that, especially now with everyone so focused on what's going on in Ukraine that the world is in danger of forgetting what's going on in Tigray?

HAILU KEBEDE: I agree with the director's assessment on the situation in Tigray. If there was a better way to explain it, we would explain it better. But he has said it all almost, except that he forget even the airstrikes that have targeted civilians, the electricity cut off from the grid system and so on and so on. So, I agree with the assessment, and I also agree with you that the world is forgetting the Tigray blockades, the Tigray famines, the Tigray genocide. The humanitarian situation is worsening. In fact, if there was a word better than catastrophic to explain it, I would use such a word.

GF: What is your understanding of the situation now? How bad is it?

HK: It is one of the nightmares of our lives. I can't even explain it how it is because there is no food, there is no medication, there is no fuel, there is no banking system. Even people that are richest people or the middle-income people are now starving with their own children. People have started killing themselves or committing suicide because they cannot bring food to the table, to their children and to their families.

GF: We have seen examples of humanitarian assistance being blocked to the region. Aid workers being killed. What can you tell us about that?

DG: I see the word fear here. What kind of… is it fear of retribution? Is it fear of physical safety? Alysia, can you shine light on that?

AR: Yeah, fear actually kind of fits into all of our talking points, which were a toxic culture, transparency, safety and governance, the fear of retribution being a huge one. There were so many times where athletes have… have been scared to speak out or have a voice. They are finding themselves in a difficult position within the program. They feel like they can't speak up, have an honest conversation, so they have to go through either mediation or lawyers.

DG: Eighty athletes is an enormous number, even if many of them have signed anonymously, but that's an enormous number of athletes stepping forward. Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton responded to your letter in a statement to CBC, and I need to get this out. They wrote, we take the concerns of our athletes seriously. We plan to meet with our athletes community directly as soon as possible to review and address their concerns. They want a mediated meeting as well, with reps from Sports Canada and Own The Podium and the Canadian Olympic Committee to review the issue, develop an action plan. Kevin, what do you make of that?

KB: Well, first of all, they want to have the meeting with current athletes, which leaves a lot of the people that signed that letter off the meeting table. But yeah, we… we outright reject that offer of mediation. We didn't think it was fair that BCS came back and appointed a mediator so quickly without even really addressing anything in our letter.

[/sc]

CH: Kevin Boyer is an Olympic Skeleton racer. Alysia Rissling is an Olympic Bobsled pilot currently on hiatus from the sport. The two athletes spoke with David Gray, host of The Calgary Eyeopener today.

[Music: Electronica]

Part 3: Encore: Emma-Jane Kirby

Encore: Emma-Jane Kirby

CH: It is an exodus of epic proportions. Over the past few weeks, some three million refugees are believed to have fled Ukraine for neighbouring countries. They're crossing into Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Moldova. They're boarding trains and buses for places including Germany and the U.K. -- where home secretary Priti Patel faced intense criticism, before announcing a more streamlined process for incoming Ukrainians. And soon, many will be landing in Canada, where Immigration Minister Sean Fraser has promised to accept, quote, "an unlimited number" of people who want to leave Ukraine.

It's a crystallizing moment in a global refugee crisis that is not new. The kind of moment Emma-Jane Kirby helped capture, back in 2016. At the time, it had been three years since a boat carrying hundreds of mostly African migrants capsized off the coast of Italy, killing more than 360 of those on board. But passengers on a nearby sailing yacht managed to save 47 of them. Carmine Menna was one of the rescuers -- the local optician on the Italian island of Lampedusa. And in 2017, Ms. Kirby joined our recently former host, Carol Off, for a feature conversation about her novella inspired by Mr. Menna's efforts. From our archives, here's that interview about The Optician of Lampedusa -- and about a humanitarian crisis that's taken on a whole new resonance this month.

[sc]

CAROL OFF: Emma Jane, first of all, can you just tell us what happened that day off the coast of Lampedusa. This is October the 3rd 2013.

EMMA JANE KIRBY: The day before on October the 2nd 2013, we know that a boat full of migrants, more than 400 came, left Misrata in Libya and made its way towards Europe, drifted towards Lampedusa. And we know that in the small hours of the 3rd of October they were so close to Lampedusa that they could see car headlights on the island, the survivors have told us they could see the car headlights on the island driving around. And they decided to signal that they needed help. So they cut the engine. Unfortunately that meant the billage pump wasn't working so the boats began to flood with water. So they lit a towel and some flares to try and attract attention. Unfortunately they caught the boat caught fire, there was petrol on the deck, everybody ran to avoid the flames and it caused the boat to tip over.

