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Amanpour

Syrian Conflict Threatens the Region; Guatemalan Strong Man on Trial

Aired May 30, 2013 - 15:00   ET

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

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

"We will soon be saying that there was once a city called Qusayr." That was the tragic appeal from rebel leaders, desperate now for international support as they battle to hold on to the strategically critical town, which is close to the border between Syria and Lebanon.

For the rebels, Qusayr is their route to weapons and humanitarian supplies from Lebanon. For the Assad regime, Qusayr connects Damascus to the coastal heartland.

The town has been the scene of brutal fighting for days. Qusayr once was home to 30,000 and now no one is safe, not even children, as we see in this video that was shot inside a home that had just taken a pounding, or in this improvised clinic, where the youngest victims are being treated in almost impossible conditions.

As many as 1,000 wounded are said to be trapped inside the city without adequate medical care. And Lebanon's Hezbollah is also fighting for its survival and it's fighting ferociously in Qusayr on Assad's side. For if he goes, so goes Hezbollah's critical transit line for weapons from Iran.

And by entering into the fray, Hezbollah has brought Syria's war into Lebanon, which has once again threatened its fragile stability. In a moment, I'll speak to a fighter in the Free Syrian Army who's in the thick of the battle in Qusayr. And then to long-time Lebanese political leader Walid Jumblatt.

But first, here's what's happening later in the program.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): A genocidal general captured on film and convicted by his own words. So why are people in Guatemala still waiting for justice?

And Mexico City's traffic may be the worst in the world. But imagine a Caped Crusader coming to the rescue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: We'll get to that in a moment. But first to Abu Hussein in Qusayr. He is a first lieutenant fighting there for the Free Syrian Army.

Abu Hussein, thanks for joining me. Tell me about the humanitarian situation. How many wounded? What do people need? Is there food and water coming in?

ABU HUSSEIN, FSA: No food, no water. Hezbollah took the main station of water which gives the city their water and it's been cut for more than a week. And now there is no bread here. Civilians fighting to stay alive because of this -- no material (ph). The most important thing is medical equipment, medical materials.

This medical material is not here; is zero now in hospital, in the ground hospital; this now started when the people started to get infection in their wounds.

AMANPOUR: How many wounded are there?

HUSSEIN: And we can't do anything more than 1,000.

AMANPOUR: And is it just Free Syrian Army there? Or do you have other forces? Is there Jabhat Al-Nusra, are there any of the jihadis fighting with you?

HUSSEIN: No, they are in a very, very small number here, no more than 10-15 persons like this. They have their own view how to fight Hezbollah. But we are in big numbers as the Free Syrian Army, not the jihadi or Jabhat Al-Nusra.

AMANPOUR: Do you think you're going to win this battle or lose this battle?

HUSSEIN: We don't think we will win this battle if the world stays watching us dying without doing anything. We can't fight against missiles (ph). We can't fight against big numbers of tanks; heavy rockets coming at us from all around areas, especially from Hezbollah stations.

AMANPOUR: Abu Hussein, thank you very much for joining me.

HUSSEIN: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: And Abu Hussein told me that they only had RPGs and AK-47s, describing there the desperate fight for al-Qusayr.

And meantime, the much vaunted peace summit between the two sides may not happen. Both sides are now putting up road blocks. The opposition says that as long as Hezbollah is fighting in Qusayr, it won't come to the table.

They also want to guarantee that Bashar al-Assad will step down. But in an interview with the Hezbollah-owned television station, which is just into CNN, President Assad is talking about running for reelection next year. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASHAR AL-ASSAD, PRESIDENT OF SYRIA (through translator): When the time comes and if there is need for putting my name, my candidacy for the election and they want, I will not hesitate to put mine in. But if I felt that the same people don't want me, then I will not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: An extraordinary declaration and one wonders whether negotiating tactics are being put before this peace summit. We don't know, but any such move to seek reelection will obviously have a major impact beyond Syria's borders.

Walid Jumblatt is a long-time Lebanese political leader, fearful of how the war next door is affecting his own country. The situation on the ground in Lebanon is tense and dangerous, so much so that Mr. Jumblatt could not get into his car and drive to the television studio.

So instead, he joins me now by phone.

Mr. Jumblatt, thank you, and welcome to the program.

WALID JUMBLATT, LEBANESE POLITICAL LEADER: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you first, your reaction to what President Assad has said to Al-Manar television, that if the Syrian people want him, he will stand for reelection next year.

