|
|
 |
|
| Witness
II |
| Five
stories from those who witnessed some of the most important
last century. |
|
 |
A
Country Divided
 Listen
Dan
Keating fought with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the War
of Independence against the British between 1919 -1921. Now
ninety-eight, he describes buying his first gun as a teenager
in Tralee, southern Ireland. Dan says there will never be peace
in Ireland until the country is united.
|
| |
|
 |
The
Long March
Listen
In 1934 Deng Jia Tai was one of one hundred thousand Red Army
Fighters who walked more than ten thousand kilometres to escape
encircling Nationalist forces. It was this march that made the
establishment of the People's Republic of China possible, under
the leadership of Chairman Mao.
|
| |
|
 |
One
Amongst Millions
Listen
Nikolai
Fomich Tiftikhidis was a twenty-one year old musician when the
KGB arrived at his house in Baku to deport him to Kazakhstan.
His crime was to be Greek. Between 1936 and 1956 Josef Stalin
swept up and exiled by force three and a half million people
who he regarded as traitors. Nikolai escaped the first time,
but was deported again nine years later with fifty thousand
other Greeks, and only rehabilitated under Nikita Khrushchev
in 1956.
|
| |
|
 |
Negotiating
your own Kidnapping.
Listen
Giandomenico
Picco worked as a UN diplomat for twenty years at the United
Nations dealing with conflict resolution, particularly in the
Islamic world. He played a key role in in bringing the eight
year Iran Iraq war to an end in 1988. But his most dramatic
experiences took place in Lebanon where he became involved in
the efforts to release the western hostage kidnapped during
the nineteen eighties. In order to gain the trust of the kidnappers,
Giandomenico Picco agreed to be abducted by them himself - nine
times.
|
| |
|
 |
Sea
of Troubles
Listen
During
the war in Bosnia, psychiatrist Dr Vahida Demirovic tried to
take on some of the burdens faced by her fellow citizens in
Sarajevo. She treated both the bereaved and the injured - helping
them to build new lives and to come to terms with their losses.
She remembers a three-year-old patient who, long after undergoing
an amputation, insisted that she still had two legs, and the
mother who slowly recovered from complete mental collapse after
the violent death of her children. |
|