CO: How many people were on the boat?

EJK: There were more than 400 people on that boat. We know that 368 of them didn't make it.

CO: And so they all, did they all end up in the water. Everybody ended up in the water. Of course women and children on those boats are always asked to stay below deck. And we know from the migrants who survived, that the women and children had been up on the deck because they wanted to see the excitement of the lights of Europe, The New Promised Land and they had gone back down below deck to dress themselves up, to tidy themselves up so that they would look good and clean and fresh for their new arrival and the start of their new lives. And of course, when the boat tipped over they were trapped and they didn't have a chance.

CO: The man, this optician. How does he enter the picture?

EJK: So Carmine Menna decided at the beginning of October that he was very tired and frankly he hadn't had much of a summer holiday. He needed a bit of a break. He decided to have a little weekend away with his wife sailing and six friends. One of his friends had an old boat. And off they went on the boat had a great night the night before and the optician wasn't sleeping very well. He woke up and heard the seagulls screaming as he thought over a lucky catch and he couldn't get back to sleep. It was annoying him the noise. So he came up on deck and then he started to hear those seagulls getting very loud and he was very perturbed by the seagulls. Other people on the boat woke up as well, came up to see him and said “What is that noise? He said, “I'm sure it's just seagulls. It's just seagulls isn’t it?” And they said “We don't think it is seagulls.” So they upped anchor and they moved towards that terrible noise. And as they got closer they saw black shapes in the water. The optician at first thought it was fish. I thought the black shapes were fish, but then he saw that these fish had arms and legs and faces and he realised that the sea was boiling with drowning people. And Carol, he was on a boat I should say, it was a small boat. It had a maximum capacity of 10. There were already eight of them on that boat. And there were hundreds of drowning people in the water.

CO: How did they respond to that when they saw those people. What did they do? They knew immediately that they would help. The optician's first thought, he remembers, and it stuck with me when I spoke to him in that interview a couple of years ago when I first met him. He didn't say “I wondered what do I do? How do I save them?” He said “How do I save them all?” Because he realised right from the start that he was never going to be able to save them all. They couldn't, there were just too many of them. So what they did they made a deal with each other that they had to move towards the groups of people that they could see rather than individuals and pull as many people up as they could at once. But remember these people had been in the water a very long time. By that time they'd been in the water several hours. They were exhausted. They had drunk seawater, they’d drunk gasoline. They were covered in petrol and gasoline which made them incredibly slippy to try and pull up. And the optician remembers the pull of that first young man that he pulled from the water. He still remembers the feel of that man's hand in his, grasping it and feeling the bones of that man the young man's hand cracking against his. And suddenly for him, as he touched that young man, he realized that the migrants the migration crisis was real and it was something which now absolutely concerned him.

CO: What you're describing, that moment when he pulled that man, held his hand and pulled him in, is something that is so striking. And we’ve made note of it here just so I could read it to you, I can read it to our listeners.

This is the passage as you describe it of the optician. “He'd never held anyone's hand so tightly before. The intimacy of the gesture with a naked total stranger, it made him wince. Yet when the force of the pull had flung the man up against his bare chest, he'd felt something strangely primeval stirred in him something almost like love.” Why do you think it was such an intimate experience for him?

EJK: Because this was life and death. He realised that, all of a sudden, you know, he was the only person that these migrants had to help them.

CO: He and his friends went into quite an operation it was almost like a triage. And the wives of the men who were on the boat were taking care of those who came up on the surface after the optician and the other men were able to get them in.

They, there's one passage in which that one of the wives gives one of the refugees a shirt to wear that she wears almost like a diaper. So many of these people they're pulling out of the water had lost their clothing and they're naked and they’re, even though they've almost died, they feel shame. So they're trying to help them cover up and. And so they become all involved in something just so extraordinarily intimate as well. And this brings us to the most important theme in the book is that they enter the lives of these people, they become instantly intimate with them. What is it that does that? Why do you think they were so drawn to them?

