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The Threat of Libya's Chaos; Two Years after Newtown: No New Gun Laws; Imagine a World

Aired January 06, 2015 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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FRED PLEITGEN, CNN GUEST HOST (voice-over): Tonight: no power, no stability, no control. Libya unraveled and its people pay the price. I'll

speak live to the U.N. special envoy Bernardino Leon.

Plus guns and politics: a new documentary shows the power of the National Rifle Association in the United States. I'll talk to one of its makers.

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PLEITGEN: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Fred Pleitgen, sitting in for Christiane tonight.

When Moammar Gadhafi was toppled three years ago, the world had high hopes for Libya. After all, the country has incredible natural wealth, oil, gas

and thousands of kilometers of coastline perfect for fishing and tourism.

But Libya is descending into chaos fast. The fighting between rival factions is getting worse by the day. And as of today, there's not a

single international airlines willing to fly to Libya after Turkish Airlines suspended all remaining flights to Misrata.

Awash with weapons, militias are battling for control of territory and of strategic oil and gas facilities. A Greek tanker was bombed in the port of

Darna on Monday and the conflict continues to escalate.

The official government for its part seems powerless, forced out of the capital, Tripoli, by Islamist militias last year, now based in Tobruk which

was hit by a suicide attack just last week.

Some politicians there are calling for outside help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AKEELA SALEH EISSA, PRESIDENT, LIBYAN PARLIAMENT (through translator): Today I am officially calling on the Arab League to intervene for the

protection of vital institutions in Libya and preventing these terrorist formations from the use of force and profanation inside Libya.

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PLEITGEN: The U.N. is trying to start peace talks between the rival groups but so far has failed to bring them to the table. Joining me now from

Tunis is the man tasked with getting the two sides to sit down, the U.N. special representative to Libya, Bernardino Leon.

Sir, thank you very much for joining the program.

BERNARDINO LEON, U.N. SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE TO LIBYA: Thank you.

PLEITGEN: Sir, we have to be realistic about the situation in Libya. People keep talking about how the country is in jeopardy of descending into

a civil war. But it is actually already in a state of civil war and also of national disintegration, isn't it?

LEON: Absolutely. We have been redirecting this message for weeks, if not months. The country was divided by even this division shouldn't hide the

fact that both camps are fragmented and that there is a little forces uniting the Libyans today. There is ongoing violence in several points of

the country, but the recent fighting in Ras Lanuf is threatening with conflict that might be generalized all over Libya.

So there is political chaos, military security chaos and of course economic chaos.

PLEITGEN: You're trying to get these two sides, the Misrata militia side, which is in Tripoli, and Misrata, of course, and the official government,

which is in Tobruk, to try to get together and sit down.

But are they willing to do that?

And do they have any sort of incentive to do that?

Because it doesn't seem that they do.

LEON: Well, as I said before, one of the problems we have is this fragmentation. Both camps have moderates and hardliners. What we have

been trying to do is to work with the moderates and there are indeed moderates in both camps willing to solve this politically.

I think all of them, the moderates and the radicals, know that there's no military solution in Libya. This is quite obvious for most analysts inside

and outside Libya --

(CROSSTALK)

PLEITGEN: Sir, let me just --

(CROSSTALK)

PLEITGEN: -- do they actually want a solution?

Do you believe that both sides actually want a solution or are interested in a solution or are they just trying to battle it out and get as much out

of it for themselves as they can?

LEON: No, no, what I mean is that the moderates in both camps want a political solution. The hardliners, the people promoting military solution

or simply more fighting because they think that -- unfortunately they think that fighting is better than dialogue. These are the people who are taking

the lead.

And this is what the international community should be aware now, we are running out of time. We are running out of ideas. And if in the coming

weeks it is not possible to revive this political dialogue, the international community should think of other formulas and speaking a

different language in Libya.

PLEITGEN: But don't you get the impression that the international community has in essence abandoned the whole Libya problem?

If you ask politicians around the world, they treat it almost like a hot potato issue.

LEON: No, I don't have this impression and I think it couldn't be fair. I -- since I was appointed beginning of September, I have had the opportunity

to meet, to talk practically on a daily basis with the most important foreign ministers and sometimes the prime ministers all over the world.

Libya is seen as a very serious problem all over the world. And we all understand that if Libyans were able to seize the opportunity and to solve

this politically, this could be a much stronger basis for a country which is striving for stability, but also for a political transformation.

