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Amanpour

Ukraine: Putin's Next Move; How U.S. Evangelicals Influenced Uganda; The End of Innocence; Imagine a World

Aired February 28, 2014 - 14:00   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, I'm Christiane Amanpour, and welcome to the weekend edition of the program, where we take another look at the major stories that we've been coverage this week, from the deep divisions in Ukraine and Uganda to a rare moment of unity on the Korean Peninsula.

First, though, to the fast-moving events in Ukraine, where a new government led by the opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk is taking control after the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych. With a warrant out for his arrest by the new Ukrainian authorities after the killings of more than 80 people in Kiev last week, Yanukovych has been out of sight until suddenly he resurfaced in Southern Russia at this press conference.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VIKTOR YANUKOVYCH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): I intend to continue the fight for the future of Ukraine against those who, with fear and with terror, are attempting to replace the power.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): But tensions are high after armed separatists stormed the parliament in Crimea which has an ethnically Russian majority.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: While in Moscow, the defense ministry is protecting its own assets in Ukraine and has now ordered a massive deployment of more than 100,000 troops and heavy equipment to the border with Ukraine. This has brought worried warnings from the United States, Europe and NATO.

Senior Russian officials are publicly pledging not to intervene militarily.

I asked a former Kremlin insider about Putin's next moves. Alexander Nekrassov once worked for President Boris Yeltsin during the massive upheavals of the 1990s and more recently he advised the current Russian government on closer ties with the West.

So what about all the saber rattling that ended yet another stormy week in Ukraine?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Mr. Nekrassov, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

ALEXANDER NEKRASSOV, FORMER KREMLIN ADVISER: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: Is there any threat of a military intervention?

NEKRASSOV: Well, the point is this: why should Russia interfere at the moment? President Putin does not need to interfere militarily because what is going to happen now, where he is witnessing it, is that this new regime, interim regime, the infighting has started. And it will continue.

And there's going to be a serious problem for him to raise money anywhere because Russian money was offered to stabilize Ukrainian economy.

The West has now been confronted by a request for $35 billion from this interim president and his people. And the West has said no, no, no. We don't have that sort of money. The E.U. has said that; the IMF is sort of thinking where to raise it.

So the situation is that Putin and the Russian government are just sitting there and looking at what's going on.

AMANPOUR: But you say it as if they're sitting there looking and waiting for it to collapse under its own weight. Surely that is not in Putin's interest, either.

NEKRASSOV: Why would Putin -- would want to have instability in Ukraine which is bordering Russia? So they don't want that. So that's what they are doing, is that they are calling actually on all sides to be calm.

But you can't blame Moscow and the Kremlin for suddenly saying, well, what happens if the interim government collapses? Well, I'm sorry. They decided to take power. They ousted an elected president. He can be a bad president, some people say, but he was elected.

AMANPOUR: But you can imagine that nobody who is responsible for killing more than 80 people is actually any more a legitimate president? I mean you --

(CROSSTALK)

NEKRASSOV: No, no; let me tell you this: the Russian viewers have a different footage. They saw those protesters armed and they were armed before the police was issued live ammunition. So 20 -- nearly 20 police dead shows you that there was some armed gun power on the other side as well.

AMANPOUR: Clearly there were militants in the opposition; that's absolutely right. But you touch on something very, very tricky here and that is the diet that the Russian people have been fed by the Russian state media.

Even now their president and their prime minister and leaders are calling this an armed coup, that these are Kalashnikov-wielding, balaclava- clad, you know, terrorists and extremists. That doesn't sound like they are trying to calm the situation. It sounds like inflaming the situation.

NEKRASSOV: Well, I'm sorry, but I've seen that footage and I saw --

AMANPOUR: No, and I'm just asking you about the diet of words that are being used to the Russian people.

NEKRASSOV: Well, we have Susan Rice starting that discussion about Russian troops supposedly --

AMANPOUR: But she warned them not to enter.

NEKRASSOV: -- and I can't really say that, you know, there are Russian officials who have been inflaming the situation. I think that if the Russians' officials were actually inflaming the situation, you would have seen scenes in the East much more violent and dangerous than we're seeing now.

So I don't really think that you can blame Russia for inflaming the situation. What we actually -- what I want to say is this: first of all, the European Union started this debate after the deal was not signed by Yanukovych, by the way, a very bad deal.

And I can tell you, I was advising the finance minister. I read that agreement. It was terrible. It would have destroyed Ukraine's industry and it would have caused a lot of grief.

