Return to Transcripts main page

The Amanpour Hour

Interview With Oxford University Global History Professor Peter Frankopan; Interview With "The New York Times" Columnist Li Yuan; IDF Whistleblower Reveals Plans For "Buffer Zone" In Gaza; Interview With Award-Winning Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Remembering the Rwandan Genocide; "The Great Gatsby" Turns 100. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired April 12, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

[10:59:50]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. Listen to the book.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Wait, 864 out of like hundreds of millions of people --

(CROSSTALKING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct. Correct. Thank you, Abby.

(CROSSTALKING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that's exactly right.

PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you so much. And thank you for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". You can catch me every weeknight at 10:00 p.m. Eastern with our "NEWSNIGHT" roundtable and anytime on your favorite social media platforms, X, Instagram and TikTok.

But in the meantime, CNN's coverage continues right now.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. And welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR.

Here's where we're headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Economic turmoil amid this ongoing trade war.

PETER FRANKOPAN, OXFORD UNIVERSITY, GLOBAL HISTORY PROFESSOR: We're living through a form of revolution and it's not just about the markets.

AMANPOUR: Historian Peter Frankopan on the chaos.

And then "New York Times" columnist Li Yuan on America's China-like authoritarian turn.

LI YUAN, COLUMNIST, "NEW YORK TIMES": A government that's willing to destroy the rule of law, dismantle the government agencies and silencing media. It's all of this.

And testimony from an Israeli soldier turned whistleblower.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we destroy them one by one in a very methodical fashion.

AMANPOUR: On IDF policy to turn a massive buffer zone inside Gaza into a total wasteland and even a kill zone.

Plus --

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE, AUTHOR: I knew I wanted to write about women's lives. I've known that for a while.

AMANPOUR: Award-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on her new novel "Dream Count".

Also from the archive. My report 31 years ago, amid the Rwandan genocide.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

Americans voted Donald Trump back into office, thinking he'd somehow make the country great again, not enable its unraveling. A week after the meltdown of markets everywhere, Trump was forced to suddenly hit pause on most of the new tariffs for about 90 days, with the exception of China, while keeping that 10 percent across the board levy.

Economists say the trade war is still on. The damage has already been done and the likelihood of a recession remains. Nobody knows where this will all end up. Longtime allies now view America with suspicion and trust has been badly damaged.

For every action, there is, of course, a reaction, and other global actors will step into the void. So is this how a superpower slips into decline, and is that happening now?

I put that to renowned global historian Peter Frankopan, a professor of history at Oxford University and co-host of "The Legacy" podcast.

Welcome back to the program.

So, the first question, have we seen this kind of, and in this case, self-inflicted economic damage in history, in relevant history?

FRANKOPAN: Sure. I mean, that's what happens when you have revolutions. In 1917 in Russia, the whole world came tumbling down. You had a single figure, Lenin, surrounded by people who had a vision of what they thought the world should look like and the economic chaos that's unleashed sudden chain of whole series and sequence of events that destabilized the whole world as well as Russia.

So, I think we are living through a form of revolution. And it's not just about the markets this week.

Since Trump got into power, you know, he's sacked the chair of the joint chiefs of staff. He's threatened to invade Canada. He's threatened to invade Greenland. You know, the kind of volatility that we're seeing, it's not just about markets.

AMANPOUR: But what you're referring to is this incredible radical reshaping of the whole U.S.-led world order abroad and at home.

Then why do you think Trump has hit the pause button? You've been writing up a storm about the impact of this trade war.

FRANKOPAN: Well, I guess it's three factors. One is that when U.S. government bonds start to become expensive, the whole basis of the U.S. economy looks like it's starting to teeter.

Second, he's got around him a whole bunch of very experienced, very successful, particularly in the tech sector whose share prices went through the floor. So, companies like Apple lost nearly trillion worth of dollars in the space of a few days.

And third, that the noise around what Trump has been doing, with all of its former -- all the United States former allies has started to create opportunities for other people to step into.

And one of the things that I hear a lot when I'm anywhere in Asia is about Asia being stable, right? And that's a real difference to the world that I grew up in, where the United States was not just the leader of the free world, but was providing an envelope and a protective cushion to enforce global rules-based orders. That's really changed.