JUMBLATT: Yes, he's going to do that, but Christiane, thanks to Western lack of empathy and indifference to the fate of the Syrian people. And basically thanks to the indifference of the Obama administration, yes, he can run next year for the so-called elections on the ruins of Syria, on the ruins of entire cities and villages on millions disgrace (ph). Yes, he can do it and he will do it.

AMANPOUR: So you don't have any hope that this peace summit that the United States and Russia are calling for will have any impact whatsoever?

JUMBLATT: The Syrian people will abandon, Christiane. I've seen people just abandon. They were promised so many promises and so many beautiful declarations of President Obama and the others that Assad should step down.

But the adequate means to defend the Syrian people were never given to the Syrian people, except some pennies from some Arab states but adequate weapons to ensure (inaudible) basically downfall of Assad were not given.

And he's part of the axis Assad Russian Iranian alliance. They are pooling money and weapons to Assad. This is why Russian people are sorry; the Syrian people are headless (ph).

AMANPOUR: Well, let me ask you about what's very close to you now, and that is Hezbollah, which is a big political force, of course, in Lebanon, but also a military force. It is fighting inside Syria; Qusayr, as we describe, and that seems to be having an impact on Lebanon. We hear rockets are firing into Lebanon.

How dangerous is it today for the stability of Lebanon, your country?

JUMBLATT: We will have two ways to address Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a path within wider organization, I mean, ordered by the Iranian Islamic republic, affronting or confronting Hezbollah and denouncing it will lead to nowhere, because we have to live together in Lebanon, Shiite and Sunnis.

If you fall into the trap of accusing Hezbollah, and denouncing Hezbollah, we just (inaudible) to the sectarian warfare that is happening in Iraq area and then might spread to Lebanon. We have to be very patient and very, should I say, cautious about that.

AMANPOUR: So how do you this ending? And I ask you because at one point, you've had many years of alliance with the Assad regime, both father and son, and yet now you've said something extraordinary, I would rather cast my lot and be on the side of Al-Nusra than on the side of Assad.

JUMBLATT: I did not say that. I mean, I said I am with anybody who's fighting Assad. Now in the West, especially in American press, I mean, and they are just denouncing Al-Nusra. But (inaudible) one of the groups of the Syrian people.

But there is a whole Syrian people, OK, demanding freedom and dignity. But now the whole focus of the West American press or Western press is Al- Nusra. But, well, they are the devils. No, Bashar is a devil. That's it.

But now (inaudible) after two years and two months, and abandoning the same people we might go to the so-called sectarian offer (ph), maybe this is what the American new scheme of the Middle East is willing to achieve. Maybe this is what they call it constructive payoffs.

AMANPOUR: Constructive payoffs, you say. But how do you think this is going to end then? Is this going to be won or lost on the battlefield? Or does there have to be a political negotiation?

JUMBLATT: I am for political negotiations, but this is where -- this is where, I mean, it seems there is a basic conflict of interests between the Russians and the Iranians on one side and the Americans. I think, I think that to preserve what is left of Syria, and to advance help to the Syrian people, there should be a kind of constance including Americans, Russians, Iranians and the Saudis.

AMANPOUR: And I heard you say you have to be very cautious when talking about Hezbollah and blaming Hezbollah.

So what is your solution, then, since Hezbollah has entered the fight on behalf of President Assad? Hassan Nasrallah has said that publicly.

JUMBLATT: It will lead to nowhere, Christiane, (inaudible) Hezbollah and Lebanon. Just a little more frustration and sectarian, how should I say, hatred between both Sunnis and Shiites. I will not accuse Hezbollah. I'm not going to go like others and accusing for nothing.

Or, I mean, for the purpose of accusing. I'm more concerned about the stability of my country.

AMANPOUR: So what do you see in the short term now for your country?

JUMBLATT: I will do my best. I will do my best to try to delay the coming (inaudible) of the sectarian strife to Lebanon and this where I will -- I cannot do it on my own. I have to see with other powers, mainly the (inaudible) Russians and Americans and the Iranians, if I can do it. But I'm just in minority groups, head of a small minority in Lebanon.

AMANPOUR: Well, you're a long-time political leader there and you've seen it all. Walid Jumblatt, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

JUMBLATT: Thank you. Bye-bye.

AMANPOUR: And after a break, we'll turn to the fallout from a civil war a generation ago, and that was in Central America. Guatemala's former dictator was charged with genocide and at his trial, his own words came back to haunt him and convict him. I'll talk to the filmmaker who literally caught him on camera, when we come back.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Most documentaries record and preserve history only a few change the arc of history. In Guatemala in the early 1980s, a young American documentary filmmaker bore witness to massive crimes and atrocities at great personal risk.

