|
Return to Transcripts main page
DIPLOMATIC LICENSE
Current Events at the United Nations
Aired November 26, 2004 - 21:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIA FARROW, UNICEF GOODWILL AMB.: Going out of the camp means very probably they will be raped.
BOB GELDOF, MUSICAL PRODUCER: The Americans call it (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It drives me mad. It's probably the most vital issue of the 21st century.
FRED ECKHARD, U.N. SPOKESMAN: I mean, let's not get ridiculous about this idea of resignation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: You may not sense this watching around the world, but I have been asked here in New York this week, when is the Secretary-General Kofi Annan having a farewell party and when is the U.N. moving out of New York City, presumably out of the United States.
Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.
The situation has not reached that dramatic a point, yet. But it's not everyday that the spokesman for the secretary-general says Mr. Annan might cut short a trip to Africa to return to New York because of pressing business, and this for a trip that began 24 hours later than planned due to unexplained issues that reporters were told to, quote, "just read the papers" to find a reason why.
The problems or the perception of problems are not disappearing. The U.N. staff is frustrated. The U.S. lawmakers are remembering it's often easier to beat up on the United Nations rather than on the other political party. Certain elements of the U.S. media have unleashed a relentless assault on Annan's performance and left to hang in the wind by member countries, the secretary-general and his senior management have proven they don't want to fight back, preferring to work on the urgency of global crises, or just don't know how to properly respond in the media game.
So you can imagine, they weren't jumping for joy with the latest poke in the eye for the United Nations this week. New information on what we told you last week. A sex scandal in the U.N.'s Congo Mission in the heart of Africa. U.N. personnel accused to sexually abusing young girls and boys.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To date there have been over 150 total allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse, and these allegations fall in all categories, ranging from solicitation to criminal activity of rape and underage exploitation. And they involve all categories of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) personnel, civilian police and military in many locations of the mission throughout the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: At least four U.N. personnel have already been suspended. One French staffer was expelled from Congo, indicted in France under laws to prevent sex tourism. And in a sordid ironic twist, the United Nations confirmed Tuesday a U.N. auditor who worked for the U.N.'s own special internal agency which probed the Congo mess was himself caught soliciting a prostitute in Congo.
U.N. soldiers have been involved with prostitutes before. What's disturbing here is U.N. civilian staff, not just military involvement, and the alleged rape of youngsters.
A leading refugees official said he was appalled by the reports, but not surprised.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you have wide disparities between rich and poor, between hungry and well-fed, you are always going to have people willing to trade sex for food, because that's the way they keep alive, and sadly you have peacekeepers who are willing to make this bad bargain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: Did I mention that there are also photos and videotape of some of the incidents?
The United Nations has some 10,000 peacekeepers in Congo with more on the way. Let's be clear: it does cast a shadow, but it would be wrong to claim that every blue-helmeted soldier is guilty of misconduct.
Rwanda has threatened to go into Congo again after fugitive rebels. The U.N. peacekeepers in Congo are not there on some R&R.
We asked CNN's Jeff Koinange to ride with the peacekeepers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the Congo, few dare to venture outside main cities without armed escorts. The United Nations was kind enough to take us along with 20 heavily armed men and two armed personnel carriers from the Pakistani Second Battalion. Their last assignment was tracking down al Qaeda along the Afghan-Pakistan border. We couldn't have felt much safer.
Along the way, these peacekeepers take no chances. Two months ago, these U.N. troops were ambushed along this route by one of several rebel groups which have made life for locals here a living hell. As we stopped to tape some scenes, the soldiers of Pak Bat 2 as they are called make sure they're just a few paces behind.
Such is the Congo's heartland, a lawless, ungovernable and unforgiving land where rebel forces attack at will and then melt into the hills. These U.N. peacekeepers and nearly 11,000 more across the region are a welcome sight for war-weary villagers who wave as they pass.
The United Nations has just approved a force expansion to nearly 17,000. It's nowhere near enough for a country 1/3 the size of the United States, but it's something the U.N. commander says he'll have to work around.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Certainly I wish to have more troops, but if they cannot provide us with more troops, I have (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and I will do it.
