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Amanpour

Gunman Killed Canadian Soldier at War Memorial; Children and Animals Inspire Author's Work; Imagine a World

Aired October 23, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: terror in Canada. Foreign Minister John Baird speaks out for the first time since

the shooting.

And later Canada has lost a soldier guarding the capital's War Memorial. And at the Tower of London, it's Canada's sixth ever poppy

that's the inspiration for this tribute for World War I dead.

Plus beloved children's author Michael Morpurgo on the phenomenon that is "War Horse."

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

Was Canada's gunman a lone wolf or part of a bigger plot?

For a nation unused to the kind of violence that rocked its capital yesterday, coming to terms, grappling with how to respond is not easy.

But one day after Parliament was reverberating to the sound of gunfire.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Today, the show went on. Parliament reopened, led by Sgt-at-Arms Kevin Vickers, who had shot dead the gunman as he

stormed the building and perhaps him, owing him their lives, lawmakers gave Vickers a standing ovation.

And Prime Minister Stephen Harper demonstrated his resolve.

STEPHEN HARPER, PRIME MINISTER, CANADA: We will be vigilant but we will not run scared. We will be prudent but we will not panic. And as for

the business of government, well, here we are, in our seats, in our chamber in the very heart of our democracy and are working.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Harper earlier paid his respects to Corporal Nathan Cirillo, who was shot dead while guarding the nation's War Memorial.

The killer was Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. A new image of him has emerged, showing his face covered and brandishing a gun. Bibeau was a Canadian

citizen and sources tell CNN he had a history of petty crime and drug use and was a convert to radical Islam.

Canadian authorities knew about him and revoked his passport after learning he planned to fight overseas.

Joining me now to discuss these grave developments is Canada's foreign minister, John Baird. He's in Ottawa and it's his first TV interview since

the shooting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Foreign Minister, welcome to the program.

JOHN BAIRD, FOREIGN MINISTER, CANADA: Good to be with you.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you first as we drill down on who exactly this Zehaf-Bibeau is, is he, as reports are indicating, linked to a wider

network of jihadis?

BAIRD: There's no evidence at this stage for us to know that. Obviously there's an investigation going on and we hope to learn more in

the coming days. It was clear that police authorities now have announced that he was acting alone yesterday.

AMANPOUR: So have you ruled it out or is that something you're still looking at?

BAIRD: I think that's something the authorities are looking at right now.

AMANPOUR: So how does Canada grapple and respond to this?

What does your government do now?

BAIRD: I think our first priority as a government, as with any government, is to keep Canadians safe. And obviously this is a tragic

reminder that terrorism is the great struggle of our generation. So I think we're obviously going to have to look at what happened and look at

what else needs to be done to keep people safe.

AMANPOUR: One of the things you're grappling with, which is what so many democracies are grappling with, whether in Western Europe, in the

United States or in Australia is this notion that these waves of radicalized citizens of yours are heading towards Syria and those environs

right now, to fight a jihad, to fight ISIS.

This is really becoming a major problem, is it not?

BAIRD: I think it's becoming a major problem for all Western countries and Canada's not immune from that. But more than three years

ago, we brought forward amendments to our criminal code, to criminalize going to fight jihad abroad.

We've actually had the first Canadian criminal conviction and we're obviously prepared to do more to tackle this phenomenon. That's one of the

reasons why we're standing with the United States, with the U.K., with France and so many other countries to do our part to tackle ISIL in Iraq.

AMANPOUR: And you are tackling and you have just taken a decision to join the fight from the air. Parliament decided that. And there have been

warnings -- maybe indirect warnings -- but nonetheless, I believe the top military commander in Canada warned that there may be revenge threats from

these kind of people.

Do you believe that this was connected to Canada's decision to attack ISIS?

BAIRD: I don't know about that. What I do know is they are barbaric people committing atrocious acts and atrocities in Iraq and in Syria and

Canada's standing with the civilized world to fight back. I think it's tremendously important. I don't think these people were evil before Canada

sent troops for the combat mission and they are -- they are equally as evil afterwards.

AMANPOUR: Just wondered, because of course ISIS has sent out its propaganda videos in its name, just about every country in the coalition

and now including Canada. And you had a soldier who had been run down, in fact, earlier in the week by also we're told radical convert.

Is this, do you believe, a growing problem for you?

BAIRD: Well, we've had two tragedies in one week. So obviously our intelligence and law enforcement officials will be stepping up their

efforts on these investigations to do everything we can to identify and prevent these type of attacks from happening in the future.

These people are at war with our society. They are at war with modernity and they obviously stand fundamentally against Canadian values,

the values that we share with the democratic world.

