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Flight MH17 Bodies Arrive In Netherlands

Aired July 23, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Families in limbo. A nation in mourning. This is the image of heartbreak in the Netherlands where bittersweet homecoming is unfolding right now.

The first bodies from Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 arriving back home on Dutch soil. The families of those victims will welcome their return as well as government official and even Dutch royals. Most of the 298 people killed were from the Netherlands where the flight began its doomed journey.

We have CNN correspondents covering every angle of this heartbreaking tribute. The Netherlands pauses for a day of mourning and the world pays tribute. I want to bring in Christiane Amanpour right now. You know, in the Netherlands, Christiane, it's not the government's role to mourn. This is a very difficult day for the Dutch in many ways.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it really is, and as you said more than half those victims were from the Netherlands. Something like 192 of the 298. But of course, there were lots of victims also from Malaysia, from Australia, and from many other parts of the world.

And you just saw in the pictures that we've seen up there, all the flags of those nations, which lost people at half-mast flying right now. You'll see the Dutch military, members of the Air Force, I believe, on that tarmac and you've seen a huge transport plane looks like a Galaxy to me that landed with the majority of the bodies that have already been found and another plane as well, a C130 transport.

One of them was a Dutch Air Force plane and the other one is a Royal Australian Air Force plane. As I said, Australia lost so many people as well and on the tarmac there, in this silent tribute because we understand there will not be speeches. This is not a moment even for prayers to be said publicly or any kind of political or other kind of speeches.

This apparently will be a silent tribute, just the Dutch royals, the prime minister, the foreign minister, other family members as well, gathered here to see the remains of their loved ones brought out of that flight in separate coffins.

COSTELLO: You said flags will be flown at half mast. The windmills will be put in mourning mode, one sail will be tilted to the right to symbolize mourning. All buses will come to a stop. Public transportation will halt. No commercials on national television. The entire country will come to a complete halt in just a moment.

I want to go out to the Air Force base where these planes just landed. Saima Mohsin is standing by. Describe the scene for us there.

SAIMA MOHSIN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right now, the 1 minute silence is under way right across the Netherlands. This isn't a country that grieves and mourns publicly. There is no major outpouring of grief, but we've seen a steady stream of people leaving flowers and streamers and balloons. And as you say, windmills will be put in mourning mode, which is one sail tilted.

Trials have been canceled in court at this moment in time. They will resume for another day. Buses stopping on roads. Trains stopping in their tracks. People will hold this moment of silence as a mark of respect and no plane will land at the airport in these few moments. Kind of a safe passage if you like to bring those people back home on the beginning of their journey home.

It's going to take a while yet. This is just the first of the passengers on board the MH-17 arriving here at this military base. They will be transported in funeral cars to another base where they will be identified. So the extraordinary circumstance we have right now behind me where those planes have landed is that family members are looking at them.

They are there in the presence of -- they don't know whether it will be their loved ones on board, so, of course, this is going to take some time now before they will be able to lay their loved ones to rest, but this is the beginning, perhaps, of some closure for them after this dreadful incident.

COSTELLO: If that's even possible. Chris Cuomo is in Amsterdam at another airport in the Netherlands. I know, Chris, you spoke with some family members earlier this morning and I can't imagine their pain. First of all, not knowing if their loved ones are on board those planes and then also knowing it will take weeks and weeks to identify those bodies.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": It is almost too big to think about in terms of what these families are facing. We just had the moment of silence here. Thousands of people outside. This place is special. This is where MH17 began its journey. There are rows and rows of flowers and notes and not a word. Thousands of people. Not an utterance during the moment of silence.

And when we were talking to the Kalers, the family you referred to, Carol, for them what they are telling themselves right now and the grandmother whom they were going to visit, she was here and she said it so beautifully and so powerfully, that she hopes that their deaths mean something to the world. They want the bodies back. They want to be able to bury something.

There's a bigger significance for them now and they are hoping that their deaths will mean something positive, and that's hard to hold on to when you are as much pain as they are and it shows incredible strength that they are hoping it will mean something.

COSTELLO: I'm sorry. I'm going to have to interrupt you. We're arriving at the moment of silence and I would like to our audience to hear it or listen actually. Let's all pause.

Such a touching ceremony. You see a line of 40 to 60 hearses approaching the plane right now. Coffins will come off of that plane. They'll be loaded into those hearses and they will be driven to a DNA lab there. DNA samples will be taken in an effort to identify those bodies.

I will bring in Chris Dickey. He is the foreign editor from "The Daily Beast." No words spoken during this ceremony, Chris, and it just reminds you sometimes words are not necessary.

CHRIS DICKEY, FOREIGN EDITOR, "THE DAILY BEAST": it really is heart breaking. The silence is heart breaking. People are standing there, sitting in their homes, watching it on television, thinking, trying to come to terms to the sense of loss that has touched everybody in the Netherlands. It's as if somebody knew somebody on that plane. There's no degrees of separation really. Silence is the only way to deal with it at this point.

COSTELLO: You know, Chris, the Dutch are usually so reserved. Expressions of nationalism are rare. It was two weeks ago, the country's soccer team aroused feelings of joy after coming in third in the World Cup and now this.

DICKEY: Well, you know, the Dutch are very reserved, but they are being moved by this incident in ways that they have rarely felt themselves moved before and people are asking questions of a kind that they haven't asked before.

A lot of questions have been asked about Prime Minister Mark Rutte about whether he really was too reserved in his initial reaction, too reluctant to point a finger, too reluctant to cast blame, and I think that's why when people heard the foreign minister speaking at the United Nations so passionately, beautifully, angrily, that really moved the nation.

COSTELLO: Another unusual stuff, I understand that the family members of the victims, they actually had a meeting with the king and queen of the Netherlands and also the prime minister, and there they expressed their anger.