KOINANGE: Next stop is the town of Bunia (ph) is the troubled Ituri (ph) district, where rebel incursions have been worse. Bunia (ph) is also where the United Nations has its largest contingent, more than 5,000 troops. And they take no chances, checking every vehicle, every motorcycle, frisking passengers for possible weapons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will concentrate our troops in a triangle in the extreme east, where the violence is still occurring.
KOINANGE: And that's where we head next. In a country the size of all of Western Europe but without the infrastructure, flying is highly recommended.
We head to the town of Mahadi (ph), this time with a Bangladeshi military escort. We make our way to what the United Nations calls a transit site for former combatants.
(on camera): The United Nations estimates there are over 15,000 combatants in this area alone, and they've set up transit sites like the one behind me in order to disarm, demobilize and reintegrate the combatants back into society, but so far they've only managed to convince less than 50.
(voice-over): Among the latest arrivals here is 34-year-old Shangwa Lukasali (ph). Lukasali (ph) is quickly registered under this makeshift tent with the help of some very high tech equipment. His right iris is scanned to provide a certain identification in case he decides to leave and try again to cash in on the $50 U.S. demobilization payment, a king's ransom around here.
Registered, he's given a survival kit, a mat to lie on, a blanket, cooking utensils, a flashlight, a radio and some clothes. He drops off his bag in the quarters he'll share with eight others and makes his way to this twice-a-day reintegration class.
"Many of us are tired of fighting and all we want is peace," he says. "It's time to give peace a chance."
Give peace a chance. An echo of the Beatles' song, but to bring about the peaceful evolution revolution that the song calls for, these U.N. peacekeepers could be here for months or even years to come.
For DIPLOMATIC LICENSE, I'm Jeff Koinange, Mahadi (ph), in Eastern Congo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH: Thank you, Jeff.
Continuing on our U.N. blotter, finally, remember last week's U.N. staff union vote in New York criticizing senior U.N. management? This week, the Geneva side of the U.N. staff weighed in, echoing the blast at unnamed senior management. But like the New York staff, fully supporting Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Only at the United Nations can even the staff, learning the art of compromise from their diplomatic brothers, condemn U.N. senior management but praise their overall boss Kofi Annan.
A FOX network news producer asked U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard if it was time for the secretary-general to resign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ECKHARD: I mean, let's not get ridiculous about this idea of resignation, OK? I realize it's coming from certain segments of U.S. media, but that's out of the question. Does the buck stop with him? Of course it does. Is he going to be doing something about it? Of course he will.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN DANFORTH, U.S. AMB. TO U.N.: One wonders about the utility of the General Assembly on days like this. One wonders if there can't be a clear and direct statement on matters of basic principle, why have this building? What are we all about?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: Always nice to come home after a long journey. Well, not for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Danforth. He took the Security Council to Nairobi last week to work on the dilemma of Sudan with its two-front war. Pleased at progress, Danforth was then outraged because a General Assembly committee voted not to criticize Sudan, in effect, for human rights violations.
The United States has taken the lead on pressuring Sudan, but many African countries are not interested in slamming Sudan again at the United Nations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, he's quite angry about the General Assembly, saying the General Assembly is useless since it stopped pronouncing itself (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on human rights in Sudan and I wonder if the General Assembly is useful when it keeps silent about what happens in (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: Well, just back from Sudan with a first-hand perspective is an American actress. Mia Farrow starred in "Rosemary's Baby," "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and a host of other cinema and stage projects. A UNICEF ambassador, Sudan provided Farrow with a stern test.
I asked her why she went.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIA FARROW, UNICEF AMB.: Well, it is the humanitarian crisis of this age and UNICEF felt it was important for me to go to try to bring back to the international community, Americans and everyone else along the way back -- I stopped in England too -- to tell people what I had seen, to give voice to the voiceless, if you like, not to sound to pretentious about it.
But people need to know what's happening there and people need to sort of be advocates for what's happening there.
ROTH: I mean, this has been going on for a year-and-a-half. Do you find that some of the people you spoke to said, "Oh, yes, we know about it. It's terrible," but nobody seems to be able to make a breakthrough to stop the violence in Darfur.
FARROW: Sadly, that's true. I don't sense any apathy, though. I think people are really concerned.
Once the word genocide was used, I think a lot of ears pricked up. And I think -- what I'm getting is, what can we do.
ROTH: Well, what should someone do who might be watching this interview now?
