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Prism
Chemical Ali Executed
Aired January 25, 2010 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STAN GRANT, HOST, PRISM (voice-over): Saddam Hussein's notorious cousin, Chemical Ali, is executed.
An Ethiopian airliner with 90 people aboard crashes into the Mediterranean Sea. Dozens of bodies have been recovered, but there is not sign of survivors.
And brining justice to Afghanistan, in our "Prism Segment" tonight we're asking, can the Taliban out government President Karzai?
From CNN Abu Dhabi in United Arab Emirates, this is PRISM, where we take a story and look at it from multiple perspectives. I'm Stan Grant.
We begin with bloodshed on the streets of Baghdad, the kind that brings to mind the dark days of the Sunni insurgency. Three massive vehicle bombs rocked the hotel district of the Iraqi capital Monday afternoon. An area popular with journalists and Western businessmen.
Officials say at least 36 people were killed and 71 were wounded in the blasts, which happened in quick succession at the Palestine, Babul Al (ph), and Al Hamra (ph) hotels.
Today's bombings in Baghdad coincide with the execution of a well- known member of the former Saddam Hussein government. Ali Hassan al- Majeed, better known as Chemical Ali, had been sentenced to death four separate times. But his execution had been delayed by politics, until now. Al-Majeed got his nickname from his involvement in the 1988 poison gas attack against Kurds in the Halabja.
CNN's Diana Magnay joins us live now from Sulamaniya, in Iraqi Kurdistan with the reaction to the death of Chemical Ali - Diana.
DIANA MAGNAY, CNN INT'L. CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Stan.
Well, we were in Halabja today and the news of his execution hadn't come through, but the U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill, was out there too, visiting the memorial to the 5,000 people who were killed in that poison gas attack in Halabja. And he had just signed the transfer agreement to transfer Chemical Ali from U.S. custody into Iraqi custody. So, from his perspective the execution was eminent.
And we spoke to people there at the cemetery where the graves are, mass graves are, and one man who had lost 12 members of his family, he was the only one who survived. He said, "To be honest, the sentence, the death sentence doesn't matter to me. It is that justice is finally done."
And that attack on Halabja was in 1988, so more than 20 years ago, and it has been 20 long years for those people who had been seeking justice for what happened there, Stan.
GRANT: Yes, Diana, just give us a sense of the impact that this man had had, with the orders that he had given, the numbers of people that had been killed in various attacks? And how the people there, also see the West's role in this, as having at one point abandoned them?
MAGNAY: Well, Halabja was part of a border campaign called the Anfal Campaign, which was really a series of poison gas attacks across the entire Kurdish region. Initiated, or orchestrated by Saddam Hussein and then put into practice by Baathists, and particularly, Chemical Ali, and more than 100,000 people lost their lives in that campaign. It was effectively ethnic cleansing of the Kurds.
So the reaction here is, of course, rejoicing that that should have happened. At the, though, 1988, the international community took, really, a step back and didn't really respond in any way to Saddam Hussein's activities up here. Since then, of course, they use the fact that Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against his own people, as part of their justification for going to war. But in the early years, after those attacks, they were extremely silent about what had happened here, Stan.
GRANT: Diana, thank you very much for that. Diana Magnay, joining us there.
Well, search and rescue is underway now in the waters off Lebanon. An Ethiopian Airline 737 crashed into the Mediterranean early Monday, just after taking off from Beirut; 90 people were on the plane. Some bodies have been recovered, but so far no survivors. Cal Perry joins us now at CNN Beirut - Cal.
CAL PERRY, CNN INT'L. CORRESPONDENT: Stan, 21 bodies have been recovered according to the Lebanese army. It was Flight 409 that lost contact with the tower, the control tower, here in Beirut at 2:37 a.m., and then went splashing into the Mediterranean.
As you said, 90 people on board, the majority of them Lebanese and Ethiopian; 54 Lebanese, and 22 Ethiopian citizens onboard that plane.
Now, Saad Hariri, prime minister of Lebanon was quick to get to the airport to try to console families who had come there hoping for some good news. Now, he said the search and rescue effort will continue on for the next 7 2 hours.
The crash site is about 15 kilometers south of Beirut and is about a kilometer and a half out into the water. One of the things of concerns here in Beirut, is that the weather is perhaps hampering the rescue efforts. You can see there, the pictures of the Mediterranean, very, very choppy waters. It is a multinational effort, this search and rescue effort. The Germans are involved, the American 5th Fleet has arrived, the Lebanese navy of course, and UNIFIL, the United Nations peacekeeping force that patrols Southern Lebanon, Stan.
GRANT: Cal, thank you. Cal Perry, joining us live, there, from Beirut.