So that was his legal right to -- not to sign it. Immediately after that, the E.U. started blackmailing the government in Ukraine and saying you have to choose between Russia or us. And the Russians then said, OK. Let's do compromise. Let's sit the three parties together, Russia, E.U. and Ukraine. Let's work this out. No way, said Brussels (ph).

AMANPOUR: All right. Now let's move forward because you can also say that Russia has the drip-drip of economic aid to Ukraine every several months and it's a game that's clearly played by both sides; Ukraine's in the middle.

What needs to happen now to rescue Ukraine, to allow Ukraine to have legitimate relations with the West, keep its good relations with Russia as well?

NEKRASSOV: Well, let me quote President Gorbachev, who said two days ago, let all foreign advisers leave Kiev and let the Ukrainians sit down together and sort out their problems. I think that was --

AMANPOUR: Do you really think that will work?

NEKRASSOV: -- oh, I think it was a very wise suggestion because we have too many politicians from the European Union, from America, coming and meeting the --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: But let's face it --

NEKRASSOV: -- this is -- this is --

AMANPOUR: -- please, let's face it. The majority of the Ukrainian people want a relationship with the West. They see themselves as European. They want something different. Is there a way, do you think, that Ukraine can forge a future that is a sensible future with both East and West, with Russia and the West?

NEKRASSOV: At the moment, it looks very doubtful because -- simply because many people in the East don't really understand what has happened. President Yanukovych, although unpopular among some circles and sectors -- you know, President Hollande of France is even less popular; we don't call on him to be removed.

He had only one year left in office. He would have probably lost that election. Why was there need to this sudden change of power? And these people --

AMANPOUR: Well, that came at the barrel of a gun, Mr. Nekrassov.

NEKRASSOV: -- (INAUDIBLE) power. They are not professionals. I don't really see how they're going to change anything.

AMANPOUR: So what are you seeing now?

NEKRASSOV: Don't forget another thing. We had the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.

AMANPOUR: Yes, which I covered.

NEKRASSOV: (INAUDIBLE) people who are descendants of that revolution and --

AMANPOUR: And what next?

NEKRASSOV: -- and guess what happened? The Orange Revolution collapsed.

AMANPOUR: What next?

NEKRASSOV: The president lost the election. And so on. What next is that people need to stop these sort of arguments like we've heard from Ms. Orobets about troops coming in. This is not going to come.

And if this government is going to be formed on Thursday, the worst thing that could have happened is that if it finds problems in raising money or getting a proper unity government, they will start using this sort of threat of attack by Russia as a policy rather than just statement. That would be dangerous.

AMANPOUR: Thank you very much for your insight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And of course we'll continue to keep a close watch on Ukraine in the days ahead.

But in Uganda, meanwhile, the fallout continues from this week's draconian new anti-gay law that could see homosexuals jailed for life. A Ugandan tabloid has conducted a name-and-shame campaign. "The Red Pepper" has outed what it calls Uganda's top 200 homos. And that in this climate is a sure sentence to violent harassment.

Several European countries are withdrawing millions of dollars in aid to Uganda's government and the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry compares the new law to Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa.

Ironically, who do you think is behind much of the anti-gay hysteria in Uganda? Why, a group of evangelical Christians from the United States of America. As this law was being signed, I spoke to Roger Ross Williams, whose recent documentary, "God Loves Uganda," is a terrifying look at incitement to hatred.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "GOD LOVES UGANDA")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to fight sodomy in Uganda. They say they are ready to fight. Those who are ready to kill those who are being homosexual, stand up.

(END VIDEO CLIP, "GOD LOVES UGANDA")

AMANPOUR: I asked Williams how this intolerance traveled all the way from the U.S. to Uganda.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome. Thank you for coming on the program today.

Tell me how you came to make this film and how you discovered what you have done.

ROGER ROSS WILLIAMS, DIRECTOR, "GOD LOVES UGANDA": Yes, yes. Well, I was -- my last film took place in Zimbabwe and I noticed a hold of sort of type of evangelical Christianity on the continent, sub-Saharan Africa. So I started reading about Uganda and what was going on there. And I just did a research trip, went there; met David Kato, who's the activist in my film, who was brutally murdered.

And he said the story that hadn't been told is the story of the sort of damage that fundamentalists, evangelicals from America, were doing in his country. So that sort of started me on my journey.

AMANPOUR: What did you know about the International House of Prayer? How did you see that sort of build there?