FARROW: Depends who they are. If they are average people, you know, in their households, like me, doing the laundry and cooking or something, you could support the humanitarian relief agencies who are doing a heroic job there. UNICEF an its colleagues, doing the impossible. Providing 2 million people with food, water and barest sustenance level shelter.
ROTH: You went there with your son, Shamus. What was the worst thing you saw?
FARROW: Gee, I don't know that I can prioritize in that way.
I think the outstanding thing that I take away from that is the peril that the women continue to be in. Every camp that I went to -- we went north, south and west, visiting camps, and women who had fled burning villages, traveled weeks across the desert, seen family members killed, been raped, seen daughters raped, highly traumatized women, I was able to get together with them and I would introduce myself, not as a goodwill ambassador, which was beyond comprehension, but as a mother and a grandmother, and you know, sat among them, and in time gained a little confidence. And they told me what they had been through and what they continue to go through just to get firewood.
You may or may not have heard of this issue, but it's ongoing and what I came away with of the utmost importance is the safety and protection of the people in the camps.
ROTH: People think, oh, they're in the camps, they're OK, but that's not what you found.
FARROW: They're not OK at all, and around the camps there are men in uniform, described as Janjaweed, described as Arab militia, described as soldiers in uniform. They're not sure. It's indistinguishable. And when they go to get their firewood, a walk that can take as long as eight hours because they've been in the camps for months and it's a long journey to get the firewood -- they need this firewood to cook their food and they use it as a kind of currency as well.
So it's a sort of "Sophie's Choice" decision each day as to who is going to go get the firewood. Going out of the camp means very probably they will be raped. While we were there, a 12-year-old girl was raped by several men and was in the hospital. So that is ongoing, on a daily basis, and there is no, zero, protection, for the women in the camps.
ROTH: And the men can't go because they are taken away.
FARROW: The men can't go. They are taken away. Already a vast amount of men have been killed. A huge amount of the population in the camps are women and children, mostly, and the men that are there dare not go out. They will be killed or taken away.
ROTH: How do the people deal with this type of crisis, the time in the camps and the horrible conditions? What did you find when you talked to them?
FARROW: I don't know from where they draw their strength to get by each day. They've adjusted to conditions that no one should have to live under, even with the sustenance level food and water that they're getting. I mean, humanitarian relief agencies say that each human being should have 20 liters of water a day. Well, they're getting 7 to 8. I mean, it isn't enough. None of it is enough.
They're not getting the fruit and vegetables they're used to. It's a farming community, but more than half the villages across Darfur have been burned and continue to be burned, so what's happening in the camps is more and more people are coming.
ROTH: Did you speak to the representatives of the government?
FARROW: I spoke to government representatives and got a very different picture from what we actually saw.
ROTH: What did they tell you?
FARROW: They told me that protection had been provided and was being enforced by their very own brand new police force.
ROTH: Did you believe them?
FARROW: I don't think I did, no, and certainly after I got to Darfur -- these ministers that I met in Khartoum, they said I was going to see 5 Star camps, I was going to see kids riding bicycles, I was going to see -- people are dying to get into the camps, they said. They were getting free food.
ROTH: Yes, literally.
FARROW: Yes, literally.
So, no, I saw a very, very different story. People barely able to survive and humanitarian relief workers working overtime to provide what they need.
I did see a little play area created by UNICEF because the children, you know, it is life for them now, and they were given paper and pencils, and what they were drawing -- it was sort of comforting to see them draw, you know, for the first time, some of them, but they were drawing weapons, attack helicopters, people with their heads getting blown off. That's what they were drawing.
So I met with the general from the African Union, because a lot of hope -- they're the good buys in this.
ROTH: They only have a few thousand troops there.
FARROW: They have less than that. They have 700 or something, 720, and they're hoping for a maximum of 3,200.
As I see it, it won't be nearly enough, and as you know, the mandate has been expanded, but the wording is so ambiguous that when I asked, as I asked repeatedly of every person in authority, what can be done about the protection of the women in the camps, I was told by the general of the African Union that he could not implement this part of the extended mandate. He didn't have the capacity.
ROTH: In the past when there was hunger in Ethiopia, famine in other places, Somalia, there was a response. Do you think because of Africa and the continuous problems in various countries, there is a fatigue in the United States and other countries in reacting to these situations?
