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INSIDE AFRICA
Charles Taylor's War Crimes Trial; Children Raising Money; Sprinter Oscar Pistorius
Aired January 19, 2008 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: Next, on INSIDE AFRICA.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLES TAYLOR, FORMER LIBERIAN PRESIDENT: I will speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FEMI OKE, CNN ANCHOR: Former Liberian President Charles Taylor accused of war crimes. We'll look at how Liberians are trying to put his legacy behind them.
Also ahead, children from Liberia and Rwanda go behind the camera to share their experiences and raise money for their own communities. That's INSIDE AFRICA.
(NEWSBREAK)
OKE: Hello, I'm Femi Oke. Welcome to INSIDE AFRICA. We begin with this clarification. In a story on our December 8th, 2007 program, concerning corruption in Africa, it was reported that former Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar was indicted on corruption charges by Nigeria's economic and financial crimes commission.
Not included in that report was the fact that a Nigerian court subsequently dismissed the charges, finding that the charges were unfairly pursued against Mr. Abubakar and also noting that they were, and I quote, "grossly unconstitutional and a deliberate usurpation of the judicial power," end of quote.
According to his attorney, there are no indictments pending against Mr. Abubakar in any jurisdiction.
Now, on the program this week, former Liberian President Charles Taylor hears from some of his accusers at his war crimes trial. We'll look at the charges against him and explore against his country's reconciliation process.
Also ahead, children from Liberia and Rwanda go behind the camera to share their experiences and raise money for a good cause.
First, the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor which has resumed after a six month break. Taylor boycotted the opening session in June and fired his lawyer. Now the former Liberian president is back with a new legal team and he's hearing from his accusers. Prosecutors say he orchestrated atrocities in neighboring Sierra Leone. Nick Valencia has details.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLES TAYLOR, FORMER LIBERIAN PRESIDENT: Long live the Republic of Liberia. Long live our freedom. Long live our independence. Let no may take it from us. God bless you.
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ever the showman, during his reign as Liberia's president, Charles Taylor is now on a different kind of stage. The International War Crimes tribunal at The Hague.
Taylor faces 11 charges including murder, rape and the use of child soldiers. Stemming from his alleged role in Sierra Leone's vicious 10 year civil war. He has pleaded not guilty to all counts and his lawyers say there is no evidence he ordered any atrocities.
Prosecutors say Taylor broke a UN embargo to provide arms to the Sierra Leonean rebel group known as the Revolutionary United Front. RUF members were known, among other things, for hacking off their victims' limbs. The chief prosecutor in the case says Sierra Leoneans deserve to see Taylor punished.
STEPHEN RAPP, CHIEF PROSECUTOR: It's of enormous significance to the people of Sierra Leone. If you go out and talk to people about what happened in this country, I mean, the wounds and the injury is still there.
VALENCIA: Prosecutors say the groups' weapons were financed by diamonds smuggled from Sierra Leone, mostly from Liberia, thus the term "blood diamond."
An expert on blood diamond was the first prosecution witness to take the stand.
IAN SMILLIE, BLOOD DIAMOND EXPERT: I solemnly swear on the Bible that I will speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
VALENCIA: He testified that minors, many of them enslaved by the RUF, harvested diamonds worth between $60 and 125 million a year. Taylor's trial marks a major first for Africa, no other African head of state has appeared before an international tribunal. But those expecting swift justice are sure to be disappointed. The complex trial is expected to last about two years.
Nick Valencia, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: A Minnesota human rights group is gathering statements about human rights abuses in Liberia. From thousands of Liberians now living in the United Kingdom, Ghana and the United States. It's part of an effort by Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to give victims a voice and help them move beyond their country's bloody past.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's very liberating because I found, wow, it's something noble. I actually talk about my family that can't speak for themselves anymore. I actually talk about my parents property that were destroyed. I was thinking that the world needs to know about it.
OKE: Ahmed Surlief (ph) talking about officially recording what happened to his family during Liberia's civil war. Surlief is part of a Minnesota human rights group helping Liberia through its truth and reconciliation process. He is one of around 400 American trained volunteers documenting Liberians war stories.