And this year, a quarter-century later, her footage became critical evidence used to convict a military dictator of genocide. The Central American country had been torn apart by decades of U.S. funded civil war when General Efrain Rios Montt seized power in 1982 and launched a scorched earth campaign against the Mayans and leftist guerillas.

This is where the work of Attorney Almudena Bernabeu and filmmaker Pamela Yates met. A piece of tape left on the cutting room floor changed everything. It was General Rios Montt in Yates' documentary, "How to Nail a Dictator," clearly claiming command responsibility, which is one of the hardest things to prove in a court of law.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. EFRAIN RIOS MONTT, FORMER GUATEMALAN LEADER (from captions): Our strength is in our capacity to make command decisions. That's the most important thing. The army is ready and able to act because if I can control the army, then what am I doing here?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: And earlier this month, Rios Montt was convicted of genocide in a case that has deeply polarized Guatemala.

Almudena Bernabeu and Pamela Yates join me now in the studio to discuss this historic trial, which, in fact, is not over yet. And we get to that in a moment about where exactly the legal case stands.

But let me ask you first, Pamela, what motivated you? You're a journalist back there, a quarter of a century ago. Were you always after these people?

PAMELA YATES, FILMMAKER: Well, I always wanted to identify what was going on in Guatemala when I went there. It was really a hidden war. But I knew that the United States was deeply involved in this war. And as an American citizen, I wanted to go there, investigate it and bring that news back to the American public.

AMANPOUR: And you interviewed Rios Montt back then. As we've seen, you also interviewed other generals. What were you thinking when you heard what they said?

YATES: I was thinking even when you feel impotent to change anything, it's still important to document it. And I just wanted to document in their own words what they were doing and how they were doing it. I didn't know that it would be used as key evidence a quarter-century later. But that's the impetus.

AMANPOUR: And this is where the attorneys come in.

Almudena, what did you think? Obviously, when you saw this documentary, but did you ever think that a filmmaker was going to provide the critical evidence in a case that you were prosecuting?

ALMUDENA BERNABEU, ATTORNEY, GUATEMALA GENOCIDE CASE: Not at all. And I guess that's the beauty and also the challenge of human rights litigation. You don't have a lot of evidence. You have to be creative, I mean, within the legal framework. And you have to look to places to see what you can get and was unique.

And at the time, she even offered some footage and when I first saw, it was not that important (inaudible) and after Pamela went back and looked for this additional footage, there was so specific on the chain of command.

AMANPOUR: So in other words, we said it was left on the cutting room floor. So Almudena came to you and said, OK; I've seen the published reports you've made. Is there anything else?

YATES: Exactly. And we had to go into our warehouse in the swamplands of New Jersey and search through 25-year old 16 mm film and 1/4" audiotape.

AMANPOUR: Which you didn't know would have survived intact.

YATES: Exactly. And at the time, we didn't really have that legal know-how, and it wasn't part of the international humanitarian law body, this theory of command responsibility. So now 25 years later, having made many films about the judicial processes and international law, I knew when I saw it. And I immediately called Almudena.

BERNABEU: There's also that the judges have been evolving a little bit with this kind of litigation. It was all so new in a way to introduce footage like this as a piece of evidence in the authentication process. So I'm so proud that opened a little bit, a push a little bit of the envelope for future human rights cases.

AMANPOUR: So let's explain command responsibility. One has to prove for genocide in the highest crimes against international law that the commander was in charge knowingly or that he knew and didn't stop it.

BERNABEU: Exactly. And also that having known this abuses committed by the troops, they didn't do anything, the commander didn't do anything to punish them. So he's (inaudible) responsibility obviously based on knowledge. And I will say omission, lack of acting accordingly.

AMANPOUR: So this case did polarize Guatemala to an extent; certainly Guatemala, I've read, never wanted to imagine that it would be put in the same basket as genocidal dictators in the Balkans or in Rwanda, the warlords that committed such a genocide.

How much pushback did you get when you were trying this case?

BERNABEU: Well, all of it. We -- you know, I think I understood the relevance of the crime being genocide in the context of the prosecution in Guatemala now than when we were doing the case in Spain, which was always since the Center for Justice Accountability, myself (inaudible) leading the prosecution, always with the hope to bring it back to Guatemala.