AMANPOUR: I understand that investigations are still going on into who Bibeau is and why and what his motives were.

Is there any link to the United States? Apparently he traveled several times to the United States.

BAIRD: Yes, not that I'm aware of or could announce anything there right now. There are a lot of Canadians who visit the United States and I

wouldn't think there's a link in that.

AMANPOUR: And what about any notion of an imminent threat? Can -- does the Canadian government know whether you have raised your threat level

in the past few days. But do you have any chatter, any indication that there is a bigger threat or an imminent threat planned against your

country?

BAIRD: Well, we'll let intelligence officials make those assessments and they were public with them last Friday. Obviously we're deeply

concerned with two attacks on our military personnel and in our Parliament. And in the last three or four days and are stepping up our efforts to be

even more vigilant than we have in recent months or recent years.

AMANPOUR: Do you know how many of your citizens have traveled overseas? We understand it's more than 100 and specifically a couple of

dozen in Syria.

Do you know the extent of the problem that you face?

BAIRD: I think Canada, like most Western democracies and Europe, the United States, this is a problem. I think there's been public numbers

floated of well over 100 fighting jihad. That's why three years ago we made it a criminal offense; we've actually got our first conviction.

So Canada's not immune from this phenomenon like the United States, like most countries in Europe. That's why we have a responsibility to

stand against ISIL in Iraq and just try to prevent it from committing its ethnic cleansing and selling women into slavery, its decapitations and

summary executions of hundreds if not thousands.

So this is why we're there.

AMANPOUR: I want to ask you your personal story. Obviously this was incredibly gripping, because people saw it unfold on television for hours

last night. There was video taken inside Parliament, which has been endlessly replayed. And I believe -- I'd love you to explain -- but you

were in conversation with your Australia counterpart, Julia Bishop, and you were very close to where all this happened.

BAIRD: Yes, we were -- I was about -- I was in a room about 50 meters from where the gunman was taken down. We heard, in that room, some 30-40-

50 different shots ringing out, some from a rifle, some from -- most from semi-automatics.

We didn't know whether the doors were going to be pounded down and whether we were all going to be summarily executed. Thank goodness most of

the gunfire, it turns out, when the dust settled, was from the law enforcement people taking this terrorist down. There was a very scary

moments and a lot of uncertainty for several hours.

I did hear in this new digital world, I did hear from Julia, my Australian counterpart, and let her know what was going on and that I was

safe.

AMANPOUR: It's really remarkable when we consider how it unfolded. And I did say -- and obviously you were all there, the prime minister has

demonstrated resolve and he's also said several other things, which I'd like to just play a snippet and then get your reaction to.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARPER: It will lead us to strengthen our resolve and redouble our efforts to work with our allies around the world and fight against the

terrorist organizations who brutalize those in other countries with the hope of bringing their savagery to our shores. They will have no safe

haven.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: We've talked a little bit about that. That was the prime minister's address to the nation after this horrible attack last night.

What can you do beyond joining the fight over there to deal with apparently there's some 90 radicalized Canadians, according to your own law

enforcement, but to deal with that growing phenomenon we've sort of talked about?

There is legislation to remove their passports, I understand. Give me a little bit of an idea of what sort of interior ministry effects are

happening in Canada right now.

BAIRD: Well, I think obviously a strong intelligence service is absolutely imperative. I think vigilant law enforcement agencies. I think

we've come forward with significant number of pieces of legislation.

In fact, just yesterday we were going to table legislation to expand the capabilities of intelligence agencies in this regard. And obviously

we've got to look at what more needs to be done to keep Canadians safe. This is a great struggle, a great challenge for us, is our 21st century

crimes that need effective tools to keep people safe.

AMANPOUR: And as you look around, because everybody's engaged with what's happening in the Islamic world, there are new reports from Tunisia,

for instance, which was one of the countries that everybody thought had emerged with a much more strong movement towards democracy. Now we

understand that 40 percent of all these jihadis who are going over to Syria and elsewhere are from Tunisia.

How does one combat and cope with this?

BAIRD: I think it requires a multifaceted approach. Obviously engaging mainstream religious leaders, obviously working hard on law

enforcement and intelligence, the participation of the Sunni Arab countries and the forceful comments that they've made with the conflict with ISIL, I

think is tremendously powerful and an important part of the equation.

AMANPOUR: Foreign Minister John Baird, thank you so much for joining me from Ottawa. Appreciate you being here.

BAIRD: Thank you, Christiane.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And as we said, it is particularly tragic that Corporal Nathan Cirillo lost his life at the Ottawa Memorial to World War I. It was

built to remind us, of course, of the many service men who lost their lives in that conflict.

