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Amanpour
The Man Who Took On Erdogan; Confronting Mass Killers on Camera; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET
Aired June 08, 2015 - 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: a speed bump called democracy in the way of a new, all-powerful presidency for Turkey. My
exclusive interview with the challenger who has dealt Erdogan a major election blow.
Also ahead: imagine coming face-to-face with your brother's executioner.
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ADI RUKUN, INDONESIAN PROTAGONIST, "THE LOOK OF SILENCE" (through translator): I want it to stop. That's why I forced myself to go and see
them.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): We explore a powerful new documentary about Indonesia's 1960s death squads.
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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.
The people of Turkey have spoken and they have delivered a decisive blow to President Erdogan's hopes of wielding even more power after Sunday's
parliamentary elections for the first time since Erdogan came to power in 2003, his AKP party no longer has a majority and doesn't have the votes to
change the constitution to make the president the real power.
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AMANPOUR (voice-over): Instead, there were scenes of celebration for the opposition, People's Democratic Party or HDP, which won enough votes to
become the first pro-Kurdish party to have official parliamentary representation. And I spoke earlier to the party leader, Selahattin
Demirtas, in Istanbul, who told me this election has been a victory for democracy and for secularism in the face of Erdogan's growing Islamist
society.
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AMANPOUR: Mr. Demirtas, welcome to the program.
SELAHATTIN DEMIRTAS, CO-CHAIR, KURDISH PEOPLES' DEMOCRATIC PARTY (through translator): Thank you.
AMANPOUR: How surprised were you by this result?
And what does it say about Turkey at this moment?
DEMIRTAS (through translator): The outcome of the results, actual results, did not surprise us, neither myself nor my party colleagues. There was a
general lack of belief that we were going to be able to cross the threshold.
This was a very difficult election campaign. We are after a pluralistic system and supporting freedoms and wanted to prevent a dictatorship by
Tayyip Erdogan. And we have been able to close that door, close that door on him and this is a very good result for Turkey and the result we achieved
has made everyone concerned very happy.
And we achieved a democratic victory in the face of the difficulties.
AMANPOUR: For many years, Mr. Erdogan was seen as a huge success, you know, successfully marrying democracy and Islam.
You are a human rights lawyer.
What do you think were the human reasons for this result in the polls?
DEMIRTAS (through translator): The presidential elections last year, as you know, showed that Mr. Erdogan had 52 percent of the vote and he is the
first publicly elected president of Turkey.
And it was expected that he would act as a referee, as a middle person amongst the politicians. But Mr. Erdogan said that is not going to suffice
for him. He expressed his will, his wish to change the constitution and become an active president, a presidential regime.
But the general public, it seems, did not like his attempts. They showed them a red card. They prevented them from forming a single-party
government.
AMANPOUR: So under a new balance of power, if there is a coalition, what can people who voted for you expect?
Because you attracted secular people; you attracted parts of the gay community. You attracted a lot of liberals.
What about the crackdown on dissent and political opposition?
What about the crackdown on the media?
What can the people of Turkey expect from a new government?
DEMIRTAS (through translator): We've supported a pluralist policy, including the rights of Muslim, Christians, Jews and those who have
alternative sexual orientations. We did not discriminate against anyone and we've carried out these policies at a time in a region where such
discrimination and such tensions are rife.
It is important to support and protect the rights of all these groups, including the Kurds, the language, et cetera.
AKP has not been able to form a permanent, stable society. And they tried to intimidate the people by saying, if I am here, there will be stability;
if I am not, there will be chaos.
We want to break that contention.
AMANPOUR: Mr. Demirtas, it is still the case that the AKP, Mr. Erdogan's party, controls the most votes, still has the most votes and the most
power.
So how do you believe that your incredible success and achievement will actually change the balance of power -- or at least change politics?
DEMIRTAS (through translator): It is true that the AKP has the majority in parliament but they don't have the numbers to form a government, a one-
party government, thanks to the high number of votes that we received. But there will be another era of coalitions or maybe early elections.