A little bit of background now on Ethiopian Airlines. It is the largest airline in Africa, in terms of the number of passengers. Between 2008 and 2009 it carried some 2.8 million people, while the airline is considered relatively safe there have been two fatal incidents since 1970. One took place in 1988 when pigeons flew into the aircraft's engines; 31 passengers were killed during the crash landing. And in 1996 a flight from Addis Ababa was hijacked; 123 were killed when the plane attempted an emergency landing in shallow waters.
Turning to Haiti now, a constant scramble, unrelenting need, and a death toll that gets larger each day, the exact number of casualties still impossible to know. But a Haitian minister now says that the government has collected the remains of more than 150,00 people. That does not include the bodies still trapped in rubble and those buried by families.
The magnitude 7 quake nearly two weeks ago has left millions hurt, homeless, and in dire need of aid. It has also triggered a mass exodus from the collapsed capital. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians are moving to outlying areas in search of shelter.
Meantime, world leaders are meeting with Haitian authorities to lay the ground work for reconstruction. Foreign ministers and officials from 20 countries are gathered in Montreal. Their mission: Figure out how to move from relief to rebuilding. Representatives of the World Bank, IMF, U.N. and E.U. are also attending the one-day meeting. It is the first step toward a larger reconstruction conference that will be held in the coming months.
Well, Haitian people already lived on the edge before the earthquake. Many desperately poor people, the disaster has only made a bad situation worse. Cite Soleil is one of the capital's poorest neighborhoods. Our Karl Penhaul went there to see how people are fairing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KARL PENHAUL, CNN INT'L. CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Sun up in the shanty town of Cite Soleil. Help rolls in aboard a heavily armored convoy. Brazilian peacekeepers and American soldiers.
If you want to eat, you'd better move quick. There is not enough to go around.
LT. GEN. P.K. KEEN, HEAD, U.S. MILITARY TASK FOR IN HAITI: You cannot feed every citizen, every day.
PENHAUL: That's nothing new in Cite Soleil. This is Haiti's most desperate slum. Even before the quake survival was hand to mouth.
United Nations and U.S. generals are putting on a joint show, apparently to dispel criticism about the often chaotic relief effort. They say they have a plan.
KEEN: Provide food for a percentage of them every day, so over a two week period every citizen has sufficient food to last for that two weeks.
PENHAUL: Today there is more trucks of blue helmets and U.S. soldiers than food. Cite Soleil has a fearsome rap for violence. Brazilian peacekeepers have reigned in gangs here over recent years, but some fear crime bosses may regroup in the slums after prisons break on the day of the quake. Not so, peacekeepers say.
GEN. FROILANO PEIXOTO, U.N. PEACEKEEPER: The security situation is completely under control. The nature of incidents we have now, here, we used to have before the tragedy.
PENHAUL: Soldiers fix their sights on passing out bags of beans, rice and oil, to the luckiest few. High-energy cookies or Ready-to-Eat meals to those further down the line. Ancilia Josaphat struggles home with her supplies.
"One of those white guys gave me a box for my things. Of course it's good stuff, otherwise they wouldn't be handing it out," she says.
(On camera): Now here's precisely one of the problems. For everyone that has been getting food today thousands more will go home hungry. These people have been standing in line under a hot sun since early on. They've had their expectations raised and now they are going to be frustrated.
(Voice over): Shattered hopes have become a way of life for Haiti's failed state. This time around international donors are promising not to turn their backs and vowing to rebuild Haiti.
A bold pledge for the future, but right now, kids scurry for any offer while it lasts.
Karl Penhaul, CNN, Citi Soleil, Haiti.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRANT: Let's go to Hala Gorani now. She is on the ground in Port-au- Prince with more -Hala.
HALA GORANI, CNN INT'L. CORRESPONDENT: Right, well, you saw there from Karl Penhaul's piece just how dire the situation still is for so many Haitians who have suffered in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. And there are tent cities springing up and have sprung up and continue to be what so many tens of thousands call home.
Now, Stan, the important thing to underline here, is they have survived the quake. They are in makeshift tents, in many cases, they have taken sheets, bed sheets. They put them up. But there is no sanitation. There is really no structure. No organization to their lives. And in the future, what happens next is the big question. And in the more immediate future, if it rains, if there is any issue, when it comes to the climate or the weather here, that is going to cause a secondary - a tertiary - potentially, problem for many of the survivors. So, as aid trickles in, as it reaches the survivors, it is the long-term impact of the situation in Haiti that is going to become the biggest challenge. As we've seen in that conference in Montreal. And as so many people have brought up over the last few days, Stan.
GRANT: Yes, and Hala, also with so many casualties, so many bodies, there is the difficulty of just dealing with that, and disposing of the bodies, and a gruesome task.