We found a lot of obstacles. And it was specifically because we were calling it genocide, not crimes against humanity nor a war crime. It was that specific component of races and indigenous population that also gives --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: So it was about wiping out a segment of a population based on the fact that they were --

BERNABEU: Indigenous.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

BERNABEU: And they became -- they called them -- in doctrination, they called them enemies. They became the basis for -- their theory was civil people, mostly campesinos, mostly persons in indigenous background, they become the basis for (inaudible) insurgent movements to be supported.

Let's call everybody and meet (inaudible) whip them out. They're (inaudible) of the Earth and that way we combat officially the (inaudible). I mean, it was schizophrenic, to say the least.

AMANPOUR: And a piece of video that we want to play now is really quite chilling about how they covered up the bodies and the deaths. Let's just play.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FREDY PECHERELLI, GUATEMALAN FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGIST: This was a very well thought out system to disappear Mayans (ph) using one of the (inaudible) things that worked in this country, which is (inaudible).

No identification would be made because the families couldn't come here. There was military intelligence and police watching the cemetery. And if families came here, they would also be captured.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: When you see that, Pamela, what do you think?

YATES: It's so chilling to me that there was this systematic targeting of civilians for death.

AMANPOUR: And they were obviously terrified, the families, as he pointed out. They weren't even allowed to go and claim or see or identify their dead.

How terrifying was it for you to record and document this?

YATES: Well, I was both terrified and exhilarated. I was terrified of what might happen, but I was also -- felt that I was in a privileged position as a documentary filmmaker to bring this news out.

AMANPOUR: And did Rios Montt have any inclination -- did he even understand what he was saying when he said brazenly to the camera that I'm in control?

YATES: I think that I made him angry, because I was asking him the same question over and over again, but in a different way. But he wasn't answering me. And so finally, this outburst at the end, where he really just said what was on his mind was the clincher.

AMANPOUR: And there are -- there is documentation also that you've all filmed that shows orders being given and lower-ranking officers sending back, saying that they had carried out these orders.

But let me ask you now, so, he was convicted earlier this month. And then the whole thing was overturned.

Why? In the simplest terms that we could understand, what is the legal technicality that overturned this historic conviction?

BERNABEU: If -- you know, they just have been -- the defense counsel, let's just say, engaging other fans (ph). There was, I'd say, coloring what (inaudible) political and not judicial (ph). They had been filing appeals to prevent that the decision was eventually issued.

So it was all these abuse of the appeal system and hundreds of appeals filed to precisely stop the sentence. When it came it down, it was one of those appeals still pending that caused the constitutional court to resolve to spending or putting on hold the decision.

AMANPOUR: So if this is, as you say, a political reaction, what is the outcome? What do you think is going to happen? Do you both think that this is going to go back to trial again be retried? Or what will happen, (inaudible)?

YATES: Well, I think what's happened, I think what's important to know is that, first of all, it's on historical record that Efraim Rios Montt was convicted of genocide and sentenced to 80 years in prison. That verdict has been vacated, but the historical memory of Guatemala will now have a different narrative as it moves forward.

What's going on in Guatemala is the legal battle for the soul of Guatemala. What happened in the genocide trial is that the genie was let out of the box. And now everyone is trying to cover the box back up. But it won't happen.

BERNABEU: Absolutely.

YATES: It cannot happen. We're going to watch, of course, with great interest and we're going to document it. We've actually filmed the whole trial and we're going to make another film about Guatemala.

AMANPOUR: And indeed he was shown in court looking at himself in your video 25 years ago.

Pamela, Almudena, thank you very much indeed, incredible work.

YATES: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: And after a quick break, I'll have a final thought.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, while justice is deferred in Guatemala, in neighboring Mexico, a different kind of justice is delivered on the busy streets of Mexico City. Imagine a world where a self-styled superhero does battle with the worst traffic on the planet.

He's known as Peatonito, Spanish for Little Pedestrian. He dons his mask and restless tights to push cars out of the way and clear the crosswalks. He studies the rules of the road and passes them along to drivers almost always with a smile. And when there are no crosswalks, he creates them, armed only with a can of spray paint.

He also lifts motorbikes off the sidewalks and puts them where they belong. And like any caped crusader, it's hard to get him to lift the mask. But Peatonito is the alter ego of Jorge Canez, a 26-year-old political science student.

He became convinced that longsuffering pedestrians needed a superhero to protect their rights on the road. And he chose to imitate the proud tradition of Mexican wrestling heroes. Until now, he's now become the people's champ.

And that's it for tonight's program. Meantime, you can always contact us on our website, amanpour.com. Thanks for watching and goodbye from New York.

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