AMANPOUR: OK. So, you've just come back from Hong Kong and you obviously picked up a huge amount there.

[11:04:45]

AMANPOUR: So, Trump and his cabinet people are saying, that they're going to be talking to President Xi, who has refused to back down.

It appears now that Trump is thinking, having dissed his European and other allies and slapped them with tariffs, is now trying to come out of this by saying, perhaps we can all band together, all of us allies, against China. Is that a viable strategy?

FRANKOPAN: If that was what Trump wanted to do, then he maybe should have gathered up all of his allies first to try to work out what would be the best way to address, you know, what are some serious imbalances and some serious issues.

And I don't think that those imbalances or serious issues are not understood by the Chinese side, but it's how best to do it.

The problem is when you look like you're volatile, when you keep moving and changing your opinion about things, then it's very difficult to build for the future.

And that's, of course, hard for a business, but that's really difficult if you are an ally and a friend too. And you know, what we've seen in Europe with pressure on NATO, of people like J.D. Vance calling Europeans pathetic, and then the sort of laying down in front of --

AMANPOUR: And calling the Chinese peasants.

FRANKOPAN: Calling Chinese peasants. And they're laying down, apparently, or seemingly in front of Russia in Ukraine. Then I think it's not surprising that people are questioning what does that world order start to look like.

So, maybe Trump has got a brilliant plan about China. It's hard to see how you would do it this way, but you know, you live and learn.

And I think one of the, one of the challenges is that everything moves so quickly at the moment. It's hard to guess what comes next.

AMANPOUR: Also, I want to ask you, because you are a historian and Trump seems to be going back a lot to -- you know, beyond a hundred years ago. So, I want to play this little bit of a soundbite.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our country was the strongest, believe it or not, from 1870 to 1913. You know why? It was all tariff based. We had no income tax.

Then in 1913, some genius came up with the idea of let's charge the people of our country, not foreign countries that are ripping off our country. And the country was never -- relatively was never that kind of wealth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So, he meandered in the last bit, the old weave was about to set in. But two points there. One, that the world has been ripping us off since then. And two, we were never stronger than in -- than before 1913 when it was all tariffs.

FRANKOPAN: Yes. There are two different things. I mean, I can't -- I'm scratching my head who it is that Trump has -- what he's been reading.

I mean, at that time he's talking about, you know, Belgium had an empire that co-controlled most of what's now Congo, you know, or the Britain controlled a quarter of the globe.

So, the idea that the United States was at its strongest, you know, that was at a time when Europeans all had empires and controlled all trade flows.

In fact, when Europe went to war in 1914, that's what made America great because suddenly Europe bought materials, particularly wheat and steel, but across the Atlantic, that pumped huge amounts of cash and that changed the world order in the 20th century.

So, I'm not quite sure where he's got that from. The thing about foreigners is an interesting one. I mean, when he talked about interruption of tariffs, he's talked about raping, looting, pillaging. And that is what European empires did. That's what all empires have done.

But it's hard to see what Trump is trying to do that's different where he's trying to charge blood money in Ukraine or trying to charge for the benefits of trading.

So, one can understand if you're being specific about, let's say, critical minerals or rare earths or things that have specific significance for the U.S. But probably, it's in American consumer's best interest to have sneakers that are reasonably and cheaply priced rather than made in the U.S.

So, the blanket is the problem. Trying to treat everything the same way.

AMANPOUR: I mean, we've talked about historical precedence. I mean, I'm sure the U.S. doesn't want to be lumped in with Lenin, who was the last one who created this kind of self-coup, as I heard from a Chinese colleague, against their own government and their own system.

But I was recently speaking to the former president of Colombia who told me that, you know, for many decades Latin America tried this very same thing. It was called something different. And this is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUAN MANUEL SANTOS, FORMER COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT: Latin America, for 30 years, did what exactly Trump announced yesterday. That's why back in the early 90s we were -- all of Latin America was very engaged in negotiating the creation of the World Trade Organization because the import substitution policy was a failure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Import substitution policy was their version of tariffs, right? I mean, it's protectionism.