And after a break, we meet an author who's done more than most, perhaps, to tell young people about the Great War. Michael Morpurgo when

we return.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back. The attack that shook Canada began at an First World War memorial in Ottawa. These are monuments that are essential

to commemorating conflict. For 40 years, Michael Morpurgo has crafted many of his children's stories around war, and he's especially inspired by World

War I. Take his best-known work, "War Horse," or his latest, "Listen to the Moon," which is based on the sinking of the American civilian liner,

the Lusitania. It was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915.

Morpurgo's stories, full of violence and death, are perhaps difficult subjects for children. And yet they buy them by the millions and Morpurgo

tells me that he doesn't really write for children or adults anyway -- he just writes for himself.

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AMANPOUR: Michael Morpurgo, welcome to the program.

MICHAEL MORPURGO, AUTHOR: Thank you for having me.

AMANPOUR: Great to have you here to discuss yet another of your magnificent books, this one called, "Listen to the Moon."

Tell me about it.

MORPURGO: Yes, I will.

My wife, Clare, when she was a little thing, when she was about 7, got chicken pox. This is how stories begin, 65 years later, it's absurd.

Anyway, she got chicken pox and she was put -- in those days you put children in rooms far away so they didn't infect. And she was rummaging

through the drawers of a chest of drawers and came across amongst her father's socks --

AMANPOUR: A medal.

MORPURGO: Yes. And this is a Lusitania medal, which, for a girl of 7, it was traumatic, because there's a ship sinking and on the other side

passengers queueing up to buy tickets from a skeleton.

AMANPOUR: When did you decide that this actually was going to be the subject of your latest book?

MORPURGO: You know what happens? It stays in your head.

I picked up this thing. I thought it was remarkable and rather gruesome, rather horrible. There were 1,200 people drowned on the

Lusitania in May 1915 after Germany boat put a torpedo in her side. She sank in 18 minutes; the Titanic took three hours. The loss of life was

really terrible.

And the people of Kinsale, Southern Ireland, went out in their boats to rescue people and sadly to pick lots of bodies.

Anyway, three hours afterwards, they came across the most extraordinary thing, which is the piano from the dining room, floating on

the ocean and lying on it, a survivor.

So in a way, all it was, that this was the trigger that set it all going.

AMANPOUR: So this is also a World War I book. And you do a lot of war books, obviously "War Horse" is your most famous World War I book.

What is it about that period that fascinates you, not just as an observer, as a writer, but for children?

MORPURGO: Well, it is difficult. I mean, every writer in the end has to write what she or he thinks is important and what she or he cares about.

I care about war because I'm a war child.

I was born in '43 and grew up with the Second World War, the damage of that had wrought on people and societies and buildings and I've played in

bomb sites. I grew up with all that world of war around me.

AMANPOUR: So you also, in the '70s, set up a charity, Farms for Children?

MORPURGO: Farms for City Children, yes. Well, that's my wife's fault, not mine. She did this wonderful thing. She had an extraordinary

childhood in the countryside, my wife, and she felt that this was the kind of experience that all children, particularly city children, should have.

So we'd been teaching 10 years and so we decided we will up sticks from Kent, move to Devon and set up with some wonderful farmers, partners

down the road, a program which brought city kids to the countryside, but not just to look. They come to work.

And they go out every single day, 7 o'clock in the morning, and they help milk the cows and move the sheep and feed the pigs and groom the

horses. And they do that for a week of their school lives.

AMANPOUR: And this was before you were a writer or during?

MORPURGO: Same time.

AMANPOUR: Same time. So they're also a captive audience.

MORPURGO: They were reportings. I used to go out and try my stories out of an evening, a couple of times a week, I'd go out and sit in front

of the fire with them and I'd read the stories that I'd written over in the process of being written.

And actually it was wonderful because I had this wonderful privilege really of watching over 25 years the time my wife and I were doing it, it

still goes on. But my wife and I were doing it 25 years.

And I would watch these children and how they interacted with animals is what made me write so many of my stories, particularly "War Horse."

But I learnt about how a horse responds to a child's gentleness, a child's quietness and what benefit that has for both really encouraged me

and inspired me, certainly, to write the book.

So they gave back to me as much as I've ever given to them, I think.

AMANPOUR: It really is interesting and what you do is really interesting, because it's not just for children, but adults love your books

as well.

I asked you before you came on why you were wearing red. And you told me to make kids laugh.

So do you write for children specifically?

MORPURGO: No, I don't. I just write for me. But I was a child. I have not forgotten that. And I think adults shouldn't, because we're just

the same. We grow a thicker skin and sometimes more wrinkled skin and we change shape. But nonetheless, a child is there inside us all. And we'd

better not lose it.