EJK: I think it's curious, because as I say, the optician just, though he had felt pity for them, he just hadn't seen them as his problem before now, these migrants. Because you know, what could he do to help them. He was just an optician and suddenly he was their only chance of life. He saw people for the first time in desperate need, the most desperate need of all. Desperate to stay alive. And I've met some of the people, a couple of the migrants that he managed to save, and they felt something very very strong too. Because they remember that when they were pulled from the water, it wasn't just that they were helping them and that they were saving their lives, it was the crew, the optician and his friends was sobbing and they were crying. They absolutely felt the pain and the suffering of the migrant people who were in the water.

CO: What happened to that young man.

EJK: The young man with the T-shirt that wore it as a diaper? He went to Sweden. He is waiting for his asylum papers to come through in Sweden. Most of those who survived, the optician managed to save 47 people on that boat made for 10. And every year, they meet up with a few of the survivors, and the first year that they met up with them, they were, they came back to Lampedusa, some of the survivors. That young man was among them and the first thing he did was pull out of his bag that pink T-shirt. So it had meant so much to him as well.

CO: And there was only one woman that they were able to pull into the boat. What was her story?

EJK: We don't know her story. We can imagine it because we know that many of the women who make the passage from Libya to Europe have no money and they are beaten and raped as part of the fee if you like, to get their passage. It's thought that she too is now in Sweden and is safe. Other women were saved by other boats who eventually came on scene, a fisherman's boat. It's a wonderful story that I found out only last October, that one woman was found drowned in the water and a fisherman was heaping bodies onto his boat, dead bodies. And when they came into port, a doctor came and was zipping up the body bags and as he zipped up her body bag, he thought he felt something, some sign of life and he gave her the kiss of life and she was indeed alive. And I saw her this October and she's pregnant.

CO: Good heavens. What a story. And it's these boats these fishing boats and the optician and his friends, how many were they able to pull out of the water?

EJK: They managed to save 47. 47 people on a boat made just 10. And if you can imagine how low that boat would sunk into the water, I've seen a photograph of it actually taken by the Coast Guard when they finally arrived to help. And they’re low in the water that the vendors are skimming the surface. The boat was out of control. They knew that the boat was out of control and that at any moment they too could have flipped over. But they had to save lives. They had to keep doing it because how do you turn your back when there are still hands waving? How do you choose which hand to take? If he took your hand Carol he wouldn't have time to take mine. They were in the most impossible situation and I think the thing that haunts them all the most is that when the Coast Guard arrived, they gave them the order that they have to turn and go back to port. And of course there were other boats by then in the water with the search and rescue operation but they could still see hands, they were still looking for people and they were forced to turn their backs and turn around. And I know that the optician is haunted by that, by the fact he wants everybody to know that he wanted to go back. They all wanted to turn back and help again.

CO: If you're just joining us now I'm speaking with Emma Jane Kirby. She's a reporter with BBC Radio and she has reported extensively on the migration crisis in Europe She's recently written a book we're talking about here about one of the worst shipwrecks of that crisis. The book is called The Optician of Lampedusa.

Emma Jane, in this book, you also describe as you've mentioned earlier that there were other people you profiled, including a grave digger who gives small wooden crosses to the immigrants in a holding center where the people are taken, the survivors are taken once they're found. And this is also a real person you profiled. Can you tell us about him?

EJK: Yes. There were two. There was the grave digger who has the dreadful task of burying those who don't make it. Not very many he can bury now because Lampedusa is a very small place. And of course the mausoleums are getting packed. But he told me, you know, how he was just used to corpses, that was his life, you know, he did it all every day and he was used to death. And then as I talked to him I realized that actually, he wasn't, he wasn't used to it at all. He was almost in tears and he was so angry that this was happening, that he was burying unnamed people all the time. That nothing had been done to stop people coming and drowning in these dreadful boats. And the other person you mentioned is the carpenter of Lampedusa who is a real man Francesco Tuccio, a lovely wonderful man with an incredible faith. And he had the idea of making a cross. It was Good Friday. He made a cross from the washed up shipwrecked boats that float up in Lampedusa and he made a cross from those, from that shipwrecked boat one of those boats, with the nails still in it, very crude and hung it above the altar. And it made such an impact on his parish that many other parishes then asked if they could have a cross. I think almost every parish now in Sicily has one. He also gave for free, he made little crosses for the migrants to have themselves as a sort of symbol of their redemption and hope and new life. And one of our listeners back in London heard that story and was so charmed and taken by it, she was a curator in the British Museum and she secretly commissioned one of those crosses for the British Museum without telling her boss, something she's not allowed to do. And when it arrived from Francesco Tuccio, she dumped it on her director's boss, her boss’s desk. And she said “This is living history. This is what the British Museum should be collecting” and the outgoing director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor made it his last acquisition for the museum. It now stands very proudly in the British Museum.