FRANKOPAN: Most of us in the world think that trade is a good thing. Trade is a good thing for women and women's rights because it allows high levels of disposable income. It allows you to feed your family better. If you start putting barriers in the way, then things become harder.

But to be able to have any form of negotiation, you need to trust the other side. So, that I think is a real challenge about how Trump does business, the use of threats, and then scrolling back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Vital perspective there.

And still to come, a closer look at the U.S. versus China, the impact of the trade war. I speak to regional expert and "New York Times" journalist Li Yuan.

And later in the show, beloved author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie joins me to discuss her highly anticipated new novel, "Dream Count".

[11:09:45]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

The trade war between the world's two largest economies, China and the United States, has entered uncharted territory. While Trump was forced to pause his economic war with most of the world this week, he keeps hammering Beijing, doubling down after it refused to blink or back down, and announced its own plans to raise tariffs on American imports.

[11:14:51]

AMANPOUR: So to find out how Beijing is viewing what they believe to be Trumps reckless policies, I spoke to Li Yuan, who covers China and its foreign relations for "The New York Times".

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

YUAN: It's definitely a game of chicken, right? It's -- the U.S. is -- Trump is not backing down and he's saying like, be cool, and China is like, you know, we will retaliate if you impose more.

And it's really hard to see where it is going. But in the end, I think, you know, one aspect is that China has demonstrated it has the will -- you know, it has the will to keep going.

And also, it's -- the Chinese government has had the history of making people to endure a lot of hardships, right? And it's a question about which government can make its people to endure hardship.

And remember, during the great famine, the great leap forward, tens of millions of Chinese was starved to death because Chairman Mao was determined to industrial China in a few years or in a few decades.

And you know -- and then, in the cultural revolution and Chairman Mao also -- you know, millions of people died because Chairman Mao was trying to grab -- grasp power, to consolidate his power.

And also in the past few years, China's economy has been in trouble and the youth employment rate has been very high. And Xi Jinping told the young people, you should eat (INAUDIBLE), you know, you should deal with it.

And I think in terms of like the government's will to make its people to go through a lot of difficulties, I don't think the U.S. government can beat the Chinese government.

AMANPOUR: Ok. So, that's really interesting. We heard from the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. And he basically tried to say, well, actually, we and the rest of the world, Europe, we should all band together against China and have a strong economy, all of us, and essentially punish China for what we believe are its unfair trade practices.

Do you think there's -- you know, you've said, and you know, China, that yes, it's a dictatorship and they can tell their people to endure any amount of hardship. But do you think they might be worried that the whole world will band against them?

YUAN: Yes. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, held a meeting with his top deputies. And he told them, you know, we should enhance our ties with our neighbors and we should build up a supply chain cooperation, industrial cooperation. And the Chinese government has been trying to cozy up with Europe and Japan and South Korea and has been saying all the right things, right?

U.S. has been a very important export market for China and probably the highest profit margin. And now, China has to find markets elsewhere.

But I really think there's a lot of suspicion about the Chinese government and whether it's really willing to do business on like a base of rule of law.

AMANPOUR: So, I'm very interested that you wrote one of your recent columns, talking about how you're hearing from people in China when Trump started to swerve, let's say, against Ukraine and towards Russia, and then all the other things that have been unfolding in the United States.

You were hearing and then, Tom Friedman, your colleague, has written recently after a visit there that high-level and low-level Chinese are asking, hold on a second, is America having its own kind of cultural revolution, the Mao cultural revolution that we just talked about?

YUAN: Yes, it's -- there are a lot of talks on Chinese social media and in private conversations about, you know, what's going on in the U.S. You know, they are like -- you know, it's the most striking similarity is a self-coup launched by a leader against the government it leads, right?

Mao did that to his own government and dismantled all the deep ministries, and it took 10 years for China to -- for the Communist Party to realize what a big mistake it was.

And also, they were seeing how the Trump administration is silencing the media and going after law firms and all those things.

[11:19:52]

YUAN: It's like so strikingly -- like a striking similar feeling. It's really, it's -- I know, you know, China is a one-party state and that the U.S. is a liberal democracy.

