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World Headlines; Srebrenica Massacre; North Korean Defector; CNN Freedom Project. Aired 8-9a ET
Aired November 22, 2017 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong and welcome to News Stream.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: While having committed these crimes, the chamber sentences as Ratko Mladic to life imprisonment.
LU STOUT: Ratko Mladic is sentenced for his role at atrocities committed during the Bosnian War. Zimbabwe wakes up to life without Robert Mugabe.
After the country's longtime leader resigns. And Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri returns to his country suspending the resignation he made in
Saudi Arabia two weeks ago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LU STOUT: Our breaking news continues this hour. Former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic is guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity
known as the Butcher of Bosnia. Mladic was convicted for atrocities committed during the Bosnian war including the massacre of more than 7,000
Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.
U.N. court delivered its ruling, sentencing Mladic to life in prison but she wasn't in the courtroom to hear the verdicts having been removed after
shouting at the judge.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Mladic, sit. Mr. Mladic if you -- if you continued like this, we adjourn. Mr. Mladic will be removed from the court room.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LU STOUT: During in an upwards Mladic shouting shame on you. It's all lies. CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour covers the
conflict and question the general during the Bosnian war. She joins us now from London. Christiane, your thoughts on the verdict of what it means for
the victims of the Bosnian war.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kristie, it is massively important. Knowledge is the last of the three main architects of the
Bosnia war to face his day in court and to get justice that he denied all his victim.
It really is a matter of what this means to all those people across Bosnia who were killed at his orders by soldiers all throughout the three years of
the war. So this is really, really massively important. Kristie.
LU STOUT: And you interviewed Ratko Mladic during the war. How did he explain his actions?
AMANPOUR: Well, I did and you know he came across as somebody who was supremely confident. He came across as a petty tyrant who was trying to
ingratiate himself and when people, you know -- people's allegiance to a kind of weird force humor.
And the very first time I met him was about a year into the war and I asked him why he was trying to remove Muslims from the territory which is in fact
what the project was.
For the first time since World War II, there was genocide and ethnic cleansing unfolding in front of our eyes, in front of the eyes of the world
in Europe.
And what he was trying to along with his political cohorts was with cleanse certain territories of Muslims and Croats and keeping just for the Serbs.
They wanted a little ethnically pure state land. And this is what he said to me when I said to us about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RATKO MLADIC, FORMER GENERAL, BOSNIAN SERB (through a translator): We would be poor without the Muslims. It's good to have them around. But in
a smaller concentration.
AMANPOUR: Chilling words from the man they called the Butcher of Bosnia, General Ratko Mladic, the snide human masked his killer instinct. It
defined Mladic and it made him an uncomfortable man to confront.
And we'd see this preening smile again and again as the war unfolded. The Muslims, the Bosnian government said, I had been covering the Bosnian War
more than a year by the time I met him, living in this shelled, sniped and besieged city of Sarajevo, a year of witnessing the ferocious war machine
that the Bosnian Serb commander had unleashed and he did not like my reporting.
MLADIC: What is the lady's name?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Christiane.
MLADIC (through a translator): Christiane? I like Kennedy's Christina.
(LAUGHTER)
MLADIC (through a translator): It won't be difficult for her to understand because when I saw her first reports from Sarajevo, I was very angry.
AMANPOUR: Mladic was commanding the Bosnian Serb military mission to carve out their own ethnically pure republic and join it into a greater Serbia.
This was a daily occurrence, dodging bullets as we covered the unfolding tragedy. For the Bosnian Muslims, the villain was clear.
[08:05:00] Ratko, your own people and your soldiers, to them, you're a great man, you're a hero. To your enemies, you're somebody to be feared
and somebody to be hated. How do you feel about that?
MLADIC (through a translator): Very interesting question. The first things you say are correct.
AMANPOUR: Prosecutors say what Mladic believed to be his greatness was, in fact, ethnic cleansing and genocide. It would reach its climax with the
massacre at Srebrenica, July 11th, 1995, more than three years into this brutal war.