CO: You know most of these migrants who were pulled out of the water, the ones who didn't make it, are buried in unmarked graves or without knowing who they are, who is in those graves and I know that this has become something that Europeans are very conscious of.

We’re going to play a short clip of an interview we did in April of 2015 with George Vella. He's the Maltese Foreign Minister. And we're just talking with him here about a memorial service that was held on Malta for hundreds of migrants who drowned off that coast. And here is George Vella:

SOUNDCLIP

GEORGE VELLA: It was very sad but it was, there was a service officiate, there was a service that was officiated by an imam, and also by a Catholic bishop. The most impressing thing was that they were actually attending a funeral service of people who didn't know. There was nothing on the coffin but the number. We speak of the Unknown Soldier. But I think we can have an equally equally significant notion of the unknown migrant. When the people are down at the bottom of the sea, we will never know whether they were males or females, we don't know whether what they looked like, how old they were. I mean it's just one big enigma.

CO: That’s George Vella, and Emma Jane, he's speaking as you said, he’s the foreign minister of Malta. He's referring to the Mediterranean as the grave of the unknown immigrant. And there were efforts, European efforts Italian efforts to try and mitigate the situation, try and help people, try and step up the efforts. What actually has been done on the Mediterranean to deal with the people coming across in these boats?

GV: Let me just say first of all that that extract you just played from the Maltese Foreign Minister is very very poignant to me because, as soon as I finished writing this book, I'd taken some time away from my day job as a BBC journalist.

The first report I did afterwards happened to be in Milan in a place called Lebanof. It’s a pathology lab where they are still trying to identify the 368 victims of the optician's disaster. And I will never ever ever forget being handed a book of photographs, the kind of photographs albums that you and I have at home you know, of our family snapshots, and in it were the faces of all the drowned, all the people I'd been writing about, all the people that the optician hadn't managed to save.

I think it's incredibly difficult to stop people coming. There are so many wars people are fleeing. They’re fleeing hunger, they're fleeing poverty, they're fleeing war, they're fleeing, in Eritrea, a military dictatorship. And it's very very difficult to stop people coming.

Of course after the optician's tragedy, the horror that this had happened so close to the shores of Europe, less than a kilometer. The Italians launched their Mare Nostrum program, which is a search and rescue program using the Italian navy. But there was huge criticism from European partners that this was encouraging more people to come and the Italians couldn't afford the cost of it themselves and had to abandon the program.

There are many other programs, Save the Children, Médecins Sans Frontières, have marvelous search and rescue missions themselves. But the Mediterranean is an enormous, enormous ocean. Who can patrol all of it? And while there is still unhappiness and war in the world, of course more people are going to come and risk their lives.

CO: But how effective have those efforts been. And we're talking about the Italian governments the initiation of the Mare Nostrum, which was one search and rescue operation and Operation Triton I think was the one that replaced it. But the criticism of it has been that it's been more preoccupied with trying to protect borders to prevent people from making these crossings than in rescuing those who were in the water as you say. They're not going to stop as long as they're fleeing from desperate situations.

EJK: There is of course a lot of criticism that European countries are not doing enough to protect migrants and are more concerned with protecting their borders. The Operation Triton that you speak about is the Frontex’s operation. Frontext is the European’s border agency force.

What you should know about from Texas and it doesn't have enormous amounts of funding and it doesn't actually have any operational equipment of its own. It doesn't have any of its own ships. It doesn't have any of its own helicopters or planes. It relies on the generosity of other member states to lend them that equipment for a couple of months. I have been on a search and rescue mission with Triton and I can say that they are extremely serious about trying to rescue people. I went with an Icelandic crew who were operating Operation Triton at the time, and we were out at sea for 36 hours in huge seas, four to five metre waves. I've never been so sick in my life. So you can imagine what the migrants go through on those tiny little boats. But of course, you know the pressure is coming with this wave of populism that we're seeing across Europe as well, that people should be stopped from coming to Europe rather than they should arrive and then we deal with the problem.

There is of course enormous pressures on countries which are the rival countries like Greece and Italy, Sicily, to deal with these people once they arrive. Where do you put them?