And China -- the two countries are very different. And during the cultural revolution, millions of people were persecuted to death. Of course, there's nothing to compare with that in the U.S.

But the feeling of chaos of, you know, a government that's willing to destroy the rule of law, dismantle the government agencies and silencing media, it's all of this, just have a really weird vibe.

AMANPOUR: You talk about the media. So, last question, what do you think the effect on the Trump administration shuttering Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, et cetera, those kinds of media that the Americans provided for the rest of the world to get information, you know, certainly in dictatorships and when all they had was state run propaganda?

YUAN: Yes. You know, generations of Chinese, me included -- we started English from Voice of America's special English program. And the way -- along the way we learned -- you know, we listen to the news and we learned about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as ideals, you know.

It's -- the U.S. government, by silencing Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, the U.S. government is giving up the soft power. It's giving up the ideas of war. It's really a very sad thing for many of us.

AMANPOUR: Li Yuan, thank you so much. Thanks for your expertise there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And after the break --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Residential buildings, greenhouses, sheds, factories, you name it, it needs to be flat. That's the order.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: An order for the systematic policy of destruction. That's what the IDF whistleblowers are saying is happening inside Gaza. That CNN investigation up next.

[11:21:56]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

The Israeli prime minister was in Washington this week to try to get President Trump to give him some tariff relief, but no dice.

Meantime, the devastation in Gaza goes on with dozens killed by Israeli airstrikes this week alone. The U.N. Secretary General blasted the, quote, endless death loop. And within Israel, more are speaking out against Prime Minister Netanyahu's handling of the war.

Hundreds of air force reservists and military retirees have signed a letter published in all Israel's major newspapers, urging the government to return the remaining hostages, even if it requires a ceasefire.

They add, "The IDF is now fighting a war for political purposes without a military goal." This, after 18 of the country's former security chiefs had signed a letter saying that Netanyahu is not fit to lead.

One IDF soldier is blowing the whistle on a policy to purposely destroy everything in a massive buffer zone inside Gaza, and even make it a kill zone.

Here's CNN Jeremy Diamond's investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Inside Gaza, swaths of land closest to the Israeli border have been turned into a wasteland. Nearly every building within about a half a mile of the border fence has been destroyed. We filmed this footage a year ago while demolitions were still ongoing.

Over time the Israeli military has razed about 22 square miles of Palestinian land, creating a buffer zone on about 16 percent of Gaza's territory.

It is a no-go zone for Palestinians, some of whom have been killed after setting foot inside the unmarked perimeter.

Now, for the first time, an Israeli soldier sat down with us to describe how the military systematically destroyed civilian infrastructure to create this buffer zone.

SOLDIER A, IDF: Some of them, the buildings were destroyed completely and some were still standing. And our job was to make more of the first kind.

DIAMOND: But the fact that there were still buildings standing meant that the mission wasn't done.

SOLDIER A: Yes. And we destroyed them one by one in a very methodical fashion, area by area.

DIAMOND: A sergeant first class in the Fifth Infantry Brigade, he was called up to reserve duty on October 7th and was later deployed here in the industrial zone of Gaza City's Shujaiya neighborhood protecting combat engineers as they bulldozed buildings and rigged others to explode.

We've blurred his face and changed his voice because he risks reprisals for speaking out about a policy the Israeli military has never officially acknowledged.

DIAMOND: Was it clear to you that this was not the actions of one commander or one --

SOLDIER A: Definitely, definitely. I know other units were doing the same up north and then down south. I know it came from up high.

DIAMOND: What did they tell you about the mission to raze these buildings and establish this security zone?

SOLDIER A: One was that as a lesson from October 7th, we're going to have a larger buffer zone larger than before.

And the other was that on October 7th, this industrial zone was used as a launching ground.

[11:29:50]

DIAMOND: Over the course of the war, this one-time economic hub was flattened. This video which CNN geolocated shows the destruction of Gaza's only Coca-Cola factory.

But it's not just factories. In the town of Khuza'a, hundreds of homes were leveled with a clear zone of destruction spanning about one kilometer from the border.

