Holidays in the Danger Zone Places That Don’t Exist Somaliland This script was made from audio tape – any inaccuracies are due to voices being unclear or inaudible 10.00.00 Music 10.00.03 Title Page HOLIDAYS in the DANGER ZONE 10.00.11 Music 10.00.12 Simon Reeve There are almost two hundred official countries in the world today but there are dozens more breakaway states determined to be separate but officially not recognised. 10.00.20 Simon Reeve Some survive peacefully with their own borders, money and presidents but others are a magnet for terrorists and weapons smuggling and have armies ready for a fight. 10.00.28 Music 10.00.30 Simon Reeve Welcome to places that don’t exist. 10.00.33 Music 10.00.46 Title Page PLACES THAT DON’T EXIST 10.00.50 Music 10.00.50 Title Page SOMALIA SOMALILAND 10.00.59 Music 10.01.03 Simon Reeve Somalia is one of the poorest and most dangerous countries in the world but within this land there’s a stable working democracy, a breakaway state called Somaliland, which no other nation recognises as a proper country. On my way there I passed through Mogadishu, the war-ravaged capital of Somalia, where I met my guide. 10.01.21 Music 10.01.22 Simon Reeve Hi, Adju. 10.01.23 Adju Hi. How are you? 10.01.24 Simon Reeve I’m very well. 10.01.26 Adju Welcome. 10.01.27 Simon Reeve Nice to see you. 10.01.30 Aston SIMON REEVE This is Mogadishu International Airport, I don’t know if you can hear the gunfire in the background. 10.01.38 Simon Reeve You don’t walk around Mogadishu without armed protection. 10.01.41 Simon Reeve When was the last time you were involved in any action, any trouble. 10.01.46 Bodyguard Voice over The last time I remember I was just hanging around with another journalist and we were attacked. 10.01.52 Music 10.02.05 Simon Reeve You’re worried about me falling off. 10.02.08 Simon Reeve We’ve got so many guards with us and we’re just trying to keep everybody in. It feels remarkably safe what we’re doing. 10.02.15 Adju Here it’s quite safe but in fact when we’re travelling in the centre of the town it’s not good, direct eyes will see you. 10.02.22 Simon Reeve Yeah. Well they don’t see, there’s not many white guys in Mogadishu. 10.02.25 Adju Yeah, yeah, I think now you are the only people, only whites around me, only you. 10.02.31 Simon Reeve We’re the only white people in the whole of Mogadishu? 10.02.33 Adju Yeah, yeah. 10.02.34 Simon Reeve In a city of a million people. 10.02.36 Music 10.02.37 Simon Reeve Mogadishu is in a state of anarchy. There’s no real government in Somalia and instead warlords control their own territory. 10.02.44 Music 10.02.46 Simon Reeve We’ve come to the main market in Mogadishu; it’s actually the biggest market in Somalia, it’s a little bit crazy. As you can see we’ve got our guards with us, they’re going to be with us the whole time we’re here and hopefully they’re going to look after us. 10.02.59 Simon Reeve Who are these guys? 10.03.00 Adju These business people. 10.03.01 Simon Reeve Be careful here because there’s guys on the back of the pick-up with, with heavy guns. So these guys on my right now, who’ve all got guns, apparently are bodyguards for rich businessmen. But they’re not so keen on being filmed and we don’t really want to annoy them. I think he just hit his gun on your leg; did he just hit his gun on your leg? 10.03.27 Simon Reeve So be careful where you point the camera Iain. 10.03.34 Simon Reeve Put it down, down, down, down! 10.03.38 Simon Reeve We were just filming outside a money transfer agency. A lot of Somalis are getting money from their family who’ve travelled abroad to work and hundreds of millions of dollars is brought back to the country by people who are working in Europe and the rest of Africa and just as we were filming the agency there, a guard took offence and started cocking his gun right at us. 10.04.00 Simon Reeve Somalia has been largely abandoned by the rest of the world since the early nineties, when American troops led a failed UN attempt to bring order to the country. 10.04.08 Simon Reeve After a battle with local warlords the bodies of American servicemen were dragged through the streets here and American forces were withdrawn. Everyone else soon followed. 