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Your World Today
Sudan Investigation; Ba'ath Party Congress; Rumsfeld on North Korea
Aired June 06, 2005 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY.
JIM CLANCY, CNN ANCHOR: A call for justice after murder, torture, rape and plunder. The International Criminal Court focuses on atrocities in Sudan.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN ANCHOR: A command for attention. Eyes on Syria as the Congress of the ruling Ba'ath Party here's a warning from the president.
CLANCY: And a cry in the Caribbean. The hunt goes on as hopes fade for a missing teenage tourist.
VERJEE: It is 7:00 p.m. in Darfur, Sudan; 12:00 p.m. in Aruba. I'm Zain Verjee.
CLANCY: I'm Jim Clancy. Welcome. A special welcome to you, our new viewers in the United States.
This is YOUR WORLD TODAY.
VERJEE: The International Criminal Court in the Netherlands is launching an investigation into suspected war crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan.
CLANCY: All of this coming after years of conflict, the deaths of tens of thousands of people, and accusations of rape and human rights abuses.
VERJEE: There are some 2,000 troops from the African Union monitoring a cease-fire in Darfur, but the violence has continued.
CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson has more on the ICC decision to intervene.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Human suffering in Sudan's southern region, Darfur, has already reached massive proportions. More than 180,000 believe killed and at least two million made homeless.
Ending that is why the International Criminal Court in the Hague says it's opening an investigation. Indicating how tough getting justice may be, chief prosecutor Louis Moreno-Ocampo announced, "The investigation will require sustained cooperation from national and international authorities. It will form part of a collective effort, complementing African Union and other initiatives."
The ICC may well need all the help it can get. Sudanese officials have already rejected the need for an international investigation, citing arrests they have made. And the U.N.'s repeated efforts to end the violence have so far not met with success.
Late last year, and early this year, a special U.N. inquiry into the situation in Darfur recorded murder, rape, torture and pillaging among the crimes it encountered. A few months later in March, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution authorizing an arms embargo to bring an end to the violence.
At the end of March, another U.N. resolution recommended the ICC investigate. And as recently as May, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan toured Darfur, calling for a quick end to the violence, an appeal that to this day seems to have fallen on stony ground.
(on camera): Before taking its decision to open this investigation, the ICC says it has reviewed several thousand documents and interviewed more than 50 independent experts. As its first major legal case since receiving its legal authority July 2002, many countries will likely be watching with keen interest, not just to see how the ICC exercises its authority over a recalcitrant regime, but to see if it can and if justice can bring peace where others have failed.
Nic Robertson, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VERJEE: So what are the chances the International Criminal Court will get to the truth in Darfur? Will justice prevail, and will those found responsible people pay for their crimes?
Joining us now with her perspective is Samantha Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and public policy lecturer at Harvard University.
Thanks so much for joining us. How does the court prepare for an investigation like this?
SAMANTHA POWER, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Well, the first thing it does is what it has done already, which is it deferred to the government of Sudan. It, for the last two months, has been looking into whether or not Sudan is able or willing to prosecute these crimes itself, because, of course, the ICC only acts where countries are unable or unwilling. And seeing that Sudan was resisting investigating and not looking into the crimes that had been committed by its own officials and forces, it then has decided to intervene. But again, only after first a two-month investigation to make sure that it should in fact complement national jurisdiction.
VERJEE: So what kind of cooperation can we anticipate from the Sudanese government? They're very good at a charm offensive, appearing to engage, but not actually progressing.
POWER: I think all we can really expect is, every two or three months, whenever the international pressure heats up, you can expect some ritual trials, a kind of show trial mechanism that kicks into gear whenever the spotlight is on. The International Criminal Court is going to have a difficult time getting access to Darfur proper. And don't forget, of course, that Darfur is the crime scene, so to be denied access to that crime scene is very worrying.
VERJEE: The U.S. does not recognize the International Criminal Court. Do you think that Sudan will say, look, the U.S. doesn't recognize it, it views it as a violation of sovereignty, so why should we recognize the court?
POWER: Yes, I think the Sudanese government will make a whole series of arguments, including that one. One of the things the international court suffers from right now is a kind of a void or a vacuum internationally.
The Europeans have been very quiet on the atrocities carried out in Darfur, haven't pressured the Sudanese government, haven't really taken a leadership role on protection or on the humanitarian side. But the Europeans are very keen on the International Criminal Court.
The Americans, by contrast, have been very tough on the Sudanese government, really turning the heat up on Darfur, but are themselves, as you suggested, very lukewarm, at best, about the International Criminal Court. Indeed, there are people within the Bush administration, I think, who would like nothing more than to see the International Criminal Court fail its first very high-profile test, which is Darfur.
VERJEE: And for the refugees themselves in Darfur, in Chad, what does a probe like this mean?
POWER: Well, one of the things that amazed me the last time I was there, which was a few months ago now, five or six months ago, was the extent to which in the middle of the desert, the Sahara Desert, you're kind of -- you know, there's no water, no electricity, no nothing. And you run into groups of refugees, and you say, you know, "What do you most want?" And they say, "The Hague."
And you say, "Well, the Hague?" And these people, they didn't know the Hague was in the Netherlands. They didn't know where it was, but what it represented to them was accountability, which is something that they are very familiar with in their tradition and their culture. So many of them expressed a wish to testify.
But again, one of the main challenges the ICC is how will they get into Darfur in order to debrief witnesses who are still trapped within that country? We know the ICC will have access to those this in Chad, we know they'll have access to press reports. But to do a top-notch investigation, we they'll really have to get in, and that will depend on either the Americans or the Europeans really turning up the heat on Sudan and insisting on cooperation.
VERJEE: Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and public policy lecturer at Harvard University. Thanks so much.
POWER: Thank you, Zain. VERJEE: Later this hour, we're going to be talking to the Sudanese ambassador to the United States for his reaction -- Jim.
CLANCY: Shifting our focus to the Middle East now, Syrian President Bashar Assad says his country must reorder its priorities to reform the economy and to fight corruption. But he says any initiatives must be a response to internal domestic needs, not external pressure.
Mr. Assad opening the first Congress of the ruling Ba'ath Party since the death of his father five years ago, at a time when Syria is under intense international scrutiny. He said the enemies of Syria are trying to destroy Arab identity by undermining fundamental values.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BASHAR ASSAD, SYRIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Those against the Arab nation are attacking us for any identity we may have, or any vision that we may enjoy to -- we may adopt too steadfast. They try to change us into a negative reactive entity, like a sponge would absorb what is being thrown at it without any will or any ability to think about refusing or accepting what comes its way. This reality dictates on us that we have to confront it with responsibility and challenge it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CLANCY: Now, Mr. Assad is under a lot of pressure, as he noted. And it must be considered, he has to deal with the economic problems of his country. He sees them as a bigger challenge, perhaps, than the demands for his political situation to change in Syria. In other words, for democracy to be brought in.
Why? Because of 18.5 million people in Syria. Fully one-third of them are under the age of 15. He will have to create millions of new jobs. And most people looking at Syria economically say he doesn't have the capacity to create those jobs right now. Just part of the pressure.
Let's go to CNN's Brent Sadler, who joins us now from Damascus -- Brent.
BRENT SADLER, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim. Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, as you outlined there, has enormous problems at home. He also has enormous problems from the outside.
With increased U.S. pressure on Damascus to make reforms, not only economically, but also politically, to allow freedom of expression through the media, which is virtually nonexistent from and to allow opposition parties which are outlawed here at the moment.