GORANI: It is. And just a few hours ago, there were two bodies that were left out, just not too far from our live position, because they were unearthed only yesterday. When ordinary passersby just sort of removed rubble from a car and found three bodies. Passersby had no other option than to burn the bodies themselves, because stray animals were starting to sort of gnaw at them. It was a very disturbing scene. Children were around. They were witnessing the whole thing unfold. I believe we have a still photograph for you that we took from afar. We did not want to make this too graphic.
But there were no government agencies here to pick up the bodies and help deal with this sort of thing. And international organizations, as well, some of their vehicles drove by, slowed down, you know noticed that there was something there on the sidewalk, but didn't do anything to remove the bodies. So, this highlights a much wider issue of absolutely very little central government help for ordinary Haitians, Stan.
GRANT: Hala, thank you. Hala Gorani, joining us live there from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Well, despite its brutality some Afghanistan say the Taliban's form of war is best. In tonight's "Prism Segment" we ask whether the Taliban is better at delivering justice than the Afghanistan government?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRANT: The Taliban insurgency is increasingly effective and is becoming more popular. Two of the central conclusions of the most-recent U.S. intelligence report obtained by CNN. Known as the Flynn Report, it warns that "situation is serious". It concludes that the insurgency can sustain itself indefinitely. That Taliban attacks are up significantly and that the Taliban considers 2009 to be the most successful year of the war.
Captured insurgents say that the government of President Hamid Karzai is seen as corrupt or ineffective. The reports suggests that the Taliban are effectively creating a parallel government.
Well, Britain will host a conference on Afghanistan this week; on the agenda, handing over control to Afghan troops and how to effectively combat the Taliban. That is something Prime Minister Gordon Brown sees as achievable.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GORDON BROWN, PRIME MINISTER, GREAT BRITIAN: It is right to believe that over the long-term we can split the Taliban. There are people working with the Taliban who are simply mercenaries, as I've said. There are others that have local grievances that can be dealt with in different ways, which don't actually lead to the argument for a counter (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and for Afghanistan to be under a Taliban or Al Qaeda rule. And so we have got to split the Taliban and I think we are having some success in being able to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRANT: Well, besides security Afghans tell us they yearn for justice. The bureaucracy and the corruption embedded in the government have led to accusations that the justice department hears only cases of the politically connected. Through the PRISM tonight, we are asking are the Taliban better at delivering justice than the government of Hamid Karzai?
From Kabul, Dan Rivers reports some Afghan believe they were better off under the Taliban.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN RIVERS, CNN INT'L. CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In the biting cold wind of an Afghan winter the struggle to get justice is played out on the streets of Kabul. These men help write petitions for those seeking legal remedy. But many here complain that under Hamid Karzai's ailing government justice is almost impossible to achieve. That dissatisfaction is leading some plaintiffs to a stark conclusion.
This many says, "The time of the Taliban was better, because both rich and poor people were receiving one kind of justice."
And this many says, "Under this government you need connections to get justice, but under the Taliban there was no need for connections. Their justice was swift."
But you only have to look at this video to realize just how harsh Taliban justice was when they ruled the country. A woman executed in a football stadium full of thousands of people. A grotesque warning not to break the Taliban's brand of Sharia law.
(On camera): During the 1990s this stadium came to symbolize the brutal summary justice meted out by the Taliban. But today many of the disgruntled men that we've spoken to still feel that the Taliban offer a swifter more transparent justice than the government. It is a crucial weakness of the administration of Hamid Karzai, a weakness that is only fueling support the Taliban.
DAVID MILIBAND, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: The Taliban offer up justice, but it is a particular form of justice. There is a real responsibility on the Afghan state to make sure not just that they're not outgunned by the Taliban, but they mustn't be out-governed by the Taliban.
RIVERS: There is widespread dissatisfaction with the justice system. Even those in charge admit there are problems, but insist they are tackling them.
MOHAMMAD QAASEM HASHEMZAI, AFGHAN DEPUTY JUSTICE MINISTER: We do not deny that there is no corruption, that it is not absolutely clear and quick and fast. That maybe, but there are systems operating over here, to find where is the corruption, where are the loopholes.
RIVERS: But despite the problems many woman here think they are much better off now.
FAWZIA KOOFI, AFGHAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER: I think under the Taliban the situation was absolutely different. Kabul and Afghanistan was like a death city and a death country, no body had the strength (ph) to freely speak and to freely live, even. I think the situation is now different. Even for those who haven't been able to receive justice, they want to see (ph) they have a future, they have a hope for the future.
RIVERS: But that is little comfort for those who have been waiting for years for their case to be heard.
This man says, "At least the Taliban gives their punishment quickly. But here we have to go from one office to another. It makes your head spin."
