BBC Radio 4 LW

Taking Tea with Tyrants

Documentaries

Factual

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

15/08/2011

BBC Radio 4 - Taking Tea with Tyrants

Lyse Doucet asks diplomats and politicians how we should engage with brutal regimes.

Lyse Doucet asks diplomats and politicians who have negotiated with the worst tyrants in modern history whether it is always good to talk.

Diplomacy is often presented as an art form, the peak of civilisation in a barren political world. But what happens when it is conducted with torturers, murderers and serial human rights abusers?

Lyse Doucet speaks to the politicians, diplomats and activists who have had to deal with the worst tyrants in modern history - from Saddam Hussein to Slobodan Milosevic - and how they coped with it. How did they operate when they knew the next meeting on the president's list might be held in the torture chamber? How did they separate emotion from the need to conduct business? And what if they found themselves actually liking the person even while abhorring their behaviour?

As well as the personal, Lyse asks tough questions about compromise and complicity. Is engagement always better than isolation in the case of tyrannical regimes? Is it, in other words, always good to talk? 

Producer: Giles Edwards.

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Taking Tea with Tyrants

Genres

Formats

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4