WILLIAMS: The build, you know, well, I started on -- I, when I heard about Lou Engel (ph) from the International House of Prayer in Kansas City going to Uganda, you know, sort of when all these sort of American evangelicals were running away from Uganda for PR reasons, he went to Uganda and threw a huge prayer rally called The Call, which that led me to Kansas City.

And I sort of started following members from the International House of Prayer and I followed a group of them to Uganda.

AMANPOUR: And I know it's all in your film, but for those of us who - - or people who haven't seen the whole film, describe how it worked. How did they sort of gin up this anti-gay hysteria? How did an evangelical from the United States get to spend hours talking to parliament in Uganda?

WILLIAMS: Well, someone who is very extreme, like Scott Lively, who is an extremist in America, but in -- when he goes to Uganda, he gets taken seriously because of what he represents.

He's an American evangelical, and what America represents in a place like Uganda, represents power and wealth.

And so he goes to Uganda and he can command the president, he can command the parliament for five hours. He did a three-day conference, where he told everyone about the threat of homosexuality, that they were there to recruit their children.

And that's what really sort of started this whole bill on its -- on where it is now, today, this sort of tragic day.

And Scott Lively's being sued in American federal court by Ugandan activists for what he's done there. A judge just ruled that he has to stand trial.

AMANPOUR: Now in your film, you also talk to very sympathetic Ugandans, members of the Anglican Church there, who try to tell their flock that, no, this anti-gay hysteria is not Christian.

Do they have any chance of getting that message across?

WILLIAMS: Yes. You know, Bishop Christopher Ssenyonjo is an Anglican bishop who sort of went against the grain in Uganda.

You have a bunch of pastors there who call themselves anti-gay activists, who show, like Martin Ssempa, who shows gay porn in church, who just sort of firing up people to -- as gay people have become this sort of scapegoat in Uganda, to distract from what the real problems are going on there, which is corruption.

So you have Christopher Ssenyonjo, who is the only -- one of the only faith leaders who stood up and said, you know, this is human sexuality. And for that, he lost his -- he actually lost his right in the Anglican Church. He was excommunicated. He lost his pension.

And here's a really noble man and he won the Clinton award last year. But this is an amazing man who is -- was on the front page of a newspaper called the "Rolling Stone" with David Kato, the murdered activist, with his picture next to David Kato's, with the title, "Hanging Killed Him."

AMANPOUR: You know what, your film is incredibly interesting and amazingly timely. Roger Ross Williams, thank you so much indeed for joining me today.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And after a break, we'll turn to another troubling story, this time in South Africa where the sensational Oscar Pistorius murder trial will soon get underway. But the dark cloud of violence in the Rainbow Nation is taking terrifying shape over the very youngest, child on child sexual violence, an unforgettable portrait when we come back.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. A high court in South Africa has decided that cameras will be allowed in court when Olympic star Oscar Pistorius' murder trial starts next week. This infamous case is sure to attract worldwide attention.

But every day in South Africa the terrible crime of rape and shockingly child rape goes virtually unnoticed anymore. But my next guest has devoted the last 10 years of her life making sure to document the terrible evidence for all time.

In her new book, "My Piece of Sky," photographer Mariella Furrer uses powerful photographs, interviews, artwork and poetry to give voice to the victims and hold out the possibility of accountability for the perpetrators.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Mariella Furrer, welcome.

MARIELLA FURRER, AUTHOR: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: Thank you for being here. You know, I was just looking at this massive book and I'm thinking many of us have documented the unspeakable crimes that are done to children or women around the world.

But what you've done is exhaustive; it's 10 years of your life, at least. But also you have a personal stake in this. You yourself were sexually assaulted.

FURRER: Well, I was 5 years old. It was in Kenya and I was molested by a stranger, a tourist, I think it was some white man in a little caravan. He touched me. But it felt good. It felt good and that filled me with guilt and remorse. And it impacted me in so many ways that I wasn't really aware of at the time growing up.

AMANPOUR: In the preface to this book, you quote Maya Angelou, the great American poet and author. She says, "There is no greater tragedy than bearing an untold story inside of you."

And you've decided to try to shake off that tragedy by bearing witness to the crimes committed to others.

FURRER: Absolutely. I think the most important thing about this body of work really is to try to get people to speak out about their abuse, because as long as we don't speak out, the perpetrator will continue.

AMANPOUR: Let's just talk about some of the terrifying statistics, 45 percent of rapes reported to the police are child rapes and 50 percent of children will be abused before the age of 18. This is according to South African authorities.

It is mindboggling. It's staggering. What have you found in your investigation? It's not just confined to a ghetto somewhere.