Now, the Syrian leader was popular among the Ba'ath Party elite at the opening session of Congress today, but unpopular, certainly led by critics in the United States. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, recently said that Syria is not immune to democratic changes taking shape in the region. The same U.S. officials whose hard-line policy toppled the ruling Ba'athists in neighboring Iraq, a former ideological twin of Syria's Ba'ath Party.
Now, on the economic front, yes, the Syrian leader is expected to take some steps, cautious steps in terms of reform. But internationally, he has told delegates at this conference very forcedly today that they should not be pressured by foreign interference, he said, to fall in line with what the outside wants.
He said the Arab identity is under attack from foreign-inspired conspiracies. He says that Syria effectively should pull back on the pillars of the Ba'ath Party creation some 40-plus years ago, that Syria should really try to awaken wider Arab awareness and unity, the attacks that Arabs now face from international policy in this region, notably by the United States and its closest regional ally, Israel -- Jim.
CLANCY: Brent, we were able to talk just about an hour ago with Syria's ambassador to the United States. He asserts that there was talk, a political reform there, as well as economic reform. What did you hear?
SADLER: Today, the Syrian president has been outlining the framework for what he hopes will be a package of hard measures, it's generally expected here, not what the outsider wants, certainly not what the Syrian opposition would want. Some of their members were arrested for several days only last week.
The Muslim Brotherhood, for example, the Islamic Party, is banned, outlawed. In fact, penalty of death for belonging to that party.
Syria wants to be -- remain a socialist Arab nation. It wants to remain a secular nation. And the Syrian leadership has quite clearly said today that it will continue with a program of incremental reforms, but certainly not what the outside is looking for and certainly not what many Syrians say they are looking for -- Jim.
CLANCY: Brent Sadler reporting to us there live from Damascus.
VERJEE: The U.S. defense secretary has been on the defensive during a tour of Asia. Donald Rumsfeld is denying reports that the U.S. is poised to take a harder line against North Korea and its nuclear program.
Aneesh Raman has more from Bangkok.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sightseeing in Bangkok Monday, a reluctant moment with the press for the U.S. defense secretary.
(on camera): Any decision about North Korea likely to be made in the weeks ahead to bring them to the U.N. Security Council? DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I will answer that one question. The president has stated what the policy is, the secretary of state has stated it, and I have stated it, and it's all exactly the same. So I think that the stories that have been playing are just inaccurate and mischievous.
RAMAN: Donald Rumsfeld irked by leaked suggestions the U.S. will soon decide whether to bring North Korea to the United Nations, suggestions made by a senior defense official to CNN over the weekend while Rumsfeld was in Singapore meeting with defense leaders. There he called on China to play a bigger role in getting the six-party talks, now stalled for almost a year, back on track. That, while also voicing some of the harshest rhetoric yet over China's military buildup.
RUMSFELD: It is estimated that China is now the third largest military budget in the world and clearly the largest in Asia. China is also improving its ability to project power in developing advance systems of military technology. Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder why this growing investment.
RAMAN: In Thailand, Rumsfeld held brief meetings with the country's prime minister and defense minister, discussing piracy in the Malacca Straits and the volatile situation in the country's south.
(on camera): Rumsfeld essentially played tourist on this stop, his first visit to Thailand as secretary of defense, timed as a post- tsunami visit and timed to give the secretary a respite before meeting with NATO leaders later this week.
Aneesh Raman, CNN, Bangkok.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VERJEE: Well, it's report card day, Jim. And Olympic officials have issued a report card on five cities vying to host the 2012 summer games.
CLANCY: Now, it makes us all wonder, does Paris have something that London, New York, Madrid -- not Madrid -- Moscow don't have? Stay with us for more on that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: One month to go before the Olympic Committee announces who will host the 2012 summer games. Well, an IOC evaluation report on the five cities vying for that honor suggests Paris is the frontrunner.
The Parisians certainly brought on a spectacular sporting event over the weekend all around the center of the City of Lights. The city praised for its accommodation, transportation and budgeting.
Meantime, London, New York and Madrid also getting good marks. Moscow, though, getting a little criticism for a lack of information on its plan. London Olympic officials say they couldn't be more pleased with their report card.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEBASTIAN COE, LONDON BID CHAIRMAN: Let me start by simply saying with great pleasure we are delighted. We haven't had a great deal of time to digest the report. I have a team upstairs buried over laptops at this moment. But from our initial observations, a lot of hard work has paid off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CLANCY: New York officials say their review couldn't be any better. They say they are confident they will be the winning city when it's announced in a month's time.
VERJEE: Britain has dealt another blow to the beleaguered EU constitution, announcing it's shelving plans for a referendum on the treaty. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made a statement to the House of Commons outlining the government's position.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: The EU does now face a period of difficulty. In working -- in working in our interests, and in the union's interests, we must not, however, act in a way which undermines the EU's strengths and achievements of the last five decades, and we shall not do so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VERJEE: The decision follows rejection of the constitution in last week's referendums in France and in the Netherlands.
CLANCY: In California, jurors in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial now in a second day of deliberations. Jackson is awaiting the verdict at his Neverland ranch. His friend, Reverend Jesse Jackson, says the pop star is in what he termed excruciating pain and anxious about the verdict.
Jackson paid another visit to a hospital on Sunday. This time for recurring back pain. The jury got the case on Friday and deliberated about two hours before adjourning for the weekend.
VERJEE: The disappearance of a U.S. tourist in Aruba has shaken the relatively crime-free Caribbean island. Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway has been missing for a week now. Police are holding two suspect, but there's been no sign of her. The latest now from Karl Penhaul. He joins us now from Aruba.
Karl, an update on the search?
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Zain, those who men were arrested yesterday on the eastern edge of the island, and police have said that in the course of today they have been putting through more interrogation sessions. The police do say -- a senior police official I talked to said that these two men are not being cooperative at this stage.
He said that's not too abnormal for this type of interrogation. But he said that the two main lines of inquiry right now coming from the police are, first of all, to press these two men to find out any clues as to the whereabouts of Natalee Holloway, the Alabama 18-year- old, and also to see if there are any links between these two men and three other young men who were last seen in Natalee's company in the wee small hours of Monday a week ago.
They -- also, at this time, there is search operations continuing across the island. Those are being led by Aruba search and rescue teams, backed by Dutch Marines. But also, the islanders themselves and U.S. tourists visiting the island have taken the issue to heart, and they are also helping to search. And in the last few hours as well, the island's chief prosecutor has said that she is calling for an expert team of FBI divers to be brought in who will comb parts of the rocky and craggy shoreline of Aruba, particularly those areas where there are strong ocean currents -- Zain.
VERJEE: From Aruba, CNN's Karl Penhaul reporting.
CLANCY: Let's take a few moments here to take a look at some of the stories that are making news around the United States.
VERJEE: The Supreme Court has taken a stand on the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The court ruled that doctors can be banned from prescribing marijuana to patients for pain relief. It also ruled that the government can prohibit the home cultivation of marijuana for personal use.
CLANCY: The U.S. Senate back at work on Capitol Hill, set to take up the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to be a U.S. circuit court judge. A vote not expected on Monday.
VERJEE: The Senate also prepares to take up the contested nomination of John Bolton to become the next ambassador to the United Nations.
CLANCY: And a group formed by the September 11th Commission will start a series of hearings on how the government has responded to the panel's recommendations. The meeting going on in Washington this morning is the first in the series of public events to examine progress on that issue.