It was meant to be a U.N. protected zone for Muslims. When Mladic's forces overran U.N. positions and invaded the tiny enclave, they handed out candy
and General Mladic promised the townspeople they would be safe.
MLADIC: (Speaking Foreign Language).
AMANPOUR: Of course, they were not. His soldiers slaughtered more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys who tried to flee.
Hurem Suljic was one who miraculously survived the massacre. I tracked him down in the Bosnian-held town of Tuzla four months later.
HUREM SULJIC, SREBRENICA MASSACRE SURVIVOR (through translator): The Serbs said, don't look around. Then I heard a lot of shooting and bodies fell on
top of me. They were the people standing behind me. I fell, too.
AMANPOUR: Here, he says, he saw Mladic one last time.
SULJIC (through translator): He stood there and waited until they killed them. When they killed them, he got back in his car and left.
AMANPOUR: After that massacre, the U.S. led a bombing campaign against Bosnian Serb military positions and peace negotiations that eventually
ended the fighting.
Mladic became a wanted man and soon went into hiding. I never knew if I would see him again, the man with whom I had stood on a Bosnian hilltop at
the height of the war.
But it was with deep satisfaction that I watched Mladic stand in the dock of The Hague to finally face the justice he so brutally denied others.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language).
AMANPOUR: America has -- calls him a war criminal. And under any kind of U.N. tribunal, he may have to be prosecuted. What does he think about
that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through a translator): It's a tough question but he's a tough man and he can answer it.
MLADIC: (through a translator): Yes, I can take it. I've taken more rough ones. I can take hers, too.
(LAUGHTER)
MLADIC: (through a translator): I defended my people and only my people can judge me. And there's no greater honor than defending your people.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Well, Kristie, he's not laughing now but that force provider has landed him where he is. He is convicted of 10 of the 11 counts including
genocide, crimes against humanity and the violation of laws and customs of war.
And it's so important for the victim so they have some kind of resolution although it will never be enough to make up for all the loss that they
suffered.
It's really important in order to enable some kind of real peace to move forward and it's still not peace between the Bosnian Republic and the
Serbian Republic over there.
And it's really important in terms of the signal it sends to today because the world let Ratko Mladic and his henchmen go for so long until
Srebrenica.
And the world is letting the Syrian President Bashar Assad continue to go in that murderous offensive that he's been committing against his own
civilians in that country, so, so many reasons that this is important today, Kristie.
LU STOUT: Yes, so many reasons as you point out especially for the victims. This is a historic day for them asking and I wanted to ask you,
what did you make of Ratko Mladic -- his reaction today when the verdict was read out?
AMANPOUR: Well, it just bolsters what I believe about him. He was somebody of false provide. He was a real bully. He was a sociopath, a
psychopath, a mass murderer to whom nobody stood up and there were times when they could've been intervention so much earlier.
And his murderous instincts would've been stopped earlier. So you know, you saw the way he reacted to me and I'm just interviewer who was, you
know, constantly trying to, you know, make himself look big and brave and that sort of snide humor.
He didn't show that in court today. He wasn't brave enough to stand there and hear the verdict read down against him and there is no doubt that he
got out, and left all of those who know him, and know his psychology without even talking to him will know that he just didn't want to be in the
courtroom when that verdict was handed down.
And he got up and started shouting about how it was all lies and how he was distorting, and he claim to have blood pressure problems. That is the man
who unleashed a reign of terror against Bosnia for more than three years.
[08:10:00] LU STOUT: And for the individuals who are unleashing a reign of terror today -- I mean I want to only imagine how Bashar al-Assad is
watching events today.
I mean could this verdict help somehow compel the international community to end atrocities happening today like in Syria or even the Rohingya crisis
in Myanmar.
AMANPOUR: Well, you know, that's the point of these kinds of trials is to achieve justice first for the victim and then to send a loud and clear
message that the international community will not tolerate what is going on.