CO: I’m speaking with Emma Jane Kirby, a reporter with BBC Radio, who has written a very striking book dealing with the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean. The book is called The Optician of Lampedusa. Emma Jane, I want to return to the idea of empathy which is an important theme in your book. And you just touched on it here with where do you put them? Where do you where do these people go? There are, this optician suddenly finds himself intimate with these people and that's what brings him into their world and realises their plight. What is required? What is it that, how do people come across into that area of saying these are us. These are brothers and sisters, these are these are citizens of the world. We need to help them. And where is the line that they cross in order to become that? And who doesn't cross that line?

EJK: You'll notice, Carol, that in the book I never name Carmine Menna, the optician of Lampedusa. He's always called the optician. And I deliberately chose not to name him because I wanted him to be a sort of every man figure. I wanted us as readers to imagine ourselves in that boat. To put ourselves in the position that Carmine Menna found himself in. What would we feel, what would we do if we found ourselves in that situation? Because we know that other boats were on the water at the time and they chose to go past. They didn't stop. The optician's boats stopped and did all they could. They didn't save them all, they couldn't save them all, but they did what they could.

And I think as soon as he had saved those people, and had seen their suffering, and had seen how ill they were, and how close to the end they were, and realised how precious their lives were. He needed to follow them, as did his friends, he needed to find out who they were, where they'd come from, whether they were going to be alright. He was terrified that actually, what he'd done is save them, yes, but save them into what kind of life? What kind of future? Because it wasn't going to be plain sailing. He knew that. They were going to be put in reception centres. It was going to take an enormous long time for them to be given asylum if they were given asylum and to start a new life. And he was, suddenly realised that you know, this was only the beginning of the journey for them.

CO: And just days after this shipwreck, there was another one with Syrians in it. And this was at a time as you describe in the book, many people in the region are like the optician. He is the every man. As they as they become and come in contact with these people, their sympathy, their empathy grows. But now this has been almost four years since that shipwreck. So how have things changed? Are Italians feeling that strong bond with them still?

EJK: It's very very interesting in Lampedusa. Because Lampedusa used to be a place which was full of tourists, particularly Italian tourists. And since the migration crisis began, since the Arab Spring we have seen, they have seen a huge drop off in the number of tourists who come. People don't want to come on holiday and you know that I've even been actually interviewing somebody when his phone rang, a hotel owner, his phone rang and a guest cancelled on him because he said he was frightened of swimming in the sea and touching a dead body. So of course the island has lost huge amounts of tourism. And economically, that's very painful for many people. But I've very rarely met anybody in Lampedusa who says, you know they should all just get lost. I don't care about them. I think when you are in proximity to people, and you see their suffering, it's very difficult to not see them as they are, as human beings and to realise that they also have hopes and dreams and feel pain and are cold or hungry. Need laughter, need love. And almost everybody I've met on Lampedusa has had kind things to say, has have been empathetic.

CO: What effect has this had on you in covering this story?

EJK: I won't deny that I cry a lot covering these stories, but I think that's I think that's right. Nobody obviously wants their reporters to be crying and sobbing on air, but I get very emotional behind the scenes and I think that's right. Because these are real people and this is real suffering. And I think it's our job as reporters to tell the truth. And what I see is an awful lot of suffering. So I will always tell the truth.

I think you know the book has sometimes been described as an incredibly political book. That's true in so many ways, but in other words, in other ways it's very apolitical. You know we never know how the optician, for example, votes. There's no moral to this sort of modern day parable either. There's no Hollywood ending where the optician suddenly finds Jesus or renounces his old life to join a migrant NGO. He just returns to work, albeit with his eyes very much wide open. And I think that is why Carmine Menna agreed for me to write this book, because he's an incredibly private man. He doesn't like media attention. But you know what is an optician's job? An optician's professional job is to help us see clearly. And I think that's exactly what he wants to do with this book, to pass on the message. Open your eyes. You can be you know, pro-immigration. You can be anti-immigration. You can vote right. You can vote left. That doesn't matter. But who can really accept, who can close their eyes to the fact that so many thousands of people are drowning on Europe's doorstep?

CO: Emma Jane, thank you for opening our eyes as you have done through all of your reporting on the BBC, and thank you for speaking with us.

EJK: Thank you so much for having me.

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CH: Emma-Jane Kirby is a writer and former foreign correspondent for the BBC. She spoke with Carol from London in 2017 about her book, The Optician of Lampedusa. For more from that interview, visit our website at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

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March 18, 2022 Episode Transcript

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