DICKEY: Well, of course, they did, and I think this is partly reflected in what Timmermans said at the United Nations and it's been reflected certainly in the Dutch press. This idea it's not just that the plane was shot out of the air. It's not just that the people who are most likely responsible are trying to escape all responsibility.

It is the way the bodies were treated. It is the way the crash scene was dealt with. It is the way the insult to the dead and to the families of the dead I think was felt by certainly by the families, but really by almost everyone in the Netherlands. COSTELLO: All right. I would like to pause for just a few more moments so the coffins can come off the plane and be loaded on to the hearses. Let's watch.

Such a sad, sad scene, as those coffins were loaded on the hearses. You can hear people crying in the background because family members are witnessing this. Chris Coumo is at the airport in Amsterdam. Chris, you were talking to the families earlier, what did they tell you?

CUOMO: Well, they tell you that they are dealing with tremendous loss. Every family, every loved one of someone who died on that plane has a story of who that person was to them. I thought it was especially poignant, that this family, the Kalers were looking at what their loved ones may mean to everybody else.

They hope that this becomes a symbol of something about something that can help stop violence there, but they also want answers and here the thousands of people that just lined up outside the airport here in complete silence, there's not a lot of speech making and I think that's really important. You raise a good point there.

It's not so much the words. It's the politics. It's that this situation is so full the politics of war, the victims are getting lost a little bit in that. What the gentleman was saying earlier, it wasn't just that they were taken, not just how they were taken, but the after math, the indignity of it, leaving them the way they did, lack of respect.

The corruption and lack of respect for the investigation. All of that together has really been something that's going to demand answers and today you see the reverse. You see respect. You see the notion of dignifying the dead and trying to move forward, really two very different examples of humanity.

COSTELLO: You know, the Dutch prosecutors have already started an investigation, but one of the most frustrating parts of this for these families, is who do you charge? Who do you go after? We just don't know.

CUOMO: I think it's very difficult. You know, it's interesting. The Hague, the International Court of Justice is here in Holland, but the idea of charges coming, someone winding up in a court of law for this, it's possible, but I think that the larger remedy is going to be pushing the dynamic so that you have these big powers not so easily fostering violence.

Whatever is going on between Russia and Eastern Ukraine is something symptomatic of what we're seeing in different regions of the world. I think that needs to be investigated just as thoroughly, but for these families at the end of the day, Carol, this isn't about geo politics. It's about sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters gone forever. Their best hope right is at least right now is at least to be able to reclaim part of them in the physical.

Even that is very doubtful now as we've been hearing without going into detail. It's going to be very hard for them for a long time. But this country has done the right thing, a day of mourning, they haven't had one since 1962. A moment of silence, closing down even the airways, the air paths during that time, 17 million people in this country, but they are now very much unified in the remorse for those who are lost.

COSTELLO: I want to bring in Nick Paton Walsh, he's in Eastern Ukraine. Earlier those bodies left from the train station and the Ukrainian government, Nick, is trying to show respect there. There was a touching ceremony there as well.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Within the limited resources that the Ukrainian government have particularly at this stretched time of civil war. We've just seen slowly over the past 48 hours the dignity with which those bodies have been able to treated, just 24 hours ago, we saw them emerge out of rebel held areas and the violence of civil war to which they were unceremoniously held.

We saw today slowly loaded on to the back of two aircraft. One we watched was a Dutch C-130 and Ukrainian soldiers in full dress uniform looked by Australian diplomats, Dutch representatives past these four coffins to the Dutch military in the back of their C130. A second plane leaving a few hours later. The words we heard on the tarmac, respect by the Ukrainians as much as they could.

The prime minister they are really trying to reunite people in grief, recognize the tragedy that befallen Australia. It was anger from the Ukrainian deputy prime minister towards those, who they say fired that missile. They say it all points back to the Kremlin. Then finally hours later, another airplane leaving the tarmac in Kharkiv. It continues now.

The Dutch government wants to see it happen at a pace to fly out all of them by Friday. It's a very complex task to take them off the refrigerated trains they are on in. When they land in the Netherlands, that's when the identification can begin. It's high tech, using DNA. Only for sure then can they start relatives who they can bury and give their cameras off camera where Chris is, but still feeling intense trauma and grief, then perhaps they can have the closure burying their loved one.

COSTELLO: All right, 193 people, that's how many of the Netherlands lost of their countrymen, 193. I'm going to take a quick break. I'll be back with much more in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Let's take you back to Eindhoven, Netherlands where it is a national day of mourning. As you can see they are loading coffins on to hearses because 40 bodies are finally coming home. A cargo plane took off in Ukraine after a touching ceremony there. The king and queen of the Netherlands is present and the prime minister is present and other dignitaries. And most importantly family members are also witnessing this rather touching ceremony and it has been touching.

I want to bring in Christiane Amanpour. Do things like seems would add pressure on Russia to deal with the situation in Ukraine?

AMANPOUR: Well, certainly, these pictures have been beamed around the world. It's showing the world in a sense of communal grief. I think this is very powerful what's being shown on television around the world right now. As many of us have commented over the last half an hour, what the Dutch are doing right now for the victims, not only Dutch victims, let's not forget, Australian, Malaysian and from many other countries, they are giving them full military honors.

You saw the lone bugle, sounding taps, a long version of that very haunting and very respectful moment of mourning and tribute to the dead. This is a military operation that's happening right now in terms of respect for these victims and it's happening very precisely, painstakingly, very slowly, no sense of rushed or hurriedness over this.

They are giving the kind of respect and dignity toward what was taken place that was so obviously absent, in fact the reverse happened a week ago, ever since those bodies were strewn across that field in Eastern Ukraine.