And I have been saying and I have said folk for all along throughout the Syria war, that Syria is a bigger and more brutal version of what happened
in Bosnia in the 1990s.
Bosnia was about the slaughter of civilians who all they wanted was to be free and independent. Bosnia was about using genocide, mass murder,
violation of international humanitarian law. Bosnia was about creating millions of refugees.
I think the total, there may have been, you know, two or three million refugees in those years but look how many million, 12 million refugees
created out of Syria, 500,000 civilians slaughtered in Syria compared to maybe 100,000 or so in Bosnia.
And Syria becoming the cradle for violence extreme Islamic radical terrorism in the shape of ISIS and all the other groups who have gone to
fight there, so that is the example of what happens when intervention is ignored and when justice is not -- you know, is not take into account.
So it is very sobering lesson and it goes to show that what happened in Bosnia in the 90's, it's not over. It is reflected again and it's
different 20 years -- you know, 21st-century iteration on the battlegrounds which are the towns and villages all over Syria today.
LU STOUT: Yes, even after the gases issued today, the nightmare is not over. Christiane Amanpour, reporting for us, thank you so much,
Christiane. Now CNN's Melissa Bell joins us now live from Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
And, Melissa, no question about the guilt of Ratko Mladic sentence to life in prison, guilty of crimes against humanity, guilty of genocide. How are
victims of the Bosnia War reacting that verdict?
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There has been of course a huge attention paid to this verdict today was watch very closely here in Sarajevo. It was
of course watched very closely from Herzegovina as well.
Here in the marketplace which was one of the scenes or some of the most important moments in the Bosnian War, two bombings in particular that were
particularly horrendous, 68 people died here in 1994, 37 just a year and a half later in 1995 in the very dying days of the war.
And the events here, those attacks, those bombings were part of the indictments that were laid before Mr. Mladic today in the (Inaudible), they
have kept a very close side. But you get these sort mixed emotions.
First of all, huge that he has received them maximum sentence that he will restrain the rest of his life in jail but sometime we have heard over and
over again from people here in the market by staying about their business.
Some of whom by the way were here when it happened. One of whom had lost his sister and her name is not there on the wall remembering the victims of
that first bombing back in 1994.
Several has to make the same point, they say well, no amount of life sentences will ever be enough. That would simply not bring back the people
that we loved and lost. And yes, justice has been done but it has been so long coming.
And it is simply in a way too little, too late, so very mixed emotions really would have a great deal of anger, people making the point that they
wish the first chart, which is the genocide outside of Sarajevo, there are six other municipalities were considered, were involved that initial
genocide charge was dropped.
So what was this intervene looked having great detail here because people wanted answers and people wanted justice, and after all these years, the
wounds are very much still open.
LU STOUT: The wounds are still open, mixed reaction to the verdict issued out today and the country remains divided today. So how does this verdict
affect efforts to heal, to move beyond the Bosnian War?
BELL: I think there are limits to what a verdict like this can do and it was the chief prosecutor in the (Inaudible), in charge of this would made
the point himself.
He said no judicial process can bring reconciliation end yet. There can be no reconciliation until there has been justice and I think that is probably
the next step.
But it is an awful long way away. We've been talking throughout the day about (Inaudible) in particular because of course the terrible events there
have seen just the stands since the genocide charge once retained with regard to Sarajevo.
[08:15:00] And I think there is a great deal of frustration really, although Ratko Mladic was now found to have carried out that genocide been
one of those who allow that genocide to take place in (Inaudible).
The result is that more than 22 years after those terrible events, when you visit the area, when you visit that region, they are ghost town.
So Bosnia Muslims who were driven out of their homes by that campaign of ethnic cleansing for which Ratko Mladic today has been sentenced have not
on the whole been allowed to go home.
And essentially this decision of Bosnia which was enshrined in the date in agreement was a step in the right direction so far as it allowed peace to
return but it was probably be -- not as great a deal as anyone who have like and has left an awful lot of issues which is unresolved.
