14 episodes · 10th April 1991
Deep in the forests of south east Asia, the shy and endangered orang-utan is the victim of a cruel and criminal trade. Mothers are slaughtered and their babies sold at great profit in an extensive international black market. Inside Story takes hidden cameras into the shadowy world of the ape traffickers; it unravels a plot to smuggle six of the protected apes to the Soviet Union and exposes a racket which sells wild-caught baby orang-utans through a bogus zoo.
For the first time, a documentary crew is allowed inside the South African police force. This film is the story of the Cape Town riot unit, the largest in the country. The local black township is in a state of unrest, and the riot unit is busy enforcing a curfew and 'taking action' against residents. Serving officers talk frankly about doing a job that sometimes means killing black people, and express their apprehensions about the dramatic political changes.
Aids is a disease which threatens every one of us. Heterosexuals are now becoming infected at a faster rate than gay men and many families will be devastated by its impact.
British Rail's crack Yorkshire Pullman carries business people to London from Leeds in two hours precisely. A first-class service is demanded by first-class passengers from a staff many of whom date back to the great steam age, with all those old-fashioned notions of dedication to service and loyalty. In foul and fair weather we see how the stoic railwaymen struggle to maintain the service. Battered by the 'great British winter' of 1991 both railwaymen and the great British public suffer together from the short-sightedness and poor planning of someone up there.
During the 60s Colonel Oleg Penkovsky , a senior Russian intelligence officer, had proved himself to be 'our spy of the century'. For 16 months he passed the Kremlin's vital secrets to MI6 and the CIA. Suddenly the KGB arrested Penkovsky along with the British businessman Greville Wynne. Their joint show trial abruptly terminated M16's precious asset. But how did the KGB find out about Penkovsky's activities? For the first time the KGB investigators and Penkovsky's CIA case officers disclose the innermost secrets of the case, and reveal that they blame MI6 for Penkovsky's demise.
"I realised that I was going to be raped and that being raped was better than being dead, so therefore I was going to submit." (Rape Victim). For most women, rape is a life-threatening situation. In nearly 70 per cent of cases the woman knows her assailant. This film takes a close look at the violent crime of rape. It talks to women who have survived it, men who have committed it and follows the Metropolitan Police as they investigate an allegation of a brutal gang rape of an 18-year-old girl.
The war is over, but thousands of families in Kuwait have loved ones missing. During the occupation large numbers of Kuwaitis were taken as prisoners to Iraq. Many were tortured, some will never return. Today, their families wait anxiously for news of their fate. Meanwhile, in liberated Kuwait, others have gone missing since the war ended. They are Palestinians suspected of having collaborated with the Iraqis. Their families are not told why they have been abducted, and there is growing evidence that, they, too, are being tortured. The war may be over, but the brutality and the suffering still continue.
The last American GIs left Vietnam in 1975. They left behind them the Amerasians - the children of American soldiers and Vietnamese women. Following the recent US Amerasian Homecoming Act, thousands of these youngsters are expected to arrive in the States in search of their fathers and a new way of life. Three young Amerasians, Sonny Ngygen , Linda Vo and Trang Ngugen , all in their early 20s and all haunted by the question 'Who am I?' have just arrived in the States. Their stories are interweaved with the experiences of American-born children of GIs who died in the war, and set against a backdrop of 1990s
London is choked by illegally parked cars. Emergency services are obstructed and public transport hindered. Enter the dreaded 'clampers' and their partners in misery, the 'towers'. Between them they immobilise or remove more than a quarter of a million cars a year, leaving their owners frustrated, fuming and fined.
With vast reserves of diamonds and valuable minerals, seas heavy with fish, the West African country of Sierra Leone should be rich. But this year, the United Nations declared it the least developed country in the world. Inside Story examines how the infrastructure and natural wealth of this tiny nation have been devastated by foreign exploitation, corruption, economic mismanagement and a crippling debt.
In the wake of the Birmingham Six appeal, Michael Mansfield , QC, a leading defence barrister, reveals exclusively to Inside Story his radical proposals for transforming the criminal justice system. Mansfield maintains that the scale and frequency of miscarriages shows them to be an integral part of the system and, through the testimonies of people who have suffered injustice, demonstrates that a person's right to be thought innocent until proven guilty has been eroded. Taking the best from the French and American systems, Mansfield constructs an alternative for Britain that is based on reaffirming this right.
The Nightrider uncovers the disturbing truth about the murder, 28 years ago, of black civil-rights leader Medgar Evers by the Ku Klux Klan. His widow tells of her obsessive hunt for the man whom she believes to be the killer of her husband. He is a white supremacist who "confessed" to the murder at a Klan rally, was tried by the courts but not convicted. He is due to stand trial again soon. The programme, which is a part-dramatisation of events, uncovers new evidence and makes it horrifyingly clear that in the Mississippi swamplands racial hatred remains a reality. Indeed, filming took place in an atmosphere of increasing tension that culminated in the production team being shot at.
The Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka are one of the most ruthless groups of independence fighters in the modern world. The Indian authorities believe that Rajiv Gandhi , killed in May this year, fell victim to a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber. Many members of the group are willing to take part in suicide attacks, and a large number of the frontline fighters are just young boys and girls. Inside Story talks to the Tigers' leaders and to those who are prepared to kill themselves for the cause. What motivates their "fanatical" commitment and why would they have wanted to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi ?
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