FURRER: No. I mean, child sexual abuse, first of all, is a global problem. It is -- it transcends any social, economic and racial boundaries and it's everywhere. I think even with the statistics, the realities we don't know. These are the reported rapes but you're going to find that most child sexual abuse is unreported.

AMANPOUR: I was fascinated to read about how all of this affected you. You write at times you would be in tears and paralyzed by the information that you had collected.

What was it that struck you the most in the gut?

FURRER: The resilience of these children who have undergone the most horrific forms of abuse, all types of abuse, child pornography being (INAUDIBLE) -- it's just -- on a daily basis, have to deal that every day they wake up they're reminded through either a scar on them or a tattoo that dad has put on their, you know, saying daddy loves you or things like that --

AMANPOUR: The rapist dad?

FURRER: Yes.

AMANPOUR: And another thing that is staggering about what you've discovered is that it is not just younger and younger children -- I mean, infants who are being sexually abused, but that it is younger and younger children who are the perpetrators as well.

FURRER: Absolutely. You would find quite a high percentage of the perpetrators are children. So it's child-on-child. So it's really important that schools and parents keep an eye out on their children because if there is problem and they're sent to counseling and taught appropriate sexual behavior, they will not be a problem.

It's that we're not catching these children in time.

AMANPOUR: How intense is the law enforcement, the prevention? I mean, because some people think, you know, this is so endemic that police don't really care about it.

FURRER: The police I worked with are so dedicated to protecting -- to the protection of children, I mean, to the extent that they're going through divorces; they're working overtime. They're not, you know, day in and day out, they deal with this, which obviously --

AMANPOUR: Changes their lives, too.

FURRER: -- it changes their lives. It's a difficult, you know, there are no crimes worse than crimes against children of this nature.

AMANPOUR: And to that end, you have spent time with the worst criminals, therefore, the perpetrators.

FURRER: Yes.

AMANPOUR: But you have said that it's not black-and-white. Sometimes after endless sessions of therapy and watching them, they asked you, do you hate us now? And you responded.

FURRER: No. Which --

AMANPOUR: Why not?

FURRER: -- you know, when I was working with the police and these children coming in, I was like, my goodness. If anyone comes in now I will kill them myself.

And actually when you start working with them, this is very different to other people who work them on -- because they definitely do not feel -- I don't feel affection for them, but I could see the different facets of each personality, and one in particular I remember was a perpetrator from Namibia who would have been a friend, you know, he was witty, intelligent, funny and he abused children.

AMANPOUR: You've described how this work has actually made you physically ill.

FURRER: Well, I have post-traumatic stress disorder. I suffer from depression. It's extraordinary, the impact of carrying other people's stories with you. And there's a great difficulty for me to release these stories because I feel they've been given to me and that they're very sacred. So it's difficult to let them go.

AMANPOUR: Well, you're not letting them go. They're here and they will be the evidence for many people who need to know about this. Mariella Furrer, thank you very much.

FURRER: Thank you very much for having me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And you can see more of her powerful photos online at amanpour.com. And remember, we did focus on South Africa, but this is, as she said, a global problem.

And after a break, imagine a family reunion over 60 years in the making. It happened this week in a land divided by decades of distrust and daily threats of war. For one brief moment, North Korea opened its borders and embraced its neighbors to the south. Compassion or cold calculation? When we come back.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, last year as the U.S. and South Korea began their annual joint military drills, all hell nearly broke loose; North Korea vowed to retaliate with nuclear attacks. And just this week another round of war games began. Now imagine a world where heated threats have given way to heartfelt tears.

In a stunning, some would say calculated about-face, Pyongyang toned down the angry rhetoric and let down its guard ever so slightly on Sunday, allowing busloads of South Korean citizens to cross the DMZ. It's the world's most fortified border.

There they were reunited with relatives, many of whom hadn't seen each other since the end of the Korean War over half a century ago.

But three emotional days in a mountain resort, hundreds of South Koreans who were chosen by lottery and North Koreans who were handpicked by the government for their loyalty, exchanged hugs, kisses and stories with their family members, all with the added urgency and sadness of knowing they would probably never have this chance again, even though there have been other such reunions in the past.

None of the participants has ever been allowed to meet a second time.

Humanitarian gesture or cynical charm offensive? The reunions ended today as the South Koreans once again boarded their buses for home. They reached out one last time to the family they may never see again and headed back across the border that still divides them, with one last wave goodbye.

And that's it for our program tonight. Remember you can always contact us at our website, amanpour.com, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook. Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.

END