10.04.17 Simon Reeve If you’ve seen the film Black Hawk Down this is where the fighting actually started. The American forces landed on this building here to try and capture some, some senior Somali warlords and they failed to capture the ones they were really after but it started a huge battle in which several hundred people died in the streets around here. 10.04.35 Simon Reeve This is the site where one of the American helicopters came down. And was there, there was a battle around here? 10.04.40 Adju Yes, all around here. 10.04.44 Simon Reeve Are these bullet holes? Yeah, these are all bullet holes in the wall; you can see the scale of the, the ferocity of the fighting. 10.04.56 Simon Reeve It’s incredible, this is actually where the carcus of the helicopter is in here and all these cactus plants have grown up around it. . 10.05.04 Simon Reeve What do they think about Black Hawk Down, do they think it was a victory for America or a victory for Somalia or… 10.05.09 Adju They say hey, this is American helicopter and remembering, I mean, every time. 10.05.13 Simon Reeve So they think, this is where, they think America lost in Mogadishu. 10.05.16 Adju Yeah, yeah. 10.05.22 Simon Reeve Because there’s no government in Somalia it can be very hard for people to get passports to travel out of the country. Instead of a government ministry, anyone with money goes to see men like Mr Big Beard. 10.05.33 Simon Reeve Hello Mr Big Beard, lovely to meet you. 10.05.35 Mr Big Beard What’s you called? 10.05.36 Simon Reeve Simon. 10.05.37 Mr Big Beard Simon, Simon! 10.05.44 Simon Reeve So these are the Somali passports. 10.05.45 Yeah. 10.05.46 Simon Reeve And this is what people in Somalia have to do, they have to come and get one of these passports and, and buy it basically. It’s not; they’re not able to apply to a government for a passport because there isn’t a government. So they have to come to Mr Big Beard and he will give them a passport. 10.06.00 Mr Big Beard Subtitle So you’ve decided to become Somalian? 10.06.03 Mr Big Beard Oh yo, yo, yo!! 10.06.07 Simon Reeve You’re not happy with the photo? 10.06.09 Music 10.06.12 Simon Reeve Big head. Oh I see. Oh dear. It’s ok? 10.06.20 Mr Big Beard It’s ok. 10.06.21 Music 10.06.26 Simon Reeve And can I be the Ambassador, the Ambassador, Somali Ambassador to United Kingdom? 10.06.31 Mr Big Beard No, no, Ambassador of Nairobi. 10.06.33 Simon Reeve Ambassador in Kenya. Ok, just like that. I’m now a Somali diplomat. 10.06.40 Music 10.06.51 Simon Reeve Businessmen in Somalia are hiring their own small armies and fighting back against the warlords. A port is operating outside Mogadishu, away from the areas they control. 10.07.00 Simon Reeve We’ve got ships that are anchored out at sea. And then we’ve got smaller boats, they look like military landing craft actually, that are bringing the goods closer to shore and then porters manually unload them. There’s just scores of men ferrying the goods back and forth between the boats and the lorries which are just over there behind us. 10.07.21 Simon Reeve So on here we’ve got rice and tea, Basmati rice from India which has been brought over. And spaghetti as well. 10.07.28 Man in port From Turkey. 10.07.29 Simon Reeve Spaghetti from Turkey. This is globalisation for you. 10.07.35 Simon Reeve One of the few goods Somalia has left to export is rusting scrap metal. 10.07.42 Simon Reeve What is on the machine over there? It looks like the bottom of a, an armoured personnel carrier, something like this. Where does it go to? 10.07.51 Man in port To India. It goes to India. 10.07.55 Simon Reeve Is today a particularly busy day? 10.07.57 Man in port It’s normal, this is normal. 10.07.58 Simon Reeve This is a normal day. 10.08.00 Man in port Yeah, normal day. 10.08.01 Simon Reeve So how many, how many men do you have working in the port? 10.08.05 Man in port Around four thousand. 10.08.06 Simon Reeve Four thousand. Four thousand. 10.08.17 Simon Reeve There’s a guy just cocking his gun, I think he was trying to keep the crowd back. 10.08.21 Adju The sound of making the gun, people they afraid. They… 10.08.24 Simon Reeve I know, me too, ok! 10.08.26 Music 10.08.40 Simon Reeve I left the chaos of Mogadishu and headed north to Somaliland, which I’d been told was stable and relatively peaceful. When I arrived I found it wasn’t always that way. 10.08.50 Simon Reeve Somaliland split from Somalia and declared independence in nineteen ninety-one but then had to fight a war against the Somali dictator, Mohammed Siad Barre. 