A great deal of anger and a great deal of division still between the communities there in Bosnia. Of course a lot more will have to be done on
the road towards reconciliation, although of course the crucial first step was the justice has now gone as far as it can since this tribunal winds up
its activities on the fetch first of December.
LU STOUT: As you point out, the wounds of war is so very much open and raw decades after the conflict. Melissa Bell reporting live for us from
Sarajevo, thank you.
Zimbabwe has seen the fall of its longtime president. Now the question, will a new leader change things for the better? Now we will have a live
report from Harare.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LU STOUT: Coming to you live from Hong Kong, welcome back. This is News Stream. And now to Zimbabwe and the start of a new political era, for the
first day in decades the country is without Robert Mugabe at the helm.
The president resigns finally on Tuesday ending 37 years in power. Celebrations went on late into the night. People took to the streets to
mark this historic moment but there is apprehension behind the joint.
Mugabe's presumptive successor, his former vice president is due to return from exile very soon to take the reins of power. Now let's go straight to
our David McKenzie who is reporting from the capital Harare.
And, David, again, after 37 years of rule, Mugabe has resigned, the nation awaits for arrival of Emmerson Mnangagwa. What happens next?
DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly it is a dawn here in Zimbabwe in many ways and I have had many people catching themselves today
that I have been speaking to who can't believe. They are now saying ex- president or former President Robert Mugabe.
We are here just outside the headquarters of Zanu-PF, the ruling party. We believe that Emmerson Mnangagwa will be arriving any moment now or in the
coming hours flying in from South Africa where he wasn't hiding in exile during this extraordinary series of events.
[08:20:00] That was include, of course an apparent coup. Now we do believe that he will be sworn in as the leader of the country on Friday.
Many people I'm speaking today say that it is a new dawn but also as you say apprehension. They worry that Mnangagwa, who was the right-hand man of
Robert Mugabe for so many years could continue with more of the same.
So far the things he has been is calling for all Zimbabwe to come together and I believe you have a bit of a honeymoon period if he does draws
Zimbabwean together and try to rebuild this nation whose economy is frankly terrible. Kristie.
LU STOUT: So a mixture of Euphoria, as well as trepidation now that Robert Mugabe has stepped down. And the question about Robert Mugabe, you know he
has been a political survivor. He had resisted the calls for him to resign. So what in the end persuaded him to go?
MCKENZIE: Well, there was a huge amount of pressure going on the former president. The military on the streets as the de facto power, that has
taken aways. His power was the security apparatus.
The people on the streets, there are many thousands that came out saying he must leave, and of course within his own party, they are throwing him out
as leader of the party, and withdrawn their political support.
You also didn't have noise coming from regional powers here who have kind of turned a blind eye to the fact that this was clearly a military take
over. And there aren't really sort of coming in as they are required to do, given the fact this was all given a bit of a constitutional veneer.
So all that pressure to bare on the president, finally he relented before a nasty impeachment process started was in that sort of joint sitting of
parliament where impeachment was about to begin that that resignation that was read out and people just screamed onto the streets here in Harare, and
partied the whole night long.
They said they deserve that moment. Now there (Inaudible) and see if the president will help rebuild this economy and this county. Kristie.
LU STOUT: And now Zimbabwe is free of Robert Mugabe. David McKenzie reporting for us. Thank you, David. Now we are following another
political crisis, this one tearing at the fabric of Lebanon.
Two weeks ago Prime Minister Saad Hariri said that he would resign, now he says that he is suspending that decision telling his supporters, we will
stay together and be the defensive line for Lebanon stability and its Arab identity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAAD HARIRI, PRIME MINISTER, LEBANON (through a translator): I have presented today my resignation to the president and he asked me to wait and
submitting it, and to hold on to it for more consultation about its reasons and political background.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LU STOUT: Now Hariri is now back in Lebanon after that prolonged stay in Saudi Arabia. Let's go straight to CNN's Jomana Karadsheh in nearby
Jordan. And, Jomana, after that shock resignation, Hariri is back Beirut, only to make that announcement, that his resignation is on hold. What's
going on here?