If we give up -- and this is something that might happen in the coming weeks, as I said before, then we will have different types of solutions but

also longer time and a missed opportunity for the political life in the country.

PLEITGEN: What needs to be done internationally? What do the international community need to do then?

Do they need to put troops on the ground? Do they need to force both sides to get together and hold talks?

What can they actually do? I mean, the French president has come forward and said we'd love to do something but we would only do it as part of a

larger U.N. mission.

LEON: The international community has made clear to both camps that the only solution is this political dialogue. The agenda is very clear:

number one, to have -- to agree national unity government; number two, to agree on stability measures, which should including cease-fire, withdrawal

of militias from all the public space and especially the strategic places and, number three, monitoring. This is very important because here is

where the international community should have a role together with the Libyans in monitoring this peace agreement.

Number three point in this dialogue should be the constitution, should be reviving the constitutional process, which might be a factor to unite

Libyans. The international community has told very clearly the Libyans that this is what they expect from them. This is actually also what the

moderates in Libya want.

And now the problem is that if we cannot have these talks in the coming weeks with this agenda, it will mean that the Libyans or at least the ones

they can delete (ph) prefer to fight and then what the international community should do is to use more sticks and less carrots because this

will be the only way to stop a massacre and a further chaos in the country.

PLEITGEN: Well, more sticks and carrots is easier said than done, isn't it?

I mean, on the one hand, you have countries like America that have absolutely no appetite to get into any sort of foreign involvement. You

have other countries like the Germans who feel the same way. The French might be willing to do something.

But isn't the problem that most of these countries are not even afraid of a Syria scenario? They're afraid of a Somalia scenario. They're afraid of a

country that's falling apart where warlordism is reigning across the country and they don't want to put their troops anywhere close to something

like that.

LEON: This is obviously one of the risks that exist. Libyans see themselves in -- and it's something that, to some extent, happens in the

international community. We all are used to dealing with very articulate Libyans. Just to think of Misrata is a city with a lot of business and

trade activity.

It's a city that shouldn't have any interest in more chaos and more fighting. It's a city that should have interest in a political deal.

However, it is one of the epicenters of the current conflict. Libyans, as soon as they get together, they are able to make deals. But they don't

want to get together. They don't want to meet.

So there are many differences between Somalia and Libya. There is articulate people. There is wealth, as you said before. This Libya is in

a strategic position in the center of the Mediterranean, very close to the European Union.

So it shouldn't be the case if it is an option. But I prefer to think that there are other possibilities, more likely, not all of them good ,but it

would be difficult to see Libya descending to this total chaos. But it is possible. You are right. It is possible.

And if Libyans don't work hard to avoid it, it may happen.

PLEITGEN: And it would have repercussions to the entire region, wouldn't it? And it seems like something that in the debates, political leaders

often seem to underestimate.

Because on the one hand, you have this refugee crisis in Europe and a lot of those refugee boats are going from Tripoli and they're going from

Benghazi. Those refugees are coming through Libya, the ones that are coming from Syria, the ones that are coming from sub-Saharan Africa. And

at the same time, you have weapons that are going from Libya and fueling the various conflicts in the Middle East.

Do you think that countries in that region, in Europe and in the Middle East, grasp how big a disaster it would be if this country falls apart?

LEON: I think so. I think everybody's aware that Libya, it's a huge problem and this is why, as I said, I'm talking on a daily basis with many

foreign ministers all over the world.

Let me mention just three or four challenges. The first one is political. This is a region in transformation. You have countries like Tunisia

striving for consolidating the political transition.

You have countries like Egypt fighting to get stability and of course the Libya situation is going to affect them and is going to affect others in

the region.

It's a security concern, especially when it comes to the terrorist threat. We know there is ISIS present in cities like Darna, Benghazi and other

areas in the country. It is still a manageable but if we don't stop the big fighting between the two big camps in the country, we will not be able

to, the international community will not be able to deal with these terrorist problems.

It's a huge challenge from the economic point of view. Libya is a major oil supplier to many countries in the world. So the challenges are huge.

And everybody understands that Libya is very high in our agenda.

PLEITGEN: Special Envoy Bernardino Leon, all the best to you. Thank you very much. You certainly have a tall task ahead.

LEON: Thank you very much.