10.08.59 Simon Reeve My new guide Yousef spent ten years fighting in that civil war. 10.09.04 Simon Reeve Somaliland gained independence from Britain in nineteen sixty, then joined with Somalia to form one country. When the relationship soured the civil war began. Somaliland also saw fighting during the Second World War. 10.09.16 Music 10.09.18 Simon Reeve The British and the Italians fought a battle here. 10.09.20 Yousef Yes. Somaliland soldiers were involved in the battle. 10.09.26 Yousef Thousands of Somalilanders came to the support of Britain, although Britain never reciprocated that, they never came to our aid. When we were fighting here against the terrible dictatorship of Mohammed Siad Barre during the eighties. 10.09.43 Simon Reeve Has it made you angry with Britain? 10.09.45 Yousef Well, not really angry, I’m angry more because Britain is not recognising Somaliland not because they didn’t take part. I think we were, we defended ourselves, we defeated Siad Barre’s military here but at least they should have realised that Somaliland need their recognition. 10.10.09 Simon Reeve When Britain, the former colonial power, left Somaliland, the Cold War was raging. The Soviets and Americans were soon struggling for control of the entire region. 10.10.20 Simon Reeve The runway here is one of the longest in the world; it’s four and a half kilometres long. And it was actually built during the Cold War by the Soviets. The Soviets kept heavy bombers here and in the late nineteen seventies, the Soviet Union switched allegiance from Somalia to Ethiopia and the Russians were asked to leave and in their place, in came the Americans. And the Americans actually decided to use this runway, because it was so long, as an emergency landing strip for the NASA space shuttle and they paid about forty million dollars a year rent just in case a shuttle ever got into any trouble and couldn’t make it back to America. 10.10.54 Music 10.11.01 Simon Reeve Can you see the dust devils? There’s one, two, a second one splitting into two. 10.11.07 Music 10.11.10 Simon Reeve Are they dangerous? 10.11.11 Yousef No, they… 10.11.12 Simon Reeve It’s just dust? 10.11.13 Yousef Yeah, it’s dust. 10.11.13 Music 10.11.15 Simon Reeve They’ll cover you in dust. 10.11.16 Music 10.11.20 Simon Reeve There are roughly three and a half million Somalilanders. The economy is still recovering after the war and the lives of most people are centred around their cattle, sheep and goats. 10.11.30 Yousef They’re buying and selling, they negotiate through the fingers. 10.11.41 Simon Reeve What have you just bought? Can we ask? 10.11.45 Yousef That group of bloodstock; each head twenty dollars. 10.11.54 Simon Reeve Thirty-six. 10.11.55 Trader Thirty-seven. 10.11.56 Simon Reeve Seven. 10.11.57 Trader Eight. Nine. 10.11.59 Simon Reeve Nine! 10.12.00 Trader Nine, five. Four. Three. Two. 10.12.06 Simon Reeve What did I just, did I just buy anything? 10.12.08 Yousef No you didn’t. 10.12.09 Simon Reeve I didn’t buy anything, that’s ok. 10.12.13 Simon Reeve In the last few years Somaliland has been hit hard by drought. As crops have failed, tens of thousands of people are believed to be at risk from starvation. 10.12.23 Simon Reeve When was the last time you had rain? 10.12.29 Man Two years. 10.12.30 Simon Reeve Two years. 10.12.33 Yousef This is the worst drought in thirty years. 10.12.36 Simon Reeve Are people receiving any help from the outside world? 10.12.39 Yousef No. 10.12.40 Simon Reeve None at all. 10.12.41 Yousef Not at all. 10.12.42 Simon Reeve Why not? 10.12.43 Yousef Somaliland’s not a recognised country. It cannot have access to international aid. Even in emergency. 10.12.54 Music 10.12.59 Simon Reeve We travelled on to Hargesia, the capital of Somaliland. The city was emptied and virtually destroyed during the war but Somalilanders have worked hard to rebuild. It now bustles with activity and families have returned. 10.13.13 Simon Reeve When we were in Mogadishu people talked quite lovingly almost about traffic lights, how they used to have them in Mogadishu and how people used to come in from the outside country to actually just look at the bright lights, the beautiful lights. And now, all the traffic lights in Mogadishu have been destroyed. So as soon as we arrive here it’s quite weird to see traffic lights and cars stopping at them and obeying the rules. It’s a sign that there’s a government here. There’s order. 