RIVERS: And that anger is fueling support for the Taliban and further undermining Hamid Karzai's beleaguered government. Dan Rivers, CNN, Kabul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRANT: Well, politically there is a different outlook. Let's start with what the U.S. secretary of State said at a meeting with the E.U. high representative on foreign policy last week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: In every survey that is done, which I have seen, that have come to my attention, the people do not want the Taliban back. There is no support for that kind of repressive, regressive regime. What they want is a government that can and will function and we are expecting a lot from President Karzai and his new government.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRANT: Now let's listen to two Afghans with government experience. First former finance minister Ashraf Ghani warns that without action some of his countrymen will turn to the Taliban for a sense of security. He offers this analogy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ASHRAF GHANI, FMR. AFGHAN FINANCE MINISTER: Under the Taliban a man with a million dollars could travel, in cash, with a million dollars in cash could travel and assume that he'd not be molested. So, on that count the record of the Afghan government and the international community, in comparison, looks awful.
DAOUD SULTANZOY, AFGHAN MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT: It is not the strength of the Taliban, it is the weakness of this government that has driven the people away from the government. And it has created a gap in which the Taliban are finding room to maneuver and breed in that vacuum.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRANT: Well, even President Karzai has acknowledged corruption in the government. U.S. Senator John Kerry, last week, emphasized the importance of what he called real reform.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: A new survey by the United Nations found that one of every two Afghans paid a bribe to a public official in the last year. Graft has become a part of every day life and that must stop.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRANT: Canada's ambassador in Kabul agrees reform is vital.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM CROSBIE, CANADIAN AMBASSADOR TO AFGHANISTAN: We too often turn to powerbrokers and warlords to fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and turned a blind eye to perhaps whether or not those individuals were inappropriately using government offices, or using their power.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRANT: Well, finally, Kabul-based think tank, Integrity Watch, asks these question in a 2007 report on corruption. "Little is known about what the Afghan population actually considers as corrupt practice. What is acceptable and what is unacceptable behavior in the local context. Do Western definitions of corruption and the associated behavioral standards apply to Afghanistan?"
Just some food for thought. Tomorrow we ask what is the true face of Hamas? Send us your thoughts by Twitter. The address is CNNABUDHABI.
Balance, and a new beginning, Sri Lankans prepare to vote for their next president but a key minority group may have a major impact.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRANT: Sri Lankans will head to the polls Tuesday in the country's first post-war presidential election. Election officials delivered ballot boxes to polling stations in a race that is expected to be close. The main candidates steered the country toward victory last year over the Tamil insurgency. But as Sarah Sidner reports from the capital, the battle is now about the ballot.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA SIDNER, CNN INT'L. CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Street performers play on a lazy Sunday afternoon in Sri Lanka's capital. This is the calm after a flurry of fierce campaigning by the candidates for president.
The two front-runners are unlikely opponents. The incumbent seeking reelection, Commander and Chief Mahinda Rajapakse, against his former army general, Sarath Fonseka, who quit his post as chief of the defense staff in November after complaining he had been marginalized. Both men played a big part last year in crushing the Tamil Tigers, the group that waged a 25-year guerilla war for a separate homeland in Sri Lanka's north. Once close colleagues, now bitter rivals in a campaign that has turned ugly.
(On camera): In the post-war election there have been more than 700 reported cases of violence, this is one example. This is a campaign office in northwest Sri Lanka. And you can see the pock marks from the shrapnel on the walls and the grenade that killed one person here.
(voice over): Locals say it was retaliation for the killing of Fonseka supporters days before. In the midst of all this, accusation from human rights groups that Sri Lankan forces committed war crimes in their campaign to destroy the Tigers. Both candidates deny that.
Political observers say Rajapakse and Fonseka may split the vote of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority.
"The two are Buddhists, but the problem is only one is experienced. So one knows how to win the war and the other knows how to govern the country," says a Buddhist monk, backing Rajapakse. But a Fonseka supporter complains about the deteriorating economy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The present government has done nothing to increase salaries in the private sector. Government sector salaries have increased, but we haven't got anything.
SIDNER: That split means the minority Tamil population, thousands of whom are still living in camps, could swing the vote.
This Tamil war survivor is still living in a camp six months after the war ended, says she is angry she is still here and blames the current government for that. Like most Tamils she won't say who she'll vote for.
But beyond the tension and the bitterness of the election campaign, there is also hope that peace can help heal Sri Lanka's divisions and allow it to begin catching up after decades of lost opportunities. Sara Sidner, CNN, Colombo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRANT: And that's it for me in Abu Dhabi. "AFRICAN VOICES" is up next, just after we update the headlines.
END