PLEITGEN: Afghanistan, for its part, knows all too well the dangers of a power vacuum. Its new president, Ashraf Ghani, took office last September,

pledging to spend his first 100 days in office implementing ambitious policy changes.

Today he crosses that 100-day milestone without having even formed a cabinet after failing to reach an agreement with his deputy, Abdullah

Abdullah.

All this as NATO draws down its forces and the Taliban appear to be gaining strength with an increasing number of violent attacks.

Coming up, will a power shift in Washington affect that country's gun control laws? We'll talk about that after the break.

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PLEITGEN: And welcome back to the program. I'm Fred Pleitgen, sitting in for Christiane.

Today in the United States, Republicans took control of both houses of Congress. As new members are sworn in a key goal for President Obama, gun

control reform, has never looked further away.

You know, people outside the U.S. often have trouble understanding many Americans' love of firearms. Why chocolate surprise eggs like this one

can't be imported to the United States because the small toys inside are allegedly a public health hazard while semiautomatic rifles can easily be

bought often without background checks.

Just listen to Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the powerful National Rifle Association, and his reaction to the Newtown shooting,

school shooting in 2012, that left 20 children and six teachers dead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAYNE LAPIERRE, PRESIDENT, NRA: The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he almost immediately goes right back to what they usually say, which is that he answer to this is more guns.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was not off the cuff. He didn't lose it. This was very thought out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And they decided on a strategy and they executed the strategy.

And we've got to send the signal that this is not the time to compromise, that Obama is the enemy and they want to take your guns away. Yes, it's

too bad about the kids. But we are not going to back down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: That clip was from the PBS "Frontline" documentary, "Gunned Down: The Power of the NRA." And joining me now is the maker of that

film, Michael Kirk.

Sir, thank you very much for joining us.

MICHAEL KIRK, FILMMAKER: My pleasure, Fred.

PLEITGEN: We, of course, have an international audience here and one of the things that the NRA always seems to claim is that they are defending

freedom. And one of the freedoms or the freedom that they talk about is the Second Amendment to the Constitution. And I want to read that to our

viewers.

It says, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be

infringed."

At what point in time did the National Rifle Association manage to take the well-regulated militia part out of the debate in America?

KIRK: Well, this is an organization that is started in America as a kind of gun safety group, a marksmanship group that realized in the 1960s -- and

so therefore was sort of benign as a presence in Washington and around the country -- in the 1960s, when President Kennedy was assassinated, when his

brother, Bobby, was assassinated and when Martin Luther King was killed, the government in America, the president, Lyndon Johnson, and the Congress

basically enacted gun control legislation, which a number of people, a number of Americans who hold dearly to their firearms felt was really an

encroachment on freedom that they had to protect themselves in case in the future some time the American government decided to come forward and exert

authority in some way that was maybe Nazi Germany-like or something else.

And it was at that moment that the NRA went from being a small, benign gun safety group to a tremendous political force in America.

PLEITGEN: And that's something that you show very well in your film. We do have a clip of how that transformation happened and I want our viewers

to take a look at that right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): This is an organization that, back in the '60s, was a very tame, not particularly political organization.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): The National Rifle Association has made possible the training of thousands of inspectors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): The NRA was a safety organization.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): The National Rifle Association convention in Cincinnati went into overtime last night, a stormy all-night session,

when it was over some dissident members had taken control of the 400,000- member organization.

What it means is even stricter support for the right to bear arms and against gun control.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So we see they now have that fight or the right to bear arms with basically out any -- without any sort of controls or checks. And they

seem to be quiet successful at placing their message.

A recent poll by the Pew Center shows that Americans who say gun ownership is more important to protect than gun control, in December 2012, it was 42

percent; today it's 52 percent. So clearly their message seems to be reaching people, right?

KIRK: Well, that's right. And even in the face of tremendously sad events, the shooting of an American congresswoman , Gabrielle Giffords; the

shooting of the little children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in spite of that, the movement that says we've got to do something

about guns in America kind of comes and goes.

But the NRA and its fervent membership now, they say as many as 5 million people, who adhere to this doctrine and this belief in the weapon and

usually American icon, the gun, these people, as someone in the film says, they go to bed every night thinking about how they can -- what they have to

do to protect their gun while movements, the anti-gun movement in America that come in the wake of a shooting will often dissipate and disappear --

(CROSSTALK)

PLEITGEN: Why is that the case? Why is it that the people who were -- who want controls seem to be so much less organized, so much weaker than those

who are fighting for the rights to keep guns without any sort of checks and balances?