VERJEE: The latest on Wall Street trading coming up in our report on business news.
CLANCY: And the remarkable story of a man who rose above South Africa's ugly Apartheid system.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VERJEE: Time for a check on what's moving the markets in the U.S. For that, over to New York and to Gerri Willis. (STOCK MARKET REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: Welcome back to YOUR WORLD TODAY. I'm Jim Clancy.
VERJEE: And I'm Zain Verjee. Here are some of the top stories we're following.
CLANCY: Syrian President Bashar Al Assad has opened the first congress of the ruling Baath Party since his father's death five years ago. He says Syria must improve the economy and fight corruption. But he also says any reforms must be a response to Syria's domestic needs, not from international pressure. Mr. Assad also says the political enemies of Syria are trying to crush Arab identity.
VERJEE: The race to host the 2012 Summer Olympics is in its final stretch. And an IOC evaluation report on the five cities vying for the honor gives Paris the best review. London, New York and Madrid also got good marks, but Moscow was criticized for lack of information on its plan.
CLANCY: The International Criminal Court in the Hague launching a formal investigation into allegations of war crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan. Tens of thousands of people have been killed. Millions of others left homeless in a rebel uprising that began in 2003. Arab militias have repeatedly been accused of killing, raping and burning down villages of non-Arab civilians.
VERJEE: For some reaction now to the news of the investigation by the International Criminal Court, we are joined from Washington by Khidir Haroun Ahmed, the Sudanese ambassador to the United States.
Thanks so much for being with us.
Your reaction?
KHIDIR HAROUN AHMED, SUDANESE AMB. TO U.S.: Thank you very much.
First of all, I think the viewers also deserve some good news. I would like just to say that the United Nations secretary-general has just concluded a tour, as well as deputy secretary of state, also the secretary-general of the Arab Union. They -- all of them confirmed the situation is drastically changed to a positive track.
VERJEE: Are you going to cooperate with the ICC investigation?
AHMED: Well, yes. The (INAUDIBLE) statute of the International Criminal Court is of a complimentary to the national judicial system, according to the legal experts. And I am glad to hear from the chief prosecutor today in his press release that his efforts will require the national, as well as international (INAUDIBLE) cooperation. Glad also to hear him saying that he would put into account the outcome of the African Union efforts to bring back peace to Darfur region. Yes.
VERJEE: So, when the International Criminal Court says, we want permission and cooperation to come into Darfur to talk to people, to conduct forensic tests on mass graves that may be discovered, you won't hinder that?
AHMED: Well, there are no, by the way, any mass graves discovered in that region. But as I said, as soon as the International Criminal Court efforts are complimentary to the judicial system of Sudan, according to the statutes, (INAUDIBLE) statutes, the government will be than willing to cooperate in that manner.
I just would like to remind your viewers that (INAUDIBLE) present Kofi Annan, Sudan, said before the United Nations Security Council in last February that Sudan is not to failed state. Our judiciary system has a very good reputation. It's....
VERJEE: Certainly, if you say it's not a failed state, but Sudanese government has failed in its responsibility to protect its own people, either you've been unable or unwilling. Do you think that the international community would entrust the Sudanese government to try criminals yourselves as Khartoum says it wants to?
AHMED: I would put it the other way around. I think that the international community has failed in many ways to try to stop the atrocities over the two parties. You know that according to an agreement which was signed last year, in 2004. It's required that everybody, including the governments, should pinpoint the position there. And the international community has failed terribly unfortunately to make these tow rebel groups, to pinpoint the positions there, according to that agreement in order to enable the government to do its business of disarmament of everybody there. So if there is any blame here it should be shared by the international community as well.
VERJEE: Okay, Khidir Haroun Ahmed, the Sudanese ambassador to the United States.
CLANCY: All right, we're going to bring in correspondents from Bangkok, the Pentagon and the United Nations to look at North Korea and the threat to bring the issue of sanctions to the U.N. Security Council.
VERJEE: Also CNN celebrating its 25th anniversary. A quarter of a century of remarkable people with inspiring stories.
CLANCY: Up next, we're going to tell you about a man who suffered Apartheid in South Africa, and lived to forgive.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: The U.S. defense secretary is insisting that Washington is speaking with a single voice on North Korea's nuclear program. During a tour of Asia, Mr. Rumsfeld denied comments by another defense official that the U.S. is ready to take a harder line against Pyongyang.
For more on North Korea and related issues, we spoke a little bit earlier to CNN's Richard Roth, Barbara Starr and Aneesh Raman. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Well, Rumsfeld, Jim, essentially came to Thailand not looking to make any news. While sightseeing at the Grand Palace, I asked him to respond to the reports of an impending decision about whether to bring North Korea to the U.N. He was clearly irked by the suggestion, immediately responded to that question and only that question, saying there had been no change in U.S. policy and the reports that came out this weekend were both mischievous and inaccurate.
One has to wonder, though, Jim, those reports leaked by a senior defense official, whether there was some strategy at play to leak a report and then refute it, all the meanwhile, reminding North Korea very publicly of the other avenues that exist.
CLANCY: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Was there pressure being applied? Was there a flip-flop, changing the opinion that this issue of North Korea's nuclear program going to the Security Council sooner rather than later?
BARBARA STAR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, that's something we really don't know. It was a defense official traveling with the secretary in Asia who apparently told reporters on background that there was some discussion of taking the entire matter to the United Nations for sanctions sooner rather than later. But as Aneesh just reported, within hours, not only Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, but the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice walked back from that statement, saying that the six-party talks still have plenty of life in them and that there was no immediate plan to go to the United Nations.
CLANCY: Well, maybe there's something to this. Richard Roth, there United Nations headquarters in New York. Could sanctions pass muster in the Security Council?
RICHARD ROTH, CNN SR. U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, did you think it was easy getting a resolution on going to war with Iraq passed? Try North Korea. China would be the biggest stumbling block for any Washington move here. It would certainly need a lot of convincing. Look how difficult it was to pass a resolution mentioning the words sanctions on Sudan. It's really been over a year.
China, the big trading partner of North Korea, lifeline to North Korea. According to the Chinese diplomats here we've talked to over the last few months, they still want to keep the focus on those six- party talks, keep diplomacy alive, according to Beijing.
CLANCY: Aneesh Raman in Bangkok. If North Korea won't talk, what do Asian nations want?
RAMAN: Well, there are essentially two camps out here, Jim. The South Koreans and the Chinese are incredibly weary of bringing this issue to the United Nations. Both want to see further movement on trying to get these talks to resume. The South Korean president will meet with U.S. President Bush on Friday. This likely to come up there.
Meanwhile, the U.S. publicly, with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld over the weekend, pushing China to do more. Now, the Japanese have emerged as sort of an ulterior voice. They're saying that if talks cannot be resumed, that movement has to take place and other avenues have to be pursued. That includes the U.N.
Barbara Starr, the president has said on the record he is committed to diplomacy there at the Pentagon. Is there any indication military options are being explored?
STARR: Well, as they say here, Jim, all options are always on the table. The president saying that last week at a Rose Garden press conference. But the reality is that no one is looking here at military options.
What has happened is a number of jet fighters, including F-117s, have been moved into South Korea as part as a regular rotation, we are told, a regular military deployment. That is something that has been noticed and commented on by North Korea. But the word here is everything is routine. There is all emphasis on diplomacy, as the president has ordered -- Jim.