10.13.44 Simon Reeve Unfortunately everybody obeys the lights, now they’ve turned green our driver has vanished. 10.13.49 Horns/whistle 10.14.02 Simon Reeve We just spotted this fighter plane just here. So what is this a memorial to? 10.14.09 Yousef The bombardment that took place in Hargesia in nineteen eighty-eight. 10.14.13 Simon Reeve So this plane was used to bomb this city. 10.14.16 Yousef Yes. 10.14.17 Simon Reeve How many people died during the bombardment? 10.14.19 Yousef According to Human Rights organisations fifty thousand people. 10.14.22 Simon Reeve Fifty thousand. 10.14.23 Yousef But I believe more died. That’s why people are very, feel strongly about being independent so that such things don’t happen again. 10.14.34 Simon Reeve Fatimah Ibrahim lived in Wales before returning to her homeland. She now documents the mass graves of Somalilanders killed by Somali troops. 10.14.43 Fatimah This was all farm land; the farm land has stopped because each time the farmer brings in the bulldozer to try and cultivate his land they come up with bones. 10.14.56 Simon Reeve Fatimah is this a, are these human remains here? That looks like a hip bone, the top of the skull and part of the spinal cord. 10.15.07 Fatimah The executions took place there, their hands that were tied behind their backs then the soldiers would come in and they would machine gun them. 10.15.16 Simon Reeve There’s a grave there. 10.15.19 Simon Reeve This particular mass grave extends up all the way round the river here, as far as the eye can see, all along the bank, they’ve uncovered scores of bodies. 10.15.31 Simon Reeve Soldiers loyal to Mohammed Siad Barre committed appalling crimes against the people of Somaliland. Fatimah took me to another grave. 10.15.41 Fatimah At this particular spot we have the remains of eleven students all under the age of seventeen. We know that by the smallness of their bones. What happened was the Twenty-Sixth Military Section went to the secondary school in Hargesia and randomly took eleven students. And what they did was they took them to the Twenty-Sixth Section and they literally just bled them dry. Once they had, once they died their remains were, was buried here as you can see. 10.16.18 Simon Reeve So just so we understand; the students who’ve been buried here, who were, they were basically used as blood banks by soldiers to provide blood for other wounded soldiers and then when they were bled dry, almost literally, their bodies were just thrown out like garbage or something. 10.16.38 Fatimah Yeah. And you have to remember this is the eleven that we know about. 10.16.48 Simon Reeve Unlike Mogadishu the capital of Somaliland seems quite organised. The local hospital is named after its founder. 10.16.59 Edna You might just be in time for a baby to be born. Let me just, let me… 10.17.05 Simon Reeve I’ll wait here. 10.17.06 Woman screaming 10.17.20 Simon Reeve Somaliland’s latest citizen; a four and a half kilo baby boy had just arrived. 10.17.27 Simon Reeve But Edna’s hospital also cares for other patients. 10.17.29 Baby crying 10.17.33 Edna This child was born with a congenital heart problem. He needs surgery; he needs a heart operation. Anywhere else it wouldn’t be that difficult. 10.17.42 Simon Reeve What do you need? 10.17.43 Edna Well, we need the expertise and we need the facility to be able to carry out open heart surgery. None of that is available in Somaliland. 10.17.52 Simon Reeve Is that partly because you’re not recognised. 10.17.54 Edna We don’t exist. Cardiologists won’t come here to work with us because they think of us as Somalia. So we’re just trying to keep this child as healthy as we can, hoping that one day somebody will, will give him a heart operation. 10.18.10 Simon Reeve Is it really as simple as that? That because Somaliland isn’t recognised people won’t come to treat Mohammed. 10.18.14 Edna Yes. Yes. Yes, yeah. 10.18.20 Simon Reeve Edna used to live in Mogadishu with her politician husband. 10.18.26 Edna I was building another hospital in Mogadishu by the way. Some warlord with a gun has it. I left my house, another warlord has it. I left a farm, a third warlord has it and if I try to claim all the property I had in Mogadishu I would have to fight four different warlords. I prefer to stay alive. 