"Residential buildings, greenhouses, sheds, factories, you name it. It needs to be flat. That's the order," A sergeant major who served in Khuza'a said.

"Except for the UNRWA school and that small water facility, the directive was nothing left."

He is one of a dozen Israeli soldiers who describe the demolitions and enforcement of the buffer zone to Breaking the Silence, an Israeli watchdog group that verifies and publishes soldiers testimonials.

Some also described how the buffer zone has been turned into a kill zone for Palestinians. A sergeant first class in the armored corps described the rules of engagement. Adult male kill, shoot to kill; for women and children, shoot to drive away.

"People were incriminated for having bags in their hands," a warrant officer in the IDF said. "Guys showed up with a bag, incriminated terrorists. I believe they came to pick khubeza (ph) an edible plant. But the army says no, they're hiding. Boom."

JANINA DILL, CO-DIRECTOR, OXFORD INSTITUTE FOR ETHICS, LAW AND ARMED CONFLICT: A kill zone is in essence, the announcement of a party to the world that they won't take feasible (ph) precautions. That they won't verify the status of an individual before attacking them. And that definitely violates international law.

DIAMOND: Is this kind of widespread destruction of civilian property to create a buffer zone legal under international law?

DILL: It needs to be a legitimate military objective and operational objective, and the only way to achieve it would be to destroy the civilian property.

At that scale, that's simply not quite plausible. If there is no military necessity, then that fulfills the criteria for a war crime.

DIAMOND: More than 6,200 Palestinian buildings have been damaged or destroyed within one kilometer of the Gaza border, according to satellite analysis, including here in al-Bureij, where homes and acres of farmland were destroyed.

For 40 years, Abdulaziz Al-Nabahin (ph) grew olives, oranges and guavas on that land. But that has all been ripped away from him.

"When they announced the 40-day truce, we went back. We found the house destroyed, the trees were bulldozed."

But he has lost so much more. Abdulaziz says his son Mahmoud went to collect firewood near their home when he was shelled by an Israeli tank and killed.

The Israeli military did not respond to CNN's requests for comment.

"They knew they were only collecting wood, not resisting or fighting, just a cart with wood clearly visible. Still, they were targeted. The Israelis did this intentionally."

"Even now," he says, "they will kill anyone who goes there."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Well, now the IDF has responded about the buffer zone, confirming that it has established, quote, "a broad military presence in the security zone adjacent to Israel and saying these actions are essential in order to prevent Hamas and other terrorist organizations from operating in the area while ensuring the security of IDF forces and Israeli communities."

Now, the IDF insists they're acting in accordance with international law despite what you heard from Jeremy Diamond's report.

And a reminder that the IDF has not let international and any aid into Gaza since the beginning of March.

Coming up after the break, award-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is back with her novel "Dream Count" a tale of love, loss and female solidarity.

[11:33:30]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Back now with the long-awaited return of an award-winning novelist. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is a literary phenomenon. Author of the bestsellers "Half of a Yellow Sun" and "Americanah". Her TED talk-turned-long form essay "We Should All Be Feminists" became part of the cultural zeitgeist.

Now, 12 years after her last novel, she has a major new work. "Dream Count" tells the stories of four close-knit women as they grapple with a traumatic event that ripples across their lives.

The novel explores key issues from fertility, abortion and motherhood to loneliness, grief and friendship.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie splits her time between Nigeria and New York, where she joined me to discuss putting pen to paper during this specific time in history.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is joining us from New York. Welcome back to the program.

ADICHIE: Thank you so much, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: This novel is about four -- basically four friends, right? It's a study of, you know, their story through these four different points of view.

And I'm just going to list them just so that we all know. So, there's Chiamaka who's a Nigerian travel writer, one might say, you know. She may be slightly based on you.

Her friend Zikora, her cousin Omelogor, and her Guinean maid, Kadiatou.

ADICHIE: I knew -- I knew I wanted to write about women's lives. I've known that for a while. After my last novel, "Americanah," I wanted to, you know, write about the complexity of women's lives. I wanted to write about women's friendships, how women support one another.