FARROW: I hope there isn't a numbness setting in because we have to remind ourselves that these are our brothers and sisters in the human family, deserving of our respect and our assistance, and we have a moral responsibility to focus on this and help where we can, and we shouldn't feel overwhelmed because that's the easy one. I mean I sometimes feel that myself. But everyone can give 5-cents to UNICEF. You know, it takes $37 a year to maintain one human being in the Darfur region.
ROTH: Was it difficult, in leaving, do the memories of that trip -- you've done several since joining UNICEF four years ago. Do they tend to stick with you a little bit more?
FARROW: Of course they stick with you. And you feel a little guilty that you can step on an airplane and leave. But I do feel -- I mean, that's why I'm here talking to you today. I can tell you what I've seen and I can tell you what people can do to help.
ROTH: Mia Farrow, goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, just back from Darfur in Sudan in Africa, thank you very much for being on DIPLOMATIC LICENSE.
FARROW: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROTH: Does it seem like 20 years ago? British musicians and guest rallied then to record "Do They Know It's Christmas" to publicize and raise money to help millions caught in the famine in Ethiopia.
This coming week, the new updated version of the song, the group now called Band Aid 20, instead of one session to get the track down in '84, it took three days to record this latest version. But the cause they're singing for hasn't gone away in 20 years. And I'm sure there are plenty of reasons why.
The mastermind behind the record, the eventual Live Aid concert and the reunion is Bob Geldof.
The stately New York Council on Foreign Relations probably hasn't heard such amped up fire let alone a musical performer in its house for years.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GELDOF: I was able to persuade the prime minister, having returned again from Africa last year with a newer sense of despair, that there were whole new factors in play in Africa that had to be dealt with and certainly when I first arrived in Africa 20 years ago, no one could have predicted this different world that we are in now.
And I didn't believe that people were dealing with the question as to why Africa was in a state of decline. And it needed to address.
And Blair is a Live Aid baby. He watched it all day. Clinton had seen a lot of Live Aid, and Bush had seen part, and Schroeder in Germany, so my generation was now in power, and it struck me that the promise of the generation of '85 should be fulfilled politically finally.
With the release of the Live Aid DVD it will resonate in the corridors of power. That is the intent. And more perhaps importantly this time than raising the money, which it inevitably will, I mean, once again I can guarantee that the money will go directly to those people dying of hunger and illness in Africa. By buying this, you make a political demand this time, because those people in power know what's going on. They know what it's about. They were there on that day.
There were pirates on eBay selling this, and we rang eBay and asked them to please stop it. So when they sell this on -- if you download this or this, literally, corny as it sounds, you may as well just pull that bit of food out of that hungry child's mouth. You may as well. You may as well just rip the hypodermic from a sick person's arm. You really may as well do that.
So we got one of these and we put it away for three years and we wrote a letter of appeal to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to (UNINTELLIGIBLE). So, you know, that's what they have.
Also, in the 20 years there's been a confusion, because of mass media, about what celebrity and what politics are. This celebretization of politics. You know, is Blair a pop singer? Well, certainly he plays guitar and was in a crap band and in the 1970's Tony Blair and I shared the worst haircuts in the United Kingdom, and probably concede we still do, and so there is this common understanding of an idea.
Should we do it again so that in 20 years, somebody of 20 now, starting a band, can wander into the White House? Is that a good thing? I think it's pathetic. I think it's (EXPLETIVE DELETED) pathetic that some (EXPLETIVE) who get up on a stage and play to 80,000 people can help create policy. That is not the way the world should work. Politicians should get real and get very serious and address the issues that concern the constituencies of rock artists. That's the way to avoid that.
Somebody said to me they don't know where Darfur is. Well, I would say that is generally true of anyone. They don't have to know. Darfur is a convenient way of getting to the general problems of Africa. I mean, it is not just about genocide. It's about ancient old problems that have been reinvigorated by the new politics of religion.
My vision of the 21st century is people dying on our screens every night, forever. That's intolerable. Doing nothing is intolerable. And, you know, all you do is -- you can say that, we get to say it, and a lot of people say that's (EXPLETIVE DELETED) right, actually. Just do something.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH: Band Aid 20 coordinator Bob Geldof serves on a commission for Africa setup by British Prime Min. Tony Blair.
The CD goes on sale Monday.
That's DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth. Thanks for watching.
END
TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
|