CLANCY: Richard Roth, the final word on diplomacy. Is there anything more that the U.N. can do on the North Korea issue?
ROTH: Well, they weren't able to agree here when discussing the review of the nonproliferation nuclear treaty, when the U.S. wanted more pressure put on Pyongyang. It may depend on just facts on the ground, perhaps North Korea even going further, and then diplomats here might be able to convince those holdouts.
Of course, by then, the new U.S. ambassador might be John Bolton, and he has already been called human scum by the Pyongyang government after he has called Kim Jong Il a tyrant. That's not going to be that easy to help convince China with John Bolton, perhaps, on the other end of the table.
CLANCY: All right. Richard Roth and Barbara Starr and Aneesh Raman there, giving us the latest on North Korea.
VERJEE: Time now to check some of the other news across the U.S. making headlines.
CLANCY: We begin in Salt Lake City. That's where Mark Hacking is to be sentenced for murder. Hacking pleaded guilty to kills his wife Lori last July. Her remains found in a landfill.
VERJEE: Severe weather's affecting parts of the United States. Thunderstorms swept through Michigan, knocking out power lines supplying at least 187,000 homes. Some people may be without electricity until late in the day. Two suspected tornadoes were reported. In neighboring Indiana, at least eight people were struck by lightning.
CLANCY: Broadway celebrating the best of the busy theater season Sunday night. The Tony for Best Musical went to "Spamalot," the loony adaptation of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." The drama "Doubt" won Best Play, but "The Light In the Piazza" had the night's biggest hull, six awards.
VERJEE: Pretty good. Up next...
CLANCY: Learning to forgive after the horrors of the Apartheid era. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: CNN, of course, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. And we've been looking back at some of the stories, of fear, of hope, of the future, that we've been covering over the last 25 years.
VERJEE: Exactly. What we really want to do, though, is to see those defining historical moments through the eyes and experiences of the individuals that lived through them. What happened to them, why they were affected the way that they were. Most importantly, how they have healed.
CLANCY: Let's turn to South Africa and the system known as Apartheid. It existed solely to separate blacks and from whites. It was a system designed to keep blacks down.
VERJEE: But one man rose above it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARK MATHABANE, APARTHEID SURVIVOR: I was conditioned to wake up early at about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, when the police would break down the door or shatter the window. And when I would hear screams of children and knew that my mother would have to flee her own home, and that I would have to take care of my brother, who was one, and my sister, who was three at the time when I needed to be taken care of.
VERJEE (voice-over): Food was scarce.
MATHABANE: (INAUDIBLE) on soup because there was nothing else to eat.
VERJEE: Mathabane's ticket out of the oppression was an education.
MATHABANE: The knowledge that I sought, which is mostly in books, was key to making the miracle happen.
VERJEE: Also key, Wimbledon champion Stan Smith. The two met as Mathabane watched the star warm up in Johannesburg.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE; He was as white as the whitest person that I'd ever met, and you wouldn't think we had anything in common. But the one thing we had was our humanity. I had to tell a story and I had to tell it honestly, often brutally honest. (END VIDEOTAPE)
VERJEE: We spoke to Mark Mathabane just a few days ago and he told us what it was like being black in South Africa and surviving under Apartheid.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATHABANE: It was like being in hell, because you are awakened as a child expecting a world that is loving, that's hopeful, and that's nurturing, and you find yourself face to face with the devils of hunger, the devil of hate, the devil of oppression. And then you find yourself also learning to hate, an emotion that's very foreign to children until they are taught.
VERJEE: Give us a sense of the anger felt in the shantytown that you grew up in. You suffered. There was hunger, no hope, humiliation. The oppression that you describe. For people that can't identify, what was it that was so palpable in Alexandra?
MATHABANE: The emasculation of my father is seared into my memory forever, because I was about five years old when I saw him marched naked out of bed by the police, and placed in the middle of a shack with his children watching, terrified. He can't protect them. And instead his head was bowed, because he was naked, and he was being asked if he had a right to live with his family. And I remember feeling as 5-year-old such hatred for the police, that had someone had given me a knife, I would have plunged it into the heart of another human being with glee and without remorse. That to me is what encapsulates Apartheid and its hellishness.
VERJEE: That's how you reacted because it was also the first time you saw a white man. How did you react when you saw a white man and didn't have that hatred?
MATHABANE: Well, up until that encounter I thought whites were inhuman, that they were incapable of emotions that I and fellow blacks in my family had, you know, the kindness, the caring, the empathy. And yet, one day, a white person intervened to help save my life by obtaining for my mother a birth certificate that was required to register me at the local tribal school.
VERJEE: And your mother was so important in helping what you become what you are today, because she believed that to get out of the ghetto, you needed an education, something your father didn't want.
MATHABANE: Yes. You know, and so when this woman intervened, a nun, the one thing that stunned me about what she did and how she looked were her tears. They were the first I've ever seen streak a white face. And I remember because I was cowering behind my mom's dress, afraid that this nun was a policeman in disguise, because I thought all white people were the same. And then, of course, she cried. And I had never seen a policeman cry before. And to me, tears are an expression of one's humanity. And so I remember saying to myself, you know, she feels my mother's pain. She cares. And sure enough, she grabbed my mother by the hand, and they stormed into the office, and in a jiffy, within minutes, my mother had the birth certificate that literally saved my life.
VERJEE: You taught yourself to read English, though. You taught yourself to play tennis, too. Both carved the way out. Tell us a little bit about that.
MATHABANE: Yes, English was quite a Herculean struggle because it's my sixth language. And we are prevented from learning it deliberately by Apartheid, because they knew that once we mastered this language, then our inspirations would extend beyond the ghetto. So I started learning it from scraps of newspaper, from discarded comic books, and from listening to the BBC. CNN was still a dream in Ted Turner's head.
But you know, the BBC had these wonderful renditions of Shakespearian plays. I didn't know a thing about drama, but the language was captivating.
And then tennis, of course, I saw Arthur Ashe when I was 13. He was literally the first free black man I ever set my eyes upon. And I remember being powerfully impacted, not so much by his tennis abilities. I mean, those were self-evident, but it was his character as a black man. I mean, he was literally the first liberated black man I could identify with, because he was eloquent. He had dignity. He had character. He was disciplined. And above all, he was the first black man I had ever seen who when he spoked looked white people in the eye, instead of dropping his eyes as my gray-haired father and gray-haired grandfather always did, when addressing little white boys.
VERJEE: How did you confront your own fear, and then ultimately forgiveness?
MATHABANE: My mother is to blame. But she believed without a doubt that no good can ever come out of hating. And she also believed that it behooved me to give every white person I met the benefit of the doubt, because that's what I expected from whoever met me. And lastly, she is someone who taught me about the meaning of the word "wintu," (ph) you know, our common humanity. Because I have come to believe that not only is humanity indivisible, and interdependent, that its survival is collective. And that unless we can find ways to unlearn hatred, to give our children a legacy of love, because if God is anything really, God is love.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VERJEE: Mark Mathabane says he's been able to forgive all white South Africans. He's brought his entire family over to the United States, where his mother is now attending school.
CLANCY: A great and a very interesting story. Well, that's our report for now. Tomorrow at this time we will be hearing from a survivor of the worst school shooting in U.S. history and how he's gone on to rebuild in his life.
For now, I'm Jim Clancy.
VERJEE: And I'm Zain Verjee. This is CNN.