[11:39:47]

ADICHIE: Omelogor, for me, represents that idea that there are other ways to live for women. You know, that it doesn't have to be one way.

I think that there are many women in the world who want to have children, of course, but there are women who don't. And often, there's this kind of judgment and it's almost seems as though women who do not want to have children are told that somehow you failed at what it is to be a woman in a strange sort of way.

AMANPOUR: There is a very dark story also, and not a spoiler alert because a lot of the reviews have mentioned it, but halfway through the book you realize that one of your characters, Kadiatou, she is the maid of one of them and she's from Guinea and she has suffered a sexual assault.

Tell us about why you brought that into the story and why you felt you needed to in this group of friends and what it was based on in reality.

ADICHIE: So, this character is -- she's inspired by a real person, a real thing that happened, which is a number of years ago I read this story about this woman from Guinea who had accused a very powerful man of sexual assault. This woman worked as a hotel maid and she'd walked -- she -- and her story was she walked into a hotel room and, you know, this man sort of ran to her naked and assaulted her.

And I followed the story very closely because I -- you know, for a number of reasons, but mostly because I felt a kind of connection to the woman.

She was West African as I am. And also, because she was powerless. She was not formally educated. She was not a native English speaker.

And I was very upset by how she was covered in the media. You know, I felt that she wasn't given her dignity.

And then, her case was dropped. I thought that it wasn't just about this woman, it was also about the larger message that women were getting, which is, if you accuse somebody of sexual assault and you expect to get justice, then you better be perfect.

You know, you better not have any flaw in your life, which of course means you're not going to get justice because nobody is flawless. I mean, we're all flawed. Human beings are flawed.

AMANPOUR: Well, and you are in America at a time when there seems to be an all-out federal assault on women. The whole removal of DEI, I mean, erasing women's achievements, erasing the idea of diversity and inclusion and equity in any, you know, company.

That, plus the erasure of hundreds of words that deal in that space, and so many words that pertain to being a woman.

How -- you know, you're living in America. How do you -- how are you reacting to that? How are you feeling?

ADICHIE: Oh, I'm not feeling anything. It's sometimes hard to feel. I am - - I think it's a mix of emotions. I'm sometimes quite stunned. Sometimes there's disbelief. But also, there is a refusal to give in to despair.

I think that what is happening is frightening. It's strange. I've gone back to read -- I'm reading about 1930s Germany, because I think that I want to learn from history to better understand this present time. Because in some ways, I'm just unprepared for this happening in America, right?

I mean, when you think about America being the country that, you know, at the end of the war when ordinary Germans were desperately hoping that Americans would liberate them rather than Russians, and I think even that says something about what America represented.

And I don't know whether they would wish that now, if there happened to be a war, but I -- I'm determined not to give into despair. I really believe that what is broken and what is being broken will be made whole again.

I think that the things that we believe in, the freedom of our imaginations, the way that the human spirit thrives, it's difficult to kill that, I think.

And you know, you can ban words, but you cannot ban -- people will still use them. People are thinking them. And I think -- I think -- I try to tell myself that America is not only about these things.

There are many people who feel very strongly about diversity, right, and that -- and I -- it's sad how that expression has been demonized DEI, when it's really about justice, right? It's really about this idea that for so long America really was a country of DEI only for white people.

And in some ways, DEI is a way of trying to address that imbalance. And it's not about people who are not qualified or all of the ways it's been demonized. I do think that there are many people who recognize that.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

ADICHIE: So, my general position is one of refusing to give into despair.

AMANPOUR: Well, sometimes hope can be a strategy, Chimamanda, as you know.

"Dream Count," tell us quickly in our last 40 seconds why you named it that. What does it mean?

ADICHIE: Because it's -- well, it's about dreaming, among other things. So, I'm really interested in that idea of what we dream about, who gets to dream, what do our dreams mean, and how we sometimes think about the lives that we've led and we wonder, you know, where has my life gone?

[11:44:50]

ADICHIE: But most of all, I think that it's a really universal idea. No matter where we are, who we are, we dream, right? And sometimes we long for things that we know we will never have. But still, we long. And I find that very beautiful and human.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Hope is such a vital part of human nature.