The election results are important for the improvement. And the AKP has to give up a one-man regime dream.
Therefore, they will have to come try and find a solution in cooperation with the opposition parties.
AMANPOUR: Mr. Demirtas, are you afraid for your own personal safety?
There were two explosions during one of your campaign rallies on Friday, just two days before these elections.
Who do you think is responsible for that?
DEMIRTAS (through translator): Frankly, we receive threats directed at me and my colleagues, but this has not given me any concerns. We try to take
steps for protection, personal protection. Being a Kurd and defending a plural democracy in Turkey can be seen as a threat by some people and we
knew when we set out on this path that this was going to be the case. But we have to be courageous.
AMANPOUR: But do you know, do you have suspicions, is there any information about who would have set those explosions?
DEMIRTAS (through translator): The assaults in Adana and Mersin, the person who placed the bombs apparently recently had been to Syria and spent
some time with IS. And, again, the other person, who was involved here in the third bombing, apparently had connections to IS.
We believe that for them to be able to carry out these attacks it was possible either because the government's intelligence work was poor; they
had felt the courage to be able to do that.
But at the end of the day, this is the government's responsibility, to prevent such acts, such atrocities.
AMANPOUR: The government has been very harshly criticized for its policy towards Syria and for the rise of IS.
Can you see Turkish policy towards Syria changing?
DEMIRTAS (through translator): There have been many mistakes carried out in the past. I don't think they are going to be able to continue with that
if there is a coalition government.
I don't believe a coalition government will be able to continue to support groups such as IS and other extremist groups in the area. And those
policies helped the situation in Syria where there was no solution possible.
What needs to be done is to have a policy that will embrace all of the groups and peoples in the area.
AMANPOUR: Mr. Demirtas, what about inside your own country?
What prospects are there for peace with the Kurds, with the Kurdish population, with the PKK and all of them who they represent?
Certainly Mr. Erdogan did try that.
DEMIRTAS (through translator): There has been a dialogue process in the last 2.5 years for the solution of the Kurdish question. But more
recently, because of Mr. Erdogan, President Erdogan's attitude, it has been put in the freezer, if you like.
We've always said that the process has to continue. And now we are even stronger in the parliament. We want the process to continue. We say that
Mr. Ocalan said that they are ready for the disarmament of the groups. And he said that he was going to call for that to be done.
But I believe that the dialogue can start from where it was left and whatever the conditions, we will continue to support a peaceful resolution.
AMANPOUR: All right. Well, Selahattin Demirtas, thank you very much indeed for joining me tonight.
DEMIRTAS (through translator): I'd like to thank you myself. Thank you.
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AMANPOUR: And just another note on Turkey and on the shape of things past and present, President Erdogan has been accused of trying to make political
hay by steamrolling the Byzantine in favor of the Ottoman as Christian monasteries and churches that date back more than a millennium are
transformed into mosques. But this election has proved that Turkey has turned what was a military state into still a vigorous democracy.
And after a break, we turn to the Islamic world's biggest democracy, which is still struggling with its military task: Indonesia and the 1 million
so-called "Communists" who were massacred in the 1960s. Filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer shows us "The Look of Silence." That's next.
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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.
Imagine confronting the men responsible for your brother's death. Imagine doing it over and over. And imagine doing it to the very people who
celebrate what they did. That's the subject of my next guest, Joshua Oppenheimer's, new documentary. It's called "The Look of Silence."
(VIDEO CLIP, "THE LOOK OF SILENCE")
AMANPOUR: This is an accounting of what did happen under Indonesia's military dictatorship in the 1960s. We see the extremes of human behavior
and the courage it takes to confront coldblooded killers. The film is a companion to Oppenheimer's earlier award-winning "The Act of Killing." He
and his main protagonist, Adi Rukun, tell me they did this to force the truth into the light.
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AMANPOUR: Welcome to you both.
Let me ask you, Joshua, first, why "The Look of Silence"?
What did that mean?