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Aired June 6, 2005 - 12:00 ET
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ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY.
JIM CLANCY, CNN ANCHOR: A call for justice after murder, torture, rape and plunder. The International Criminal Court focuses on atrocities in Sudan.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN ANCHOR: A command for attention. Eyes on Syria as the Congress of the ruling Ba'ath Party here's a warning from the president.
CLANCY: And a cry in the Caribbean. The hunt goes on as hopes fade for a missing teenage tourist.
VERJEE: It is 7:00 p.m. in Darfur, Sudan; 12:00 p.m. in Aruba. I'm Zain Verjee.
CLANCY: I'm Jim Clancy. Welcome. A special welcome to you, our new viewers in the United States.
This is YOUR WORLD TODAY.
VERJEE: The International Criminal Court in the Netherlands is launching an investigation into suspected war crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan.
CLANCY: All of this coming after years of conflict, the deaths of tens of thousands of people, and accusations of rape and human rights abuses.
VERJEE: There are some 2,000 troops from the African Union monitoring a cease-fire in Darfur, but the violence has continued.
CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson has more on the ICC decision to intervene.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Human suffering in Sudan's southern region, Darfur, has already reached massive proportions. More than 180,000 believe killed and at least two million made homeless.
Ending that is why the International Criminal Court in the Hague says it's opening an investigation. Indicating how tough getting justice may be, chief prosecutor Louis Moreno-Ocampo announced, "The investigation will require sustained cooperation from national and international authorities. It will form part of a collective effort, complementing African Union and other initiatives."
The ICC may well need all the help it can get. Sudanese officials have already rejected the need for an international investigation, citing arrests they have made. And the U.N.'s repeated efforts to end the violence have so far not met with success.
Late last year, and early this year, a special U.N. inquiry into the situation in Darfur recorded murder, rape, torture and pillaging among the crimes it encountered. A few months later in March, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution authorizing an arms embargo to bring an end to the violence.
At the end of March, another U.N. resolution recommended the ICC investigate. And as recently as May, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan toured Darfur, calling for a quick end to the violence, an appeal that to this day seems to have fallen on stony ground.
(on camera): Before taking its decision to open this investigation, the ICC says it has reviewed several thousand documents and interviewed more than 50 independent experts. As its first major legal case since receiving its legal authority July 2002, many countries will likely be watching with keen interest, not just to see how the ICC exercises its authority over a recalcitrant regime, but to see if it can and if justice can bring peace where others have failed.
Nic Robertson, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VERJEE: So what are the chances the International Criminal Court will get to the truth in Darfur? Will justice prevail, and will those found responsible people pay for their crimes?
Joining us now with her perspective is Samantha Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and public policy lecturer at Harvard University.
Thanks so much for joining us. How does the court prepare for an investigation like this?
SAMANTHA POWER, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Well, the first thing it does is what it has done already, which is it deferred to the government of Sudan. It, for the last two months, has been looking into whether or not Sudan is able or willing to prosecute these crimes itself, because, of course, the ICC only acts where countries are unable or unwilling. And seeing that Sudan was resisting investigating and not looking into the crimes that had been committed by its own officials and forces, it then has decided to intervene. But again, only after first a two-month investigation to make sure that it should in fact complement national jurisdiction.
VERJEE: So what kind of cooperation can we anticipate from the Sudanese government? They're very good at a charm offensive, appearing to engage, but not actually progressing.
POWER: I think all we can really expect is, every two or three months, whenever the international pressure heats up, you can expect some ritual trials, a kind of show trial mechanism that kicks into gear whenever the spotlight is on. The International Criminal Court is going to have a difficult time getting access to Darfur proper. And don't forget, of course, that Darfur is the crime scene, so to be denied access to that crime scene is very worrying.
VERJEE: The U.S. does not recognize the International Criminal Court. Do you think that Sudan will say, look, the U.S. doesn't recognize it, it views it as a violation of sovereignty, so why should we recognize the court?
POWER: Yes, I think the Sudanese government will make a whole series of arguments, including that one. One of the things the international court suffers from right now is a kind of a void or a vacuum internationally.
The Europeans have been very quiet on the atrocities carried out in Darfur, haven't pressured the Sudanese government, haven't really taken a leadership role on protection or on the humanitarian side. But the Europeans are very keen on the International Criminal Court.
The Americans, by contrast, have been very tough on the Sudanese government, really turning the heat up on Darfur, but are themselves, as you suggested, very lukewarm, at best, about the International Criminal Court. Indeed, there are people within the Bush administration, I think, who would like nothing more than to see the International Criminal Court fail its first very high-profile test, which is Darfur.
VERJEE: And for the refugees themselves in Darfur, in Chad, what does a probe like this mean?
POWER: Well, one of the things that amazed me the last time I was there, which was a few months ago now, five or six months ago, was the extent to which in the middle of the desert, the Sahara Desert, you're kind of -- you know, there's no water, no electricity, no nothing. And you run into groups of refugees, and you say, you know, "What do you most want?" And they say, "The Hague."
And you say, "Well, the Hague?" And these people, they didn't know the Hague was in the Netherlands. They didn't know where it was, but what it represented to them was accountability, which is something that they are very familiar with in their tradition and their culture. So many of them expressed a wish to testify.
But again, one of the main challenges the ICC is how will they get into Darfur in order to debrief witnesses who are still trapped within that country? We know the ICC will have access to those this in Chad, we know they'll have access to press reports. But to do a top-notch investigation, we they'll really have to get in, and that will depend on either the Americans or the Europeans really turning up the heat on Sudan and insisting on cooperation.
VERJEE: Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and public policy lecturer at Harvard University. Thanks so much.
POWER: Thank you, Zain. VERJEE: Later this hour, we're going to be talking to the Sudanese ambassador to the United States for his reaction -- Jim.
CLANCY: Shifting our focus to the Middle East now, Syrian President Bashar Assad says his country must reorder its priorities to reform the economy and to fight corruption. But he says any initiatives must be a response to internal domestic needs, not external pressure.
Mr. Assad opening the first Congress of the ruling Ba'ath Party since the death of his father five years ago, at a time when Syria is under intense international scrutiny. He said the enemies of Syria are trying to destroy Arab identity by undermining fundamental values.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BASHAR ASSAD, SYRIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Those against the Arab nation are attacking us for any identity we may have, or any vision that we may enjoy to -- we may adopt too steadfast. They try to change us into a negative reactive entity, like a sponge would absorb what is being thrown at it without any will or any ability to think about refusing or accepting what comes its way. This reality dictates on us that we have to confront it with responsibility and challenge it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CLANCY: Now, Mr. Assad is under a lot of pressure, as he noted. And it must be considered, he has to deal with the economic problems of his country. He sees them as a bigger challenge, perhaps, than the demands for his political situation to change in Syria. In other words, for democracy to be brought in.
Why? Because of 18.5 million people in Syria. Fully one-third of them are under the age of 15. He will have to create millions of new jobs. And most people looking at Syria economically say he doesn't have the capacity to create those jobs right now. Just part of the pressure.
Let's go to CNN's Brent Sadler, who joins us now from Damascus -- Brent.
BRENT SADLER, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim. Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, as you outlined there, has enormous problems at home. He also has enormous problems from the outside.
With increased U.S. pressure on Damascus to make reforms, not only economically, but also politically, to allow freedom of expression through the media, which is virtually nonexistent from and to allow opposition parties which are outlawed here at the moment.