During decades of civil war, many Liberians who were able to, an estimated quarter of the population, fled overseas for safety. They left behind family and friends who today remarkably managed to live side by side as victims or perpetrators of war crimes. Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission encourages both sides to talk and reconcile. Hearings are held, statements recorded, murders even forgiven.
But what's unusual about this process is that Liberians dispersed by the violence, are also giving their statements.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was thinking, I said, who is going to listen to my statement? And what will they think about me? And because already some of our friends who are here didn't believe that what I said happened to me did happen to me.
OKE: On a recent trip to Ghana, the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights volunteers were swamped by Liberians eager to talk. The group is also trading teams in London and other cities around the United States. Their mission? Document Liberians experiences of their civil war, however far they may have to travel.
Volunteers are also taking statements from Liberians in the City of Atlanta. Earlier I spoke to Barton Cooler (ph) who is part of that effort.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We start the process by encouraging leaders within the community to tell their stories and once the leaders tell their story, that encourages other people to come forward and when we do it in the community setting, when they hear others telling their story, that triggers the emotions, that triggers all the suppressed feelings that they've had and they start to tell the story as a means of healing themselves and moving forward.
OKE: Take me through some of the stories you've heard over the last year or so as you've been collecting statements.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, in general we've heard stories about those that were affected when the war first started. The process was that the rebels from different factions, whether it be a Taylor's faction, Cromar's (ph) faction or Prince Johnson's (ph) faction would come in an area and if you did not leave, you are humiliated by the men being tied up in a process called tiebay (ph) where your elbows were made to touch each other, you were stripped naked, women were raped in front of their husbands and children. Children were raped, little girls. Little boy were conscripted into the war as a result of the humiliation meted out on their families.
So you hear atrocious stories of what happened throughout the process.
OKE: You have a very direct link to the process back in Liberia because your father is a commissioner on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Liberia.
How do you feel the stories are different when told to you in Atlanta as to the sorts of things that he's hearing back in Liberia?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I spoke to him today and he told me that the stories that they're hearing over there are stories that come across very strong. There are strong emotions because the people there are still living among the perpetrators. The perpetrators are coming forward. They are very remorseful for what they've done and also the victims are also coming forward and there's a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation present at the moment.
I think a lot of Liberians are tired of the war and the carnage and a lot of the hatred that was meted out and I think they've reached a point now where they are willing to forgive and let that be behind them.
Because I talked to people who said, I was almost killed, I was stripped naked, my sister was raped in front of me. But that's all over now. I forgive them. That's in the past. I am moving on.
And it's interesting that they would feel this way but I think it's a process that they've had enough and they just want to move on and let that be behind them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: And that was Barton Cooler's (ph) statement taken for Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. So of the many statements that Barton takes will be put into a huge dossier which will be published in June of this year.
Still ahead on INSIDE AFRICA, children in Liberia and Rwanda use digital cameras to show the world what they see every day. You'll be amazed at their pictures. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
OKE: Good to see you again. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA. UNICEF and Sony recently teamed up to help children in Liberia and Rwanda share their experiences through still photography. The project, called IC-3 provided the children with digital cameras and training by a professional photographer.
The results have been put on display on a traveling exhibit to raise money for bed nets, a key weapon in the fight against malaria. UNICEF's Michael Bociurkiw shared with us some of the stories behind the children's photos.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL BOCIURKIW, UNICEF: We didn't tell the kids what subjects really to take but we encouraged them to capture these different aspects of their lives like malaria, poverty and there is that one photograph of this doll, kind of flung over a wall with shattered glass on it and I remember when I showed my colleagues that photograph for the first time there was just this hushed silence in the room and I go, Oh my God.
Usually here in North America we're used to seeing a dog cuddled by a young child but in this case it was just flung there and to me that photograph said that we don't have the same opportunities that other kids in the world do. We can't play because either we have to work or our parents are sick or we're sick.
We also, for example, included kids who are physically challenged and some of the most amazing photographs came from them, and again, this is the first opportunity they were given such a tool to document things.