JOSHUA OPPENHEIMER, DOCUMENTARIAN: The film tends to make the viewer feel and see and understand in your body and your heart what does it do to human
beings to have to live for 50 years in terror, in the aftermath of a genocide, where the perpetrators remain in power and keep everybody afraid.
AMANPOUR: Well, on that note, Adi, the fear of these perpetrators, who you went to talk to, to try to get answers about Ramli, your brother's death,
the one who said that you don't even want to know what would happen if you'd asked me these questions back during the military dictatorship, were
you ever afraid when you talked to these perpetrators, these killers?
RUKUN (through translator): I was afraid because I'm not a courageous person. But I want them -- I want them -- I want it to stop. That's why I
forced myself to go and see them.
AMANPOUR: It was extraordinarily, for instance, to see some of these people laughing as they described to you what they had done to your brother
and other people.
Can you believe, all these years later, that that happened and that these people are still there, they're still in positions of power?
RUKUN (through translator): At the beginning I couldn't believe it. I know that my brother was killed by them. In truth, I can't believe what
they said. But the fact is they killed my brother.
AMANPOUR: Joshua, why did they talk to you? I mean, they just spilled their guts as if either they didn't care who was listening or they were
still OK with it.
OPPENHEIMER: They would have spoken to you as well. When I -- it was actually Adi who, back in 2003, first encouraged me to film the
perpetrators. We'd spent three weeks; Adi had spent a few weeks starting a process, where I was working with survivors, with Adi's family and the
people around them.
And after three weeks, the army threatened the survivors and Adi not to participate in the film, at which point Adi suggested, please don't give up
and go home. Try to film the perpetrators. I was afraid to do so. But when I got over my fear and approached them, I found that immediately,
every single one of them was open. It took nothing to build trust. I would simply say, you know, I'm interested in the history of this region.
And within seconds, they would talk about the worst details of what they'd done because they've never been removed from power. The rest of the world
celebrated the genocide while it happened.
AMANPOUR: Celebrated?
OPPENHEIMER: Yes. There's an NBC documentary that we see in "The Look of Silence," where an executioner in Bali tells the anchor person, Ted -- or
tells the journalist, Ted Yates (ph), "Bali is now more beautiful without the Communists."
And the journalist, instead of challenging him, nods as though, yes, perhaps that's so.
AMANPOUR: Can I play the clip -- or at least a clip -- from your movie about this very reporting that you're talking about?
(VIDEO CLIP, "THE LOOK OF SILENCE")
AMANPOUR: That's the reality of the '60s. Everybody took Communists as the bogeyman.
So they got away with murder -- literally.
OPPENHEIMER: I had this -- when I encountered the boasting of the perpetrators, I had this awful feeling as I filmed more and more of these
people boasting, sometimes in front of their grandchildren, that I'd wandered into Germany 40 years after the Holocaust only to find the Nazis
still in power if the rest of the world had condoned or even celebrated the Holocaust while it took place. And it was that sense that not only is this
moral nightmare possible but that it may not be the exception to the rule. It may be the rule across much of the global south.
It was that sense that led me to stop everything I was doing and spend as many years as it would take to address this situation. Present-day
impunity, which is really what both of my films, "The Act of Killing" and its companion piece -- or vice versa -- "The Look of Silence" and its
companion piece, "The Act of Killing," address. They're about impunity today.
AMANPOUR: And yet there are war crimes tribunals.
Have these people never heard of that?
Were they never afraid that they might be indicted and taken to be prosecuted?
OPPENHEIMER: To create a new tribunal, a special tribunal for the crimes of 1965 in Indonesia, would likely take an act of the Security Council of
the United Nations. We must remember that two of the permanent members of the Security Council, the United States and the United Kingdom, were
enthusiastic supporters of the genocide when it took place.
It's clear --
AMANPOUR: They would obviously -- they would -- they would object to calling themselves "enthusiastic supporters."
But it's true. The whole of the West was anti-Communist.
OPPENHEIMER: Well, not just that. There was direct aid. There was incitement.