Now, the Syrian leader was popular among the Ba'ath Party elite at the opening session of Congress today, but unpopular, certainly led by critics in the United States. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, recently said that Syria is not immune to democratic changes taking shape in the region. The same U.S. officials whose hard-line policy toppled the ruling Ba'athists in neighboring Iraq, a former ideological twin of Syria's Ba'ath Party.
Now, on the economic front, yes, the Syrian leader is expected to take some steps, cautious steps in terms of reform. But internationally, he has told delegates at this conference very forcedly today that they should not be pressured by foreign interference, he said, to fall in line with what the outside wants.
He said the Arab identity is under attack from foreign-inspired conspiracies. He says that Syria effectively should pull back on the pillars of the Ba'ath Party creation some 40-plus years ago, that Syria should really try to awaken wider Arab awareness and unity, the attacks that Arabs now face from international policy in this region, notably by the United States and its closest regional ally, Israel -- Jim.
CLANCY: Brent, we were able to talk just about an hour ago with Syria's ambassador to the United States. He asserts that there was talk, a political reform there, as well as economic reform. What did you hear?
SADLER: Today, the Syrian president has been outlining the framework for what he hopes will be a package of hard measures, it's generally expected here, not what the outsider wants, certainly not what the Syrian opposition would want. Some of their members were arrested for several days only last week.
The Muslim Brotherhood, for example, the Islamic Party, is banned, outlawed. In fact, penalty of death for belonging to that party.
Syria wants to be -- remain a socialist Arab nation. It wants to remain a secular nation. And the Syrian leadership has quite clearly said today that it will continue with a program of incremental reforms, but certainly not what the outside is looking for and certainly not what many Syrians say they are looking for -- Jim.
CLANCY: Brent Sadler reporting to us there live from Damascus.
VERJEE: The U.S. defense secretary has been on the defensive during a tour of Asia. Donald Rumsfeld is denying reports that the U.S. is poised to take a harder line against North Korea and its nuclear program.
Aneesh Raman has more from Bangkok.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sightseeing in Bangkok Monday, a reluctant moment with the press for the U.S. defense secretary.
(on camera): Any decision about North Korea likely to be made in the weeks ahead to bring them to the U.N. Security Council? DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I will answer that one question. The president has stated what the policy is, the secretary of state has stated it, and I have stated it, and it's all exactly the same. So I think that the stories that have been playing are just inaccurate and mischievous.
RAMAN: Donald Rumsfeld irked by leaked suggestions the U.S. will soon decide whether to bring North Korea to the United Nations, suggestions made by a senior defense official to CNN over the weekend while Rumsfeld was in Singapore meeting with defense leaders. There he called on China to play a bigger role in getting the six-party talks, now stalled for almost a year, back on track. That, while also voicing some of the harshest rhetoric yet over China's military buildup.
RUMSFELD: It is estimated that China is now the third largest military budget in the world and clearly the largest in Asia. China is also improving its ability to project power in developing advance systems of military technology. Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder why this growing investment.
RAMAN: In Thailand, Rumsfeld held brief meetings with the country's prime minister and defense minister, discussing piracy in the Malacca Straits and the volatile situation in the country's south.
(on camera): Rumsfeld essentially played tourist on this stop, his first visit to Thailand as secretary of defense, timed as a post- tsunami visit and timed to give the secretary a respite before meeting with NATO leaders later this week.
Aneesh Raman, CNN, Bangkok.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VERJEE: Well, it's report card day, Jim. And Olympic officials have issued a report card on five cities vying to host the 2012 summer games.
CLANCY: Now, it makes us all wonder, does Paris have something that London, New York, Madrid -- not Madrid -- Moscow don't have? Stay with us for more on that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: One month to go before the Olympic Committee announces who will host the 2012 summer games. Well, an IOC evaluation report on the five cities vying for that honor suggests Paris is the frontrunner.
The Parisians certainly brought on a spectacular sporting event over the weekend all around the center of the City of Lights. The city praised for its accommodation, transportation and budgeting.
Meantime, London, New York and Madrid also getting good marks. Moscow, though, getting a little criticism for a lack of information on its plan. London Olympic officials say they couldn't be more pleased with their report card.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEBASTIAN COE, LONDON BID CHAIRMAN: Let me start by simply saying with great pleasure we are delighted. We haven't had a great deal of time to digest the report. I have a team upstairs buried over laptops at this moment. But from our initial observations, a lot of hard work has paid off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CLANCY: New York officials say their review couldn't be any better. They say they are confident they will be the winning city when it's announced in a month's time.
VERJEE: Britain has dealt another blow to the beleaguered EU constitution, announcing it's shelving plans for a referendum on the treaty. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made a statement to the House of Commons outlining the government's position.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: The EU does now face a period of difficulty. In working -- in working in our interests, and in the union's interests, we must not, however, act in a way which undermines the EU's strengths and achievements of the last five decades, and we shall not do so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VERJEE: The decision follows rejection of the constitution in last week's referendums in France and in the Netherlands.
CLANCY: In California, jurors in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial now in a second day of deliberations. Jackson is awaiting the verdict at his Neverland ranch. His friend, Reverend Jesse Jackson, says the pop star is in what he termed excruciating pain and anxious about the verdict.
Jackson paid another visit to a hospital on Sunday. This time for recurring back pain. The jury got the case on Friday and deliberated about two hours before adjourning for the weekend.
VERJEE: The disappearance of a U.S. tourist in Aruba has shaken the relatively crime-free Caribbean island. Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway has been missing for a week now. Police are holding two suspect, but there's been no sign of her. The latest now from Karl Penhaul. He joins us now from Aruba.
Karl, an update on the search?
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Zain, those who men were arrested yesterday on the eastern edge of the island, and police have said that in the course of today they have been putting through more interrogation sessions. The police do say -- a senior police official I talked to said that these two men are not being cooperative at this stage.
He said that's not too abnormal for this type of interrogation. But he said that the two main lines of inquiry right now coming from the police are, first of all, to press these two men to find out any clues as to the whereabouts of Natalee Holloway, the Alabama 18-year- old, and also to see if there are any links between these two men and three other young men who were last seen in Natalee's company in the wee small hours of Monday a week ago.
They -- also, at this time, there is search operations continuing across the island. Those are being led by Aruba search and rescue teams, backed by Dutch Marines. But also, the islanders themselves and U.S. tourists visiting the island have taken the issue to heart, and they are also helping to search. And in the last few hours as well, the island's chief prosecutor has said that she is calling for an expert team of FBI divers to be brought in who will comb parts of the rocky and craggy shoreline of Aruba, particularly those areas where there are strong ocean currents -- Zain.
VERJEE: From Aruba, CNN's Karl Penhaul reporting.
CLANCY: Let's take a few moments here to take a look at some of the stories that are making news around the United States.
VERJEE: The Supreme Court has taken a stand on the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The court ruled that doctors can be banned from prescribing marijuana to patients for pain relief. It also ruled that the government can prohibit the home cultivation of marijuana for personal use.
CLANCY: The U.S. Senate back at work on Capitol Hill, set to take up the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to be a U.S. circuit court judge. A vote not expected on Monday.
VERJEE: The Senate also prepares to take up the contested nomination of John Bolton to become the next ambassador to the United Nations.
CLANCY: And a group formed by the September 11th Commission will start a series of hearings on how the government has responded to the panel's recommendations. The meeting going on in Washington this morning is the first in the series of public events to examine progress on that issue.