So I write for me, for the child in me, for the grownup in me, for the father in me, for the grandfather in me. I write for all those things.

But I don't really write for an audience at all. I write just for me and hope it resonates with people.

And I mean, the truth is, I put on these clothes really because I'm going to talk this evening to some children.

And one of the things that's very important when you talk to children, I think, is that when you walk in, they've got something to smile at,

because otherwise books can become these very serious things and there are a lot of children who'll back away from that kind of seriousness.

So I engage them, I suppose, with a smile. And I think that's quite important.

AMANPOUR: And you even have red shoes on. I don't know whether our camera can catch it. But you even have red shoes on. Well, there you go -

-

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MORPURGO: And amazing yellow socks. I just think socks and the red - - no, don't.

(LAUGHTER)

AMANPOUR: What is your mission?

What is your aim?

What do you want to do to these children, open their minds? Tell them about war? Keep them engaged? What is it?

MORPURGO: Well, it's engaged is the most important thing. If you don't engage them, you've lost them anywhere. That is my 10 years of

teaching. We really do have to engage them.

But it is -- and you're right. It isn't just children. What really I suppose interests me is to try to tell stories that have a -- some kind of

universality, that they touch the lives of older people and parents and children at the same time.

One of the great joys of my life is to go to the theater, the National Theatre production of "War Horse," where they took a children's story

ostensibly and turned it into a play for everyone, which means now the book is thought of as a book for everyone. And that's completely wonderful.

So you sit there amongst 1,000 people and after it's all over, and you look around, you know that the grandparents had been bringing their lives

to this story and they have memories of war, it echoes for them. It echoes for them.

The parents know what war is. They see it on television screens. They know this thing is going on the whole time, the suffering that's going

on. And the young people looked at it. They also have an inkling that this is a terrible thing.

But they love the horse. They want the horse to survive, which the parents do. And also the grandparents do. So it's a lovely link. So they

come out, having shared the same story, but differently, all of them.

AMANPOUR: Were you stunned by the success of the Broadway and the National Theatre production of "War Horse?"

I mean, you wrote a book. Suddenly it's this massive phenomenon.

MORPURGO: Except it wasn't suddenly. It was about 25 years later. And that's what's remarkable. And very often when you write a book and

people, you think, it wins this prize and it sells millions and it's made into a play and it's made into a film, everyone thinks, well, that's great.

Actually, this book was written in 1982. For 25 years it sat on the back of everyone's shelves and they didn't read it. And no one much bought

it. It was -- it was put out to grass, this book, on my back list.

But the National Theatre picked it up really because Tom Morris discovered my book. In fact, his mother said one day, Tom, you should read

this book. It's quite good.

And luckily he listened to his mother, made the play. And the rest is history. I mean, I think something like 5 million people now have seen it

worldwide. It's been on in Germany for a year, in Berlin and London at the same time, about this war that happened 100 years ago.

And to me, that is the most moving thing. If there's any justification for writing any of my stories, it's that, that we are

listening to the story about reconciliation and these two capitals, where these people came together and did this appalling thing.

AMANPOUR: He listened to his mother. I listen to my son. My son brought me to your books. So thank you very much, Michael Morpurgo, from

"War Horse," to "Listen to the Moon."

MORPURGO: Thank you to you and thank you to your son as well.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And when we come back, I took my son and his friends to witness the sacrifice and the amount of blood spilled in that so-called

Great War. Imagine slowly turning the moat around the Tower of London red. Imagine a world where a dramatic installation reminds us that wasn't the

war to end all wars -- coming up next.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, imagine the window of an ancient tower dripping with blood. These are, of course, red ceramic poppies, created

here at the Tower of London to commemorate the World War I dead.

And this is the moat which, today, is filled with nearly 900,000 blood-red ceramic poppies, each representing one of the British or colonial

soldiers who were killed during the First World War. It's an installation by the British artist, Paul Cummins.

The inspiration was the will that he researched and found of a young World War I soldier who had written his last testament to his family before

dying on the front, and he described what he saw all around him as "the blood-swept land and seas of red where angels dare to tread."

And up here, over the moat, you can see the army of volunteers, in total 8,000 people, offered to help plant these poppies. And the very last

one will go in the ground November 11th, which is Armistice Day.

The Tower of London is where 1,600 British soldiers swore allegiance to the crown after enlisting. It is also where 11 spies captured by the

British were executed after the war.

That's it for our program tonight. Remember you can always watch our show online at amanpour.com, and you can always follow me on Facebook and

Twitter. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

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