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Incredible new twist in this Lebanese political drama, Kristie. A short time ago as you mentioned, we saw Prime
Minister Saad Hariri appearing outside his residence in Beirut addressing the crowds of supporters who converse on his residence.
A very festive gathering, they are celebrating his return and his decision and we heard Hariri saying to them that he could summarize only he has to
say with one word, thank you, saying Lebanon first and promising to stay with them, and continue with them.
And as you mentioned, a short time before that, we saw him following a meeting with the President of Lebanon, Michel Aoun, Hariri came out and
said that the president ask him to put that resignation on hold to allow for -- for dialogue to have more consultations on the reason for that
resignation.
And Hariri said that he accept that essentially withdrawing his resignation for the time being but there are lots of questions right now, questions
that the Lebanese people, Kristie, were hoping would get answered with the return of Hariri. Still, they are waiting for those answers.
LU STOUT: All right, Jomana Karadsheh, reporting live for us from (Inaudible), thank you. Now after weeks of silence, the U.S. president is
finally speaking out about Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.
Several women have accused him of unwanted sexual advances when they were just teenagers. Moore denies the allegations and when Donald Trump didn't
endorse Moore, he did seem to defend him. CNN's Joe Johns has the latest from Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[08:25:00] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I can tell you one thing for sure, we don't need a liberal person in there, a Democrat.
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump all but endorsing embattled Senate Republican nominee Roy Moore.
TRUMP: We do not need somebody that is going to be bad on crime, bad on borders, bad with the military, bad for the Second Amendment.
JOHNS: Insisting his concerns were about policy above all else, despite allegations that Moore sexually assaulted two teenage girls when he was in
his 30s, including one woman who said she was 14 at the time, and allegedly pursued romantic relationships with six others.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is an accused child molester better than a Democrat? Is an accused child molester...
TRUMP: Well, he denies it. He denies it. He totally denies it. He says it didn't happen. And, you know, you have to listen to him, also.
JOHNS: The president siding with Moore over his accusers before saying he was happy that women across the country are now speaking up about sexual
harassment.
TRUMP: Women are very special. I think it's a very special time because a lot of things are coming out, and I think that's good for our society, and
I think it's very, very good for women.
JOHNS: A Republican close to the White House tells CNN that the president doubts Moore's accusers and sees a similarity between the accusations
leveled against Moore and the sexual misconduct allegations made against him by at least 13 women in the final days of the 2016 campaign, charges
the president has denied.
TRUMP: Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign.
JOHNS: Mr. Trump leaving the door open to possibly campaigning for Moore ahead of the December 12th special election in Alabama.
TRUMP: I'll be letting you know next week.
JOHNS: Breaking with his own party's leadership and a number of GOP senators who have called on Moore to step down.
MITCH MCCONNELL, SENATE MINORITY LEADER: He's obviously not fit to be in the United States Senate. And we've looked at all the options to try to
prevent that from happening.
JOHNS: Moore's Democratic challenger Doug Jones defending his record against the president's attacks and speaking out about the accusations
against Moore for the first time.
DOUG JONES, ALABAMA SENATE CANDIDATE: I believe the women. I believe their stories have credibility and I believe them.
JOHNS: The Jones campaign releasing an ad quoting members of the president's own inner circle criticizing Moore.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ivanka Trump says there is a special place in hell for people who prey on children, and I have no reason to doubt the victims'
accounts. Jeff Sessions says I have no reason to doubt these young women. Conservative voices putting children and women over party.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: And that was CNN's Joe Johns reporting. Now the man known as the Butcher of Bosnia has been found guilty of genocide but Herzegovina,
the pain search for justice and peace goes on. Up next meet one man on a mission to find every victim.