VERJEE: The latest on Wall Street trading coming up in our report on business news.
CLANCY: And the remarkable story of a man who rose above South Africa's ugly Apartheid system.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VERJEE: Time for a check on what's moving the markets in the U.S. For that, over to New York and to Gerri Willis. (STOCK MARKET REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: Welcome back to YOUR WORLD TODAY. I'm Jim Clancy.
VERJEE: And I'm Zain Verjee. Here are some of the top stories we're following.
CLANCY: Syrian President Bashar Al Assad has opened the first congress of the ruling Baath Party since his father's death five years ago. He says Syria must improve the economy and fight corruption. But he also says any reforms must be a response to Syria's domestic needs, not from international pressure. Mr. Assad also says the political enemies of Syria are trying to crush Arab identity.
VERJEE: The race to host the 2012 Summer Olympics is in its final stretch. And an IOC evaluation report on the five cities vying for the honor gives Paris the best review. London, New York and Madrid also got good marks, but Moscow was criticized for lack of information on its plan.
CLANCY: The International Criminal Court in the Hague launching a formal investigation into allegations of war crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan. Tens of thousands of people have been killed. Millions of others left homeless in a rebel uprising that began in 2003. Arab militias have repeatedly been accused of killing, raping and burning down villages of non-Arab civilians.
VERJEE: For some reaction now to the news of the investigation by the International Criminal Court, we are joined from Washington by Khidir Haroun Ahmed, the Sudanese ambassador to the United States.
Thanks so much for being with us.
Your reaction?
KHIDIR HAROUN AHMED, SUDANESE AMB. TO U.S.: Thank you very much.
First of all, I think the viewers also deserve some good news. I would like just to say that the United Nations secretary-general has just concluded a tour, as well as deputy secretary of state, also the secretary-general of the Arab Union. They -- all of them confirmed the situation is drastically changed to a positive track.
VERJEE: Are you going to cooperate with the ICC investigation?
AHMED: Well, yes. The (INAUDIBLE) statute of the International Criminal Court is of a complimentary to the national judicial system, according to the legal experts. And I am glad to hear from the chief prosecutor today in his press release that his efforts will require the national, as well as international (INAUDIBLE) cooperation. Glad also to hear him saying that he would put into account the outcome of the African Union efforts to bring back peace to Darfur region. Yes.
VERJEE: So, when the International Criminal Court says, we want permission and cooperation to come into Darfur to talk to people, to conduct forensic tests on mass graves that may be discovered, you won't hinder that?
AHMED: Well, there are no, by the way, any mass graves discovered in that region. But as I said, as soon as the International Criminal Court efforts are complimentary to the judicial system of Sudan, according to the statutes, (INAUDIBLE) statutes, the government will be than willing to cooperate in that manner.
I just would like to remind your viewers that (INAUDIBLE) present Kofi Annan, Sudan, said before the United Nations Security Council in last February that Sudan is not to failed state. Our judiciary system has a very good reputation. It's....
VERJEE: Certainly, if you say it's not a failed state, but Sudanese government has failed in its responsibility to protect its own people, either you've been unable or unwilling. Do you think that the international community would entrust the Sudanese government to try criminals yourselves as Khartoum says it wants to?
AHMED: I would put it the other way around. I think that the international community has failed in many ways to try to stop the atrocities over the two parties. You know that according to an agreement which was signed last year, in 2004. It's required that everybody, including the governments, should pinpoint the position there. And the international community has failed terribly unfortunately to make these tow rebel groups, to pinpoint the positions there, according to that agreement in order to enable the government to do its business of disarmament of everybody there. So if there is any blame here it should be shared by the international community as well.
VERJEE: Okay, Khidir Haroun Ahmed, the Sudanese ambassador to the United States.
CLANCY: All right, we're going to bring in correspondents from Bangkok, the Pentagon and the United Nations to look at North Korea and the threat to bring the issue of sanctions to the U.N. Security Council.
VERJEE: Also CNN celebrating its 25th anniversary. A quarter of a century of remarkable people with inspiring stories.
CLANCY: Up next, we're going to tell you about a man who suffered Apartheid in South Africa, and lived to forgive.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: The U.S. defense secretary is insisting that Washington is speaking with a single voice on North Korea's nuclear program. During a tour of Asia, Mr. Rumsfeld denied comments by another defense official that the U.S. is ready to take a harder line against Pyongyang.
For more on North Korea and related issues, we spoke a little bit earlier to CNN's Richard Roth, Barbara Starr and Aneesh Raman. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Well, Rumsfeld, Jim, essentially came to Thailand not looking to make any news. While sightseeing at the Grand Palace, I asked him to respond to the reports of an impending decision about whether to bring North Korea to the U.N. He was clearly irked by the suggestion, immediately responded to that question and only that question, saying there had been no change in U.S. policy and the reports that came out this weekend were both mischievous and inaccurate.
One has to wonder, though, Jim, those reports leaked by a senior defense official, whether there was some strategy at play to leak a report and then refute it, all the meanwhile, reminding North Korea very publicly of the other avenues that exist.
CLANCY: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Was there pressure being applied? Was there a flip-flop, changing the opinion that this issue of North Korea's nuclear program going to the Security Council sooner rather than later?
BARBARA STAR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, that's something we really don't know. It was a defense official traveling with the secretary in Asia who apparently told reporters on background that there was some discussion of taking the entire matter to the United Nations for sanctions sooner rather than later. But as Aneesh just reported, within hours, not only Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, but the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice walked back from that statement, saying that the six-party talks still have plenty of life in them and that there was no immediate plan to go to the United Nations.
CLANCY: Well, maybe there's something to this. Richard Roth, there United Nations headquarters in New York. Could sanctions pass muster in the Security Council?
RICHARD ROTH, CNN SR. U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, did you think it was easy getting a resolution on going to war with Iraq passed? Try North Korea. China would be the biggest stumbling block for any Washington move here. It would certainly need a lot of convincing. Look how difficult it was to pass a resolution mentioning the words sanctions on Sudan. It's really been over a year.
China, the big trading partner of North Korea, lifeline to North Korea. According to the Chinese diplomats here we've talked to over the last few months, they still want to keep the focus on those six- party talks, keep diplomacy alive, according to Beijing.
CLANCY: Aneesh Raman in Bangkok. If North Korea won't talk, what do Asian nations want?
RAMAN: Well, there are essentially two camps out here, Jim. The South Koreans and the Chinese are incredibly weary of bringing this issue to the United Nations. Both want to see further movement on trying to get these talks to resume. The South Korean president will meet with U.S. President Bush on Friday. This likely to come up there.
Meanwhile, the U.S. publicly, with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld over the weekend, pushing China to do more. Now, the Japanese have emerged as sort of an ulterior voice. They're saying that if talks cannot be resumed, that movement has to take place and other avenues have to be pursued. That includes the U.N.
Barbara Starr, the president has said on the record he is committed to diplomacy there at the Pentagon. Is there any indication military options are being explored?
STARR: Well, as they say here, Jim, all options are always on the table. The president saying that last week at a Rose Garden press conference. But the reality is that no one is looking here at military options.
What has happened is a number of jet fighters, including F-117s, have been moved into South Korea as part as a regular rotation, we are told, a regular military deployment. That is something that has been noticed and commented on by North Korea. But the word here is everything is routine. There is all emphasis on diplomacy, as the president has ordered -- Jim.