OKE: There is one picture from Rwanda that is framed so perfectly that I think, I want to see the kid who actually took this picture because it's children are cooking and it's through .
BOCIURKIW: Yes.
OKE: It looks like a hole in a wall. And it's perfect composition. I mean it just took my breath away. It was unbelievable.
BOCIURKIW: I sat and stared at that when it came in over the computer and that's actually a child domestic worker and his friend photographed him at work cooking a fire and you can just see the smoke coming up and you can imagine what that does to his lungs, let alone keeping him out of school.
That was another big thing that came across is that these kids said to us, we can't lead normal lives because we don't have time to go to school, we can't afford it. A big thing, for example, is malaria and what was interesting there is that us as UNICEF, we're one of the biggest distributors of insecticide treated bed nets.
And we distribute these and then the mothers usually take them home but we have very little data on how they're actually used. For example, how many children can sleep under one bed net.
And the kids went into their homes at night and photographed how the bed nets are used.
So aside from this being ultimately a fundraising tool for bed nets, this will be something that will help inform UNICEF and others on how bed nets are used in the home.
OKE: It was almost like I was peeking into their lives because everybody was so relaxed. There is a great picture where a mom is just sitting down and there is a little baby calling in on her and it was such a beautiful picture. And nothing is posed, either.
BOCIURKIW: This is it. The candid nature of the photographs. We've actually shown them to some professional photographers and they actually thought those photographs were taken by professionals, by their peers and then when we say well, it's the children who take them, they were stunned. And yeah, it is a very special, almost shall I say a privileged view into their lives.
OKE: So this project does two things. One, it raises money for malaria nets to go back to Liberia and Rwanda. The other thing is, what do you think the children come away with. Not just the skills at taking photographs, but what else?
BOCIURKIW: We work very carefully near the end of the workshop to really document how the kids felt about this and what they want to do and a lot of them said they'd like to become professional photographers.
OKE: I'm not surprised.
BOCIURKIW: They wouldn't have the chance otherwise so the cameras are being left behind in the community so that they can be used. They also said I want to be come a school teacher, a doctor, and it's not only becoming a photographer, it seemed that this exercise gave these kids a new sense of empowerment and kind of hope and said, I've seen what I can do and I'm going to do it no matter what it takes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: I need to go to that kids' workshop. These kids are taking better pictures than I do.
To find how you can contribute to the bed net program and the fight against malaria in Africa, just go to spreadthenet.org. That's spreadthenet.org. And to find out more about any of UNICEF's programs around the world, you can go to unicef.org.
Coming up on INSIDE AFRICA, Kenya's political and humanitarian crisis drags on. We'll examine why so many churches were targeted in the post election violence.
And later, South Africa's "Blade Runner" is dealt a setback in his quest to compete in the Olympics. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Making business news in Africa this week.
Nigeria has delayed its $40 billion lawsuit against three major tobacco companies until March. Government lawyers asked for the delay in order to serve court papers to lawyers representing Phillip Morris. The other two defendants are British American Tobacco and International Tobacco. The government is seeking compensation for the cost of treating diseases caused by smoking.
And South Africans are bracing for price hikes on bread. Rising wheat prices which have almost doubled in the last year have led some large baking companies to increase the shelf price of bread by about five or six percent. The move is deepening concerns about overall inflation in South Africa. We want to update you now on the crisis in Kenya.
OKE: Riot police and demonstrators clashed again after opposition leader Raila Odinga called on his supporters to rally against the government of Mwai Kibaki.
Despite the unrest and uncertainty, Parliament met for the first time since the December election which international observers say was rigged. In a tumultuous session, lawmakers chose the opposition's candidate as speaker. Still, Kenya's leaders appear to be far from reaching a resolution.
At least 600 Kenyans are dead, about a quarter of a million are displaced, and houses and businesses in many parts of the country lay in ruins.
Our Zain Verjee explains, many churches were also destroyed.
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ZAIN VERJEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: God and politics became a deadly mix in Kenya's Kibera (ph) slum. A church looted and burned by an angry mob moments after President Mwai Kibaki was declared the election winner late last month.