10.18.54 Simon Reeve So where are we now? 10.18.55 Edna We’re in the presidency. 10.18.56 Simon Reeve So this is the President’s office, building? 10.18.58 Edna President’s building, offices, cabinet meetings… 10.19.02 Simon Reeve Edna is also the Foreign Minister of Somaliland. 10.19.04 Simon Reeve Wow! So we’re just interrupting. 10.19.13 Simon Reeve As you can see here, this is the meeting of the Somaliland government. All the senior politicians and Edna, who was just with us, is over here. 10.19.21 Simon Reeve I think we should leave you to run the country and we will go outside but thank you very much for letting us see. Thank you Mr President. 10.19.34 Simon Reeve That was quite an incredible sight to see the government of a place that officially doesn’t exist actually in operation. The government ministers all sitting down around the table and the irony is, this building that they’re in actually used to be the home of one of the leading Somali warlords and now it’s the seat of government for Somaliland. 10.19.54 Simon Reeve It’s the President. Sola malek Mr President. Lovely to meet you. Thank you for agreeing to see us, it’s very kind of you. What’s your national budget? 10.20.03 President Whatever we get. We have no choice; whatever we get. 10.20.08 Simon Reeve How much do you get roughly? Approximately. 10.20.11 President I believe this year it was thirty million. Thirty million. 10.20.16 Simon Reeve Is that enough? 10.20.17 President It’s not enough. But we, we are satisfied whatever we get. Of course all the people are making sacrifice. Sometimes we used to get five million and we used it to run this country. 10.20.28 Simon Reeve You can run the country on five million. 10.20.30 President Because by sacrifice. All the people, they are making sacrifice. 10.20.35 Police training 10.20.38 Simon Reeve The UN is helping to train Somaliland’s new police force and Fatimah Ibrahim invited me to see the recruits. 10.20.47 Simon Reeve A lot of these police officers used to be soldiers or guerrilla fighters and some of them were even sort of security guards for some of the clan so they were basically tribal warriors and they’ve been turned, in the space of a few months with help from the United Nations into quite an effective police force. 10.21.08 Simon Reeve Do you think there’s any irony in the fact that the United Nations is helping to train police officers for a country and a government that they don’t recognise? 10.21.19 Fatimah No not really because as far as we’re concerned in UNDP this is, this, this is part of the humanitarian assistance that we can give. 10.21.28 Simon Reeve And why, why is this man throwing stones at these officers? 10.21.31 Fatimah He’s training them that if a, a riot breaks out then people will be throwing stones at them. This is part of our humanitarian assistance. Without this kind of protection then we would have to rely on militia groups and armed guards and other sources. 10.21.48 Simon Reeve Like they do in Somalia. 10.21.49 Fatimah Yes. And also what it does is it gives role models to the children. So instead of having a children that’s growing up in a society of armed conflict you’ve got a, a generation of children who are growing up in a, in a society of law and order. 10.22.07 Police training 10.22.14 Simon Reeve Somalia and Somaliland are both Islamic nations. Militant groups are emerging here and I’d heard there were al Qaeda terrorists in jail who’d attacked foreigners in Somaliland. 10.22.26 Simon Reeve So Yousef, who are these men? 10.22.28 Yousef They belong to al Qihad which is closely linked to al Qaeda. 10.22.31 Simon Reeve So they’re followers of Bin Laden? 10.22.33 Yousef That’s right. 10.22.35 Simon Reeve And what have they, what crimes have they been responsible for? 10.22.37 Yousef Oh, they have been responsible for the killing of a Kenyan lady in last March and also they confessed taking part in the killing of two British couples. They could be also have a link to the killing of an Italian aid worker who was killed in October last year. 10.23.01 Simon Reeve Officials here claim the men travelled from Mogadishu to launch their attacks. 