[08:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN NEWS STREAM SHOW HOST: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. You're watching "News Stream" and these are your world headlines.
Former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic has been found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to life in prison for crimes
during the Bosnian war, including the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslims in Srebrenica.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri says he is putting his resignation of hold. He says it was the president's wish for him to do so to "allow for
more consultations on the reason for the resignation." He is back in Beirut, marking independence day. Just two weeks ago, he shocked Lebanon by
announcing from Saudi Arabia that he would step down.
A new interim president of Zimbabwe is expected to be sworn in on Friday. Emmerson Mnangagwa, the former vice president, is expected to return to the
country soon to take the reigns of power. Robert Mugabe resigned on Tuesday after an apparent military coup last week.
Former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic will spend the rest of his life in jail for atrocities committed during the Bosnian war. It has been more than
20 years since the war ended, but in Srebrenica, people are still trying to cope with the massacre of thousands of Muslims. CNN's Melissa Bell
introduces us to one man who has made it his mission to find each and every victim.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELISSA BELL, CNN PARIS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the outskirts of Srebrenica, Ramiz Nukic searches the woods he fled more than 22 years ago.
In July of 1995, surrounded by the troops of Ratko Mladic, he had to walk over the dead to escape with his life. Now, he devotes his life to finding
the dead. But after all these years, it isn't easy.
He said that a shoe, some clothing, all are signs that point to bones. His search for those of his brothers and father brought him back here, his
search for those of others keeps him here, in a village that used to be home to 32 families, now there is just his.
RAMIZ NUKIC, SREBRENICA MASSACRE SURVIVOR: (UNSTRANSLATED)
BELL (voice-over): The bones that Ramiz finds are brought here to the Institute for Missing Persons in Tuzla. But the work is painstaking and
slow. At the end of the Bosnian war, 30,000 people were unaccounted for. Twenty-two years later, only 70 percent of those declared missing have been
found, partly because massacres were committed and then hidden and not only in Srebrenica.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They opened primary (INAUDIBLE). They removed those bodies with big machines, with trucks on the other location, usually 15 to
20 kilometers from the primary. And they created hundreds and hundreds of secondary graves. Sometimes, they remove again bodies from secondary to
tertiary (INAUDIBLE).
BELL (voice-over): Back in Srebrenica, those who have found peace have found it here. Of the 8,372 victims, more than 6,500 are buried at the
memorial. Ramiz says that burying his loved ones here was like bringing them home. And that, he says, is what all the families deserve.
Melissa Bell, CNN, in Srebrenica.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: A North Korean defector who was shot several times during his escape is now conscious after spending more than a week in hospital. This
dramatic footage, it shows North Korean soldiers firing at defector as he dashes from his jeep into South Korea. Anna Coren has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A desperate run for freedom. This video shows the dramatic moment a 24-year-old North Korean soldier
left his post last week, running across the demilitarized zone, the DMZ, that divides North and South Korea. It is one of the most heavily fortified
borders in the world. First in a jeep, then on foot, he is pursued by his own comrades. They fire more than 40 shots.
[08:35:00] Doctors say he was hit at least four times before reaching safety. These scenes captured on CCTV were played at a news conference in
Seoul. The U.N. Command said that as the North Koreans pursued the defector, they violated an armistice agreement between the two Koreas.
The armistice dates back to 1953, with a ceasefire between the North and South that the war has not officially ended. U.S. Forces Korea claim the
North Korean People's Army or KPA fired across the military demarcation line and that one soldier crossed it briefly during the incident.
COLONEL CHAD CARROLL, DIRECTOR, USKF PUBLIC AFFAIRS: UNC personnel at the JSA notified KPA of these violations today through our normal communication
channels in Panmunjom and requested a meeting to discuss our investigation and measures to prevent future such violations.
COREN: When the North Korean soldier arrived here at Ajou University Hospital on the outskirts of Seoul, he already lost more than 50 percent of
his blood and was unconscious with barely a pulse. Doctors say he had suffered gunshot wounds to his chest, shoulder, arms and abdomen. And by
the time he reached the operating theater, he was almost dead.