CLANCY: Richard Roth, the final word on diplomacy. Is there anything more that the U.N. can do on the North Korea issue?
ROTH: Well, they weren't able to agree here when discussing the review of the nonproliferation nuclear treaty, when the U.S. wanted more pressure put on Pyongyang. It may depend on just facts on the ground, perhaps North Korea even going further, and then diplomats here might be able to convince those holdouts.
Of course, by then, the new U.S. ambassador might be John Bolton, and he has already been called human scum by the Pyongyang government after he has called Kim Jong Il a tyrant. That's not going to be that easy to help convince China with John Bolton, perhaps, on the other end of the table.
CLANCY: All right. Richard Roth and Barbara Starr and Aneesh Raman there, giving us the latest on North Korea.
VERJEE: Time now to check some of the other news across the U.S. making headlines.
CLANCY: We begin in Salt Lake City. That's where Mark Hacking is to be sentenced for murder. Hacking pleaded guilty to kills his wife Lori last July. Her remains found in a landfill.
VERJEE: Severe weather's affecting parts of the United States. Thunderstorms swept through Michigan, knocking out power lines supplying at least 187,000 homes. Some people may be without electricity until late in the day. Two suspected tornadoes were reported. In neighboring Indiana, at least eight people were struck by lightning.
CLANCY: Broadway celebrating the best of the busy theater season Sunday night. The Tony for Best Musical went to "Spamalot," the loony adaptation of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." The drama "Doubt" won Best Play, but "The Light In the Piazza" had the night's biggest hull, six awards.
VERJEE: Pretty good. Up next...
CLANCY: Learning to forgive after the horrors of the Apartheid era. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CLANCY: CNN, of course, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. And we've been looking back at some of the stories, of fear, of hope, of the future, that we've been covering over the last 25 years.
VERJEE: Exactly. What we really want to do, though, is to see those defining historical moments through the eyes and experiences of the individuals that lived through them. What happened to them, why they were affected the way that they were. Most importantly, how they have healed.
CLANCY: Let's turn to South Africa and the system known as Apartheid. It existed solely to separate blacks and from whites. It was a system designed to keep blacks down.
VERJEE: But one man rose above it.
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MARK MATHABANE, APARTHEID SURVIVOR: I was conditioned to wake up early at about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, when the police would break down the door or shatter the window. And when I would hear screams of children and knew that my mother would have to flee her own home, and that I would have to take care of my brother, who was one, and my sister, who was three at the time when I needed to be taken care of.
VERJEE (voice-over): Food was scarce.
MATHABANE: (INAUDIBLE) on soup because there was nothing else to eat.
VERJEE: Mathabane's ticket out of the oppression was an education.
MATHABANE: The knowledge that I sought, which is mostly in books, was key to making the miracle happen.
VERJEE: Also key, Wimbledon champion Stan Smith. The two met as Mathabane watched the star warm up in Johannesburg.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE; He was as white as the whitest person that I'd ever met, and you wouldn't think we had anything in common. But the one thing we had was our humanity. I had to tell a story and I had to tell it honestly, often brutally honest. (END VIDEOTAPE)
VERJEE: We spoke to Mark Mathabane just a few days ago and he told us what it was like being black in South Africa and surviving under Apartheid.
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MATHABANE: It was like being in hell, because you are awakened as a child expecting a world that is loving, that's hopeful, and that's nurturing, and you find yourself face to face with the devils of hunger, the devil of hate, the devil of oppression. And then you find yourself also learning to hate, an emotion that's very foreign to children until they are taught.
VERJEE: Give us a sense of the anger felt in the shantytown that you grew up in. You suffered. There was hunger, no hope, humiliation. The oppression that you describe. For people that can't identify, what was it that was so palpable in Alexandra?
MATHABANE: The emasculation of my father is seared into my memory forever, because I was about five years old when I saw him marched naked out of bed by the police, and placed in the middle of a shack with his children watching, terrified. He can't protect them. And instead his head was bowed, because he was naked, and he was being asked if he had a right to live with his family. And I remember feeling as 5-year-old such hatred for the police, that had someone had given me a knife, I would have plunged it into the heart of another human being with glee and without remorse. That to me is what encapsulates Apartheid and its hellishness.
VERJEE: That's how you reacted because it was also the first time you saw a white man. How did you react when you saw a white man and didn't have that hatred?
MATHABANE: Well, up until that encounter I thought whites were inhuman, that they were incapable of emotions that I and fellow blacks in my family had, you know, the kindness, the caring, the empathy. And yet, one day, a white person intervened to help save my life by obtaining for my mother a birth certificate that was required to register me at the local tribal school.
VERJEE: And your mother was so important in helping what you become what you are today, because she believed that to get out of the ghetto, you needed an education, something your father didn't want.
MATHABANE: Yes. You know, and so when this woman intervened, a nun, the one thing that stunned me about what she did and how she looked were her tears. They were the first I've ever seen streak a white face. And I remember because I was cowering behind my mom's dress, afraid that this nun was a policeman in disguise, because I thought all white people were the same. And then, of course, she cried. And I had never seen a policeman cry before. And to me, tears are an expression of one's humanity. And so I remember saying to myself, you know, she feels my mother's pain. She cares. And sure enough, she grabbed my mother by the hand, and they stormed into the office, and in a jiffy, within minutes, my mother had the birth certificate that literally saved my life.
VERJEE: You taught yourself to read English, though. You taught yourself to play tennis, too. Both carved the way out. Tell us a little bit about that.
MATHABANE: Yes, English was quite a Herculean struggle because it's my sixth language. And we are prevented from learning it deliberately by Apartheid, because they knew that once we mastered this language, then our inspirations would extend beyond the ghetto. So I started learning it from scraps of newspaper, from discarded comic books, and from listening to the BBC. CNN was still a dream in Ted Turner's head.
But you know, the BBC had these wonderful renditions of Shakespearian plays. I didn't know a thing about drama, but the language was captivating.
And then tennis, of course, I saw Arthur Ashe when I was 13. He was literally the first free black man I ever set my eyes upon. And I remember being powerfully impacted, not so much by his tennis abilities. I mean, those were self-evident, but it was his character as a black man. I mean, he was literally the first liberated black man I could identify with, because he was eloquent. He had dignity. He had character. He was disciplined. And above all, he was the first black man I had ever seen who when he spoked looked white people in the eye, instead of dropping his eyes as my gray-haired father and gray-haired grandfather always did, when addressing little white boys.
VERJEE: How did you confront your own fear, and then ultimately forgiveness?
MATHABANE: My mother is to blame. But she believed without a doubt that no good can ever come out of hating. And she also believed that it behooved me to give every white person I met the benefit of the doubt, because that's what I expected from whoever met me. And lastly, she is someone who taught me about the meaning of the word "wintu," (ph) you know, our common humanity. Because I have come to believe that not only is humanity indivisible, and interdependent, that its survival is collective. And that unless we can find ways to unlearn hatred, to give our children a legacy of love, because if God is anything really, God is love.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VERJEE: Mark Mathabane says he's been able to forgive all white South Africans. He's brought his entire family over to the United States, where his mother is now attending school.
CLANCY: A great and a very interesting story. Well, that's our report for now. Tomorrow at this time we will be hearing from a survivor of the worst school shooting in U.S. history and how he's gone on to rebuild in his life.
For now, I'm Jim Clancy.
VERJEE: And I'm Zain Verjee. This is CNN.
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