Coming up, remembering the Rwandan genocide 31 years on, when hope was a distant mirage. From the archives, my report on the biblical retribution that befell the killers.

[11:45:21]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

There's been a week of mourning in Rwanda as the country commemorates 31 years since the 1994 genocide, when extremists from the dominant tribe, the Hutus, set out to exterminate the Tutsi ethnic minority. It was a mass murder that swept the country and wiped out nearly a

million people in just 100 days. Men, women and children were hacked to death with machetes, clubs and bare hands.

In the summer of 1994, I traveled to the region just as the scale of the atrocities was emerging. The international community did not intervene to stop it.

That was left to the current president, Paul Kagame, whose Tutsi-led army back then stormed in from exile and ran the Hutus out. The killers and their families fled across the border to Goma, Zaire. That's now called the Democratic Republic of Congo.

And what we witnessed there was a terrifying form of retribution. The Hutu killers, along with their families, were struck by a plague, an outbreak of cholera that came down like biblical justice.

And a warning, of course, the images are so graphic and they're very difficult to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: On the streets, the living pick their way around the dead and try to pinch their nose against the stench. But there isn't a grip that's strong enough to fight this.

At a new site in Goma, a mass grave is already piled high and more are being flung in by the minute. 14,000 is the official death count, but aid workers admit that's only a rough estimate.

Now the Zairean boy Scouts have been drafted for this task. French troops simply can't cope on their own anymore. They've been collecting and burying for nine numbing days.

"I have no feelings anymore. It's beyond my imagination," he says. "The vocabulary to describe this has not yet been invented. Death is coming on so fast, it's outpacing the ability to bury."

And who can explain what makes people laugh? What makes people get through times like these? And it is a race against time, against disease and more death.

The French and the U.N. have received permission to burn the bodies, but no one wants to light the first match in a culture that abhors cremation. And so they're looking for more space. Dynamite is the only way to punch through the hard volcanic rock.

The French soldiers are the only people in place able to organize an operation like this. And more than a week after people started to die in mass, no other organization has offered to help set up a proper sanitation system.

Bodies lined the road for 60 kilometers north of Goma. The health risk is great.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These bodies, each of them, are filled with bacteria, with cholera bacteria which can infect the other people.

Today it's dry. But maybe tomorrow, if it starts raining, it will be -- it will be an ecological disaster for the whole area.

AMANPOUR: At the Kibumba camp, further along, doctors frantically try to treat those sick with cholera while bodies lie all around their hospital tent. Some have been here for days.

The only thing they can do is spray disinfectant and hope that will hold off disease until they can be carried away.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN -- Kibumba, Zaire.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: It was the darkest time I'd ever covered, but I always remember that South Africa, at almost exactly that same time, was showing the world hope when Nelson Mandela was elected the first black president.

When we come back, a literary masterpiece turns 100. Why "The Great Gatsby" retains its relevance all these years later.

[11:54:02]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And finally, "The Great Gatsby" turns 100, inspiring countless films, shows, songs, school plays, and even cocktail bars. It is a classic that remains just as relevant today.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's literary masterpiece set in New York during the roaring 20s, explores the ups and downs of the American dream.

And here's a clip from Baz Luhrmann's award-winning adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOBEY MAGUIRE, ACTOR: Who is this Gatsby?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: War hero.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Gatsby doesn't exist.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gatsby. What Gatsby?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I beg your pardon? Mr. Gatsby would like to speak to you. Alone.

CAREY MULLIGAN, ACTRESS: I'm certainly glad to see you again.

LEONARDO DICAPRIO, ACTOR: I'm certainly glad to see you as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: That was one star-studded cast, and the book's enduring popularity is testament to its hard-hitting themes and, of course, iconic flapper era fashion.

[11:59:49]

AMANPOUR: And the downfall of the tragic millionaire, Jay Gatsby is a cautionary tale about unfettered hedonism.

We leave you now with the words of Fitzgerald's narrator, Nick Carraway, and the iconic final line of the story.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

That's all we have time for. Don't forget, you can find all our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thanks for watching and see you again next week.