(voice-over): And in his intestines, doctors found large parasitic worms, one nearly a foot long. After multiple surgeries, doctors say he is now
conscious and able to talk.
LEE GUK-JONG, SURGEON (through translator): He and I have spoken a lot. And I feel that this North Korean soldier defected to South Korea of his own
will.
COREN (voice-over): The soldier is a third member of the North Korean Armed Forces to defect this year.
Anna Coren, CNN, Seoul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: You're watching "News Stream." Coming up next, CNN's Freedom Project report. We meet young girls who are victims of human trafficking in
Haiti and show you the safe house that is giving them a new start in life. afternoon. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LU STOUT: Welcome back. This week, the CNN Freedom Project is focusing on human trafficking in Haiti. One young victim and her child are finding
refuge in a safe house for girls who were survivors of sexual exploitation. Michael Holmes reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A child and her child. Just 14 years old, she says this is not what she had planned for
her life.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): When I think about it, I'm a young girl with a young baby without a father and it makes me cry.
HOLMES (voice-over): For her safety, we are not showing her face or using her real name. We are calling her Hope. She is one of the countless victims
of both modern day slavery and child sexual exploitation in Haiti.
HEATHER, DIRECTOR, RAPHA HOUSE: Sex trafficking here in Haiti often doesn't look like the traditional sex trafficking that you see, say in Southeast
Asia, where children are being sold into brothels, but it is very prevalent.
HOLMES (voice-over): Heather is the director of Rapha House, a safe house for survivors. We are not using her full name for security reasons. She
says most sex trafficking cases she sees involved children living in restavek, domestic servitude system common in Haiti, where children from
poor families are sent to live with a distant relative, or sometimes even a stranger.
[08:40:00] HEATHER: That family is supposed to care for them, sends them to school, provide for their basic needs. And in exchange, the deal is that
they help with some household chores but often it turns into a situation of extreme exploitation.
HOLMES (voice-over): Hope became a restavek after both of her parents died. She says she was forced to do all the household chores, was not sent to
school, and was sexually abused by a member of the family.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I first suffered as a restavek and then I suffered rape.
HOLMES (voice-over): Hope lived there for nine months before she managed to ran away, not even realizing she was pregnant. She was taken to police by a
kind stranger and wound up at Rapah House. Here, Hope receives not just the basics like food, shelter, medicine and education, but also therapy and a
loving supportive environment, something most of these girls have never experienced.
This 12-year-old spent her entire life in domestic servitude. She is now the mother of twins after being raped by someone in her restaveck family.
And this little girl just five-years-old is also a survivor of child sexual exploitation. The youngest Rapha House has seen since it began operating in
Haiti four years ago.
HEATHER: When we moved here to do the work, there was literally no one else to collaborate with. The word trafficking, most people didn't know what it
even meant.
HOLMES (voice-over): There has been a growing awareness since then, but anti-slavery advocate say progress is slow, a sentiment shared even by
Haiti's top anti-trafficking official.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I personally experienced it, where I found authorities, well-educated people, who say this thing called human
trafficking doesn't exits in Haiti.
HOLMES (voice-over): The government is working to change that. Three years ago, Haiti passed a new anti-trafficking law, and in June 2017, held the
country's first national anti-trafficking conference.
HEATHER: We have seen efforts that are being made, but it takes time. It takes time for those being there just being talked about in meetings, to
kind of trickle down to the real world on the ground.
HOLMES (voice-over): Hope says she has found healing through motherhood. Today, she is focused on her future and the future of her daughter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I am leaving what happened to me in the past. I am moving forward. I never thought I could feel this way
again.
HOLMES (voice-over): Michael Holmes, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: What a story of hope and healing. That is "News Stream." I'm Kristie Lu Stout. "World Sport" with Christina Macfarlane is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:45:00] (WORLD SPORT)
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