KIRK: From what they tell us, the people who've watched this closely and are involved in the fray, the people who belong to the National Rifle

Association, again, now uniquely American idea, this gun represents something that they just believe in with a kind of religious religiosity.

It's bound up with patriotism and it's uniquely American and they really believe in it.

And the other movements, they come, they go; but there are many issues in America that people, including congresspeople and senators want to get

behind and get enacted, and the gun control debate is so bruising and the NRA so effective and its membership who vote when others do not, is so

powerful that the issue is almost always turns in their favor.

And it's now become the stuff of legend, as we say in the film, to the extent that national movements to do anything about this are really on the

wane across the country.

PLEITGEN: What also totally surprised me is how -- first of all, how effective they are, but also how unapologetic they were, for instance,

after what happened in Sandy Hook. And there's another clip that we want to show from the documentary that shows Larry Pratt, the executive director

of Gun Owners of America, as the NRA was fighting down the bill for gun control right after Sandy Hook. Let's take a look at that real quick.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Larry Pratt was the executive director of Gun Owners of America, representing 300,000 of the most fervent gun rights

activists.

LARRY PRATT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GOA: The Manchin bill was not aiming at loopholes. It was aiming at nailing down some remaining freedom that

American people have.

Gun control simply kills people. And for Senator Manchin to wave the bloody shirts of those children from Newtown is despicable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: This came as people were mourning, as children had been killed in a school shooting.

Does it surprise you? Or is this just part of the debate in America?

KIRK: At that moment, when that happened, we were all watching it in our newsroom and I remember saying, OK, this will rekindle the gun control

fight. Let's see what happens now, because this is the gun control advocates' best-case scenario, if you will. It sounds macabre to say it,

but the idea that little children would be murdered in such an appalling way really might enliven the argument and put the NRA on its heels.

But of course it did not. In fact, it was quite the opposite. And what I learned in the making of the film was the NRA, in lots of ways, thrives on

these horrific moments in America, because every time it happens, gun sales go up; the membership in the NRA increases and ammunition sales go up

because the NRA learned back in the '60s and '70s that to fight, they had to come out stronger, that their members actually wanted them to come out

strong and enforce their very strident belief in the Second Amendment, freeing them to own their guns.

So it is in that case a demonstration of just how powerful the NRA is around this issue of marshaling Americans, who love their guns.

Remember, we are the most armed first world society in the world. And that is, as I say, a uniquely American characteristic.

PLEITGEN: Michael Kirk, we certainly hope that your documentary enlivens the debate around guns in America. Thank you very much for being on the

show today.

KIRK: My pleasure.

PLEITGEN: And you can watch the documentary, "Gunned Down: The Power of the NRA" online at pbs.org/frontline. And of course, we also approached

the NRA for a response and they declined to comment.

Coming up after the break, from gunfire to wildfire, Australia is battling its worst bushfires in 30 years as high temperatures usher in an earlier-

than-usual season. Is that a sign of worse things to come? We'll be right back.

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PLEITGEN: And finally tonight, firefighters across three states in Australia are struggling to contain the worst bushfires there in 30 years.

The hardest hit area is Adelaide Hills, where the fires are burning across a 240-kilometer perimeter forcing thousands of people out of their homes.

High temperatures and strong winds have paved the way for this very early start to the bushfire season. And the timing couldn't be worse. The

Australian Bureau of Meteorology just announced that 2014 was the country's third hottest year on record.

The years since 2002 have seen seven of Australia's 10 warmest years.

Is that a coincidence? Or a sign of worse things to come/

Scientists in Australia say these extreme conditions are the clearest signs yet that climate change is real. And yet it's not an argument accepted by

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who denies that humans are to blame for global warming.

But could 2015 be the year skeptics like Mr. Abbott and many others shift course?

This year Pope Francis hopes to inspire decisive action in March, when he publishes a rare encyclical on climate change and human ecology, arguing

that the world's 1.2 billion Catholics should take action.

We should find out what effect that appeal will have at the highly anticipated climate change conference at the end of the year in Paris. Now

imagine a world where people finally start arguing and start acting to preserve our planet for future generations. Could this be the year?

Well, that's it for our program tonight. And remember you can always watch the show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Twitter @FPleitgenCNN.

Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

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