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CNN Live Sunday
Interview With Ken Bacon
Aired April 14, 2002 - 16:40 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to continue our conversation right now with Ken Bacon, a former Pentagon spokesperson now working with Refugees International. He's back in the U.S. stateside, and we say good evening to you back there in the U.S. And I want to get your take right now on these accusations right now, that are essentially being exchanged from both sides about what happened in that refugee camp.
KEN BACON, PRESIDENT, REFUGEES INTERNATIONAL: OK. I think we know for sure that there has been a lack of medical care and a lack of food and water and other support getting into these refugee camps including Jenin, so the most urgent issue right now is to get aid in as quickly as possible to help people who by all accounts are in a fairly desperate situation. You raised the question ...
HEMMER: But what about the, OK, go ahead, please continue, I'm sorry.
BACON: I think the question you raised was, who's right? Are the Palestinians right about the death toll or are the Israeli's right? This is an important issue, and I think because it's so important, there should be some sort of international body conditioned to go in and try to give us ground truth, because it's clear that both sides are using the numbers for their own political or propaganda purposes. I think we need to sort this out as clearly as we can.
HEMMER: Yeah, and what do you take from the accusation of 500 dead on the Palestinian side, the Israeli defense minister saying 70 on their side, and all the accounts we're getting do not add up in terms of 500.
BACON: Well, I think that that's why we need some sort of international or neutral group to go in and take a look. I'm sure that both sides are trying to use the figures as best they can to promote their case. I think it's important for us to try to get some neutral view of what's happened there. We'll have a better view tomorrow after the International Committee for the Red Cross goes in, but it may take days to sort our what's happened there.
HEMMER: Yeah, you know quite a bit about this. Give us a sense for what life is like inside a refugee camp, be it in Gaza or in the West Bank, as we're talking about this case now.
BACON: Sure. Refugees International has visited the camps in March and we've been in touch with people on the phone, I don't know, on an almost daily basis. These camps are very crowded, they're frequently aren't many, aren't enough educational or economic opportunities in the camps, and recently, as the camps have been under attack, the humanitarian conditions have been quite, quite desperate. Lack of electricity, lack of medical care as I mentioned earlier, and reports of shortages of food and water, so life in these camps ...
HEMMER: Israeli's charge that these have become an absolute hot bed for terrorist cells to grow and to fester and to carry out terrorist act, carry out terrorist acts against Israeli civilians here. Curious to know from your perspective what you've learned here about why indeed these places are so ripe for such activity.
BACON: Well, there's unacceptable violence against civilians on both sides, the Palestinian side and the Israeli side. But these are camps where people grow up sometimes in relatively hopeless conditions. I do think the Israeli's are right, there have been breeding grounds, they have been, some of them have been breeding grounds for terrorists, and the Israeli's have every right to go in and stop terrorism.
The question is are they doing more than that? Is there a disproportionate response that also harms civilians more than they should be harming civilians? We don't know the answers to those questions yet. There are conflicting charges and that's why I think it would be good to have some neutral team to go in and try to sort out exactly what happened in Jenin and elsewhere.
HEMMER: And what about the allegations that the Palestinian leadership over the past several years. Some argue they have not been given the latitude to increase the civil rights for their own people and also offer them opportunity for work, but have they done enough in your estimation, to give these refugees hope for a future and a way out of these camps?
BACON: In my estimation, they have not. But it's a very difficult circumstance. They don't have complete control over the lives of the people in these camps, but I believe more should have been done by the Palestinians and by their supporters around the world, but particularly in the Middle East.
HEMMER: Ken Bacon, former Pentagon spokesperson and now with Refugees International. Good to see you again.
BACON: Thank you very much, Bill.
HEMMER: We'll talk again. All right.
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