Mohammed Doka (ph), a Muslim cobbler who now keeps an eye on the church, takes me through the rubble.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible)
VERJEE: The church pastor is a Kikuyu, the same tribe as President Kibaki. He has fled. His picture is all that's left at his home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A beautiful house like this demolished it like is not good. Not good at all.
VERJEE: Opposition supporters made their message clear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So many people came from the houses, they were shouting, they were killing me (ph). People were carrying the banners of Raila, they were saying, we won't agree. Raila has won.
VERJEE: In the church, only singed Swahili hymns and a message of hate. So shall we burn you.
Many churches in Kibera have been set on fire.
How many people who are Kikuyu have toworkard (ph) and gone?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For now it is half of the population of Kibera or Kirangia (ph), half of them have already gone?
VERJEE: How, many, number?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For me it is about 30 to 40 families.
VERJEE: And these children, mostly Kikuyu, depended on the church for care and food. They are now scattered, living in a park, relying on handouts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They had to leave the slum because their houses had been burned.
VERJEE: The children here need food, blankets, clothes and medicine. Their place of worship and shelter now a source of scrap metal. Amid the ruins of the church, Mohammed tells us he still has faith.
A place of peace destroyed in this Nairobi slum. There have been scenes like this all across the country. It's not about God and religion. But about tribe and power. Zain Verjee, CNN, Nairobi.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: Coming up on INSIDE AFRICA, the fastest man on no legs shifts to plan B in his bid for Olympic glory but he has already earned a wonlow (ph) fan's admiration. The whole story after the break.
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OKE: You're watching INSIDE AFRICA. Welcome back. We want to update you now on a story we brought you a few weeks ago about a South African sprinter known as the Blade Runner. Oscar Pistorius has been training hard to make it to the Olympics even though he has no legs below the knees. But the governing body that holds his fate has ruled him ineligible.
As Robyn Curnow reports, whether or not he actually competes in the Olympics, the story is a source of inspiration.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBYN CURNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oscar Pistorius is fast. And he has the athletics world in a spin. Is this 21 year old with his blade like prosthetics an engineering marvel or a naturally gifted athlete and what propels this double amputee to compete with and to beat able-bodied sprinters?
OSCAR PISTORIUS, SPRINTER: This is actually the foot that they make, this piece and it's got about eight layers of carbon fiber in it that they compress. So it's impressive (ph) material. It hasn't got hydraulics or barnicks (ph) or anything else in it.
CURNOW: All the fusses about these legs. Do they give him a competitive advantage or not? The International Association of Athletics Federations says they do and they've banned him from competing in the Olympics. But what really drives Oscar Pistorius is not these futuristic limbs but his overwhelming belief is that he's an elite sprinter even if he doesn't have legs.
PISTORIUS: Even if you do have one or two disabilities, you've got millions of other abilities and those abilities make you far more able than (inaudible).
CURNOW: Oscar had his legs amputated below the knee before his first birthday because of a birth defect.
How old were you when you got your first pair of legs?
PISTORIUS: Thirteen months. But I didn't have feet. The first time I had feet I think I was 17 or 18 months old. People ask me, what's it like having artificial legs, and I'll be like, oh, what's it like having real legs?
CURNOW: Like Oscar, 11 year old Mohammed (ph) has never walked on his own two feet. Born without legs, he's testing his own new pair of blades on the same track that Oscar trains on. He is still trying to find his balance but each step is inspired by his hero, Oscar Pistorius.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is kind and he is caring and he is really nice and I really think I want to be just like him when I grow up. I'm going to run and live life to its fullest. Life has no limits.
CURNOW: Oscar's dream is to run in the Olympics and he's been preparing an appeal of the ruling but in the meantime it seems he's blazing a path of hope for others. Robyn Curnow, CNN, Victoria, South Africa.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: Pistorius says he has talked to experts who say the initial tests on his legs just looked at the prosthetics and didn't take into account the complex way they interact with his body. He plans to ask for more testing and in the meantime he says he'll keep on training.
And that's it for INSIDE AFRICA. For next week we'll be back with football news for the Africa Cup of Nations. Let's go Ghana. Until then, take care.
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