10.23.04 Music 10.23.15 Simon Reeve Somaliland isn’t an obvious tourist destination but it does have a tourism minister who wanted Yousef and me to see one of his favourite sites, however hard it was to get to. 10.23.24 Music 10.23.31 Simon Reeve Somaliland is home to ancient rock paintings at least five thousand years old. 10.23.35 Music 10.23.45 Guide Here is the cow and person, you know, always under the cow. That means the people they were praying to the cow. 10.23.52 Simon Reeve They were praying to the cow. 10.23.53 Guide Yes. 10.23.54 Simon Reeve This is the horns of the cow, you can just see there and then inside this is a, a, a baby, a baby cow that’s still inside the mother waiting to be born. These figures here are humans and they’ve realised that they’re lying prostrate or praying underneath the cows and they seem convinced that in this area then three, four thousand years before Christ they were, humans lived here who worshipped cows. 10.24.20 Music 10.24.24 Simon Reeve You can see all these pictures, the pictures are amazing. 10.24.27 Yousef They say this picture is the best that they have seen. 10.24.31 Music 10.24.36 Simon Reeve It’s totally undeveloped at the moment. This is not a tourist destination, at least yet. If there was then there would probably be some stairs. 10.24.47 Music 10.24.58 Simon Reeve Next on my tour was a trip to a local zoo. 10.25.02 Simon Reeve I’m not sure what the RSPCA would say about this place. 10.25.16 Simon Reeve Are they quite tame? This gentleman’s put his hand into the lion’s mouth. I won’t be doing that. How long have you had them? 10.25.29 Zoo keeper This I bought, I think it’s five months this one but four years I had that, the big one. 10.25.35 Simon Reeve There’s a big one as well. 10.25.36 Zoo keeper This one’s small. 10.25.37 Zoo keeper Be careful, maybe he will jump from here. 10.25.42 Simon Reeve Did you hear that? He said be careful or a lion might jump on you. 10.25.54 Simon Reeve This lioness is actually one of the lucky ones because most of the animals in Somaliland were killed and eaten by soldiers and civilians as well during the civil war. 10.26.21 Simon Reeve As a guerrilla commander, Yousef spent more than a decade in the bush, fighting Somali forces. 10.26.27 Simon Reeve Yousef was just saying that when they were, when he was a guerrilla fighter they used to hide behind these termite mounds when the government troops were attacking them and the government troops’ bullets wouldn’t go through, they’d be safe behind them, they’re that strong. 10.26.55 Simon Reeve But you managed to get some. There we go. Does it look good? Shall we try it? 10.27.01 Yousef Yes. Yes. 10.27.09 Simon Reeve You’ve drunk it all? 10.27.11 Yousef Nothing left for you. 10.27.14 Simon Reeve Yousef! I was enjoying that. 10.27.18 Simon Reeve Somalilanders are proud of their independence. But they worry other countries are trying to force them into a new union with Somalia. 10.27.27 Yousef The international community should realise that they just cannot impose on us a form of government which we don’t want. And that’s unification, reunification with Somalia. 10.27.45 Simon Reeve If it came to it, do you think you would be prepared to fight again to protect Somaliland. Can you imagine a situation where that, where you would fight again? 10.27.55 Yousef I hope it doesn’t happen but if, if Somaliland’s independence is threatened I have no doubt that the whole nation will rise up, if we are not accepted as members of the international community, that will be another suffering and I don’t think we deserve that. Then I will have no option except to fight. 10.28.17 Music 10.28.26 Simon Reeve Hello. 10.28.29 Yousef These are majestic, proud animals. The way they walk, the way they look at people, as if nobody else is important except them. 10.28.43 Simon Reeve It’s very true that they do, yeah. 10.28.44 Producer Sounds like a presenter! 10.28.46 Music 10.28.48 Simon Reeve Yeah, that’ll make it on the telly, guaranteed. 10.28.50 End Music Credits 11.26.51 bbc.co.uk/thisworld Written and Presented by SIMON REEVE Dubbing Mixer NIGEL READ VT Editor BOYD NAGLE Colourist ROD HUTSON Graphic Design LYNN WILSON Production Team JULIA DANNENBERG LADONNA HALL MARTHA O’SULLIVAN Production Manager JANE WILLEY Unit Manager SUSAN CRIGHTON Fixers Somalia AJOOS SANURA Somaliland AHMED SAID EGEH Assistant Producer/Additional Camera SHAHIDA TULAGANOVA Picture Editor RYSHARD OPYRCHAL Filmed and Directed by IAIN OVERTON 11.28.51 Execution Producer KAREN O’CONNOR Series Producer WILL DAWS BBC © BBC MMV 11.28.55 End BBC Holidays in the Danger Zone: Places That Don’t Exist 1