AMANPOUR: So you did that. You took on this massive topic by finding people like Adi to actually uncover the layers of what your family went
through.
Your brother, as I said, was killed. And that's the central part of this film. You talked a lot to your mom, your mother, who's still alive, about
what it was like to go through that and what it's like to live with all these people, the killers, still around her.
We're going to play something and I will ask your reaction afterwards.
(VIDEO CLIP, "THE LOOK OF SILENCE")
AMANPOUR: You know, I don't know how she still manages to live surrounded by these people. I know that she says they will pay later; they will pay
in the next life.
How does she cope?
RUKUN (through translator): Practice. Until I was 40 years old, as I am now, we lived with them. After Joshua's film, in order to prevent people
intimidating us, we moved to a different place, which is far away.
AMANPOUR: And how does your mother live with all that happened throughout all those years?
And there was one really dramatic part of the film, where you find out that her brother, your uncle, was actually a prison guard and then you tell your
mother about it.
Did she really never know?
RUKUN (through translator): About my uncle, my mom really didn't know. But that's our life. It's not only our family but the whole village
experienced things like us.
AMANPOUR: And you are an eye doctor. And this amazing image of you fitting all these perpetrators with lenses and then asking them these
enormous questions, what do you hope will come of this film?
RUKUN (through translator): I hope that I can help people see the past through the end future. It won't happen again.
AMANPOUR: Joshua, you couldn't get a better mission statement if you like than Adi. But I just have to say, the film is also visually beautiful.
Were you aware of the juxtaposition between the beauty and the ugliness of what they were saying?
OPPENHEIMER: Yes, I had a feeling that my task here was not to create a journalistic or historical expose of what happened in 1965 but to actually
make us feel that Adi is our brother and Adi's mother is our mother or grandmother, Adi's children is our children so that through one family,
this film becomes a mirror to all of us.
AMANPOUR: Well, it's an amazing film and I really hope that it's a really serious call to action in these cases.
So Joshua Oppenheimer, thank you very much indeed.
And Adi Rukun, thank you so much. Amazing.
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AMANPOUR: And just to note again, over 1 million people were killed. The government, military dictatorship, calling any opponent a Communist.
Now it is well known that President Obama spent some of his childhood in Indonesia. But today he was in Germany for the annual G7 summit, where
leaders have agreed to keep sanctions on Russia and possibly even increase them unless Moscow stops meddling in Ukraine. But it was also a greener G7
with promises to fade out fossil fuels by the end of this century, perhaps inspired by the lush scenery around them in Bavaria.
Just ahead, we imagine the idyllic world of that secretive summit, one where power politics met wildflowers and lederhosen. That's when we come
back.
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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, imagine a world where a splitting global tension headache is eased by Bavarian beer. That did happen this weekend
when President Barack Obama and his host, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, reached for the beer bottle and some sausages and pretzels -- for
breakfast -- later joining up with the five other world leaders for a stroll through the wildflowers ahead of some serious summiteering, although
you couldn't help but think of "The Sound of Music."
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AMANPOUR: We couldn't help it.
But while world leaders may have been living it high up in the Bavarian Alps, across the border, the hills were alive with the sound of frustrated
reporters, journalists relegated to a hotel in Austria, far, a long, long way to run from their quarry, who were busy crafting the political
landscape behind closed and gilded doors at this 100-year-old Schloss Elmau hotel.
Incidentally, also a spa retreat that promises guests will, quote, "come together to transcend the self-centeredness of their egos."
One can only imagine that one was lost in translation.
But here's hoping the tranquil setting smoothed the way to some serious policymaking and solutions for, let's say, Syria, migrants, a Grexit, a
Brexit -- oh, no. I feel a global tension coming on right now. So perhaps tomorrow we'll have the antidote from the beautiful voice and guitar of
Jose Feliciano, music to soothe the savage beast (sic) and an amazing life. That's tomorrow.
And that's it for our program tonight. Remember you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and Twitter.
Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.
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