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U.N. Special Envoy to Myanmar, "A Bloodbath Is Imminent"; France under Third National COVID-19 Lockdown; Navalny Goes on Hunger Strike; Four Killed in California Office Attack. Aired 10-10:25a ET
Aired April 01, 2021 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight, a bloodbath is imminent: a stark warning to Myanmar, as airstrikes there go on.
Then, an epidemic within an epidemic: President Macron slams France into another lockdown right before Easter.
And America's 20th mass shooting in two weeks. This time, one of the victims is a child. We're in California this hour.
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ANDERSON: In just the next half hour or so, we will also bring you CNN's complete coverage of the trial of Derek Chauvin in the death of George
Floyd and what will surely be more harrowing testimony.
There is a lot going on around the world. Let me connect you to the news. A multidimensional catastrophe: that's the future facing Myanmar if the
international community does not act.
The U.N. special envoy on Myanmar issuing that sobering warning to the U.N. Security Council as the country marks two months since the military ousted
its civilian government and arrested its leaders.
It started as a bloodless coup but quickly turned violent in the face of daily protests. Activists reporting more than 500 deaths.
On Wednesday, Myanmar's military rulers declared a month-long cease-fire, though it does appear to refer only to armed ethnic groups and does not
apply to anyone, who, in the military's words, disrupts government security.
The deposed de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, appeared via video link in court today. Her lawyer tells CNN she faces a fifth charge, violating the
country's colonial-era official secrets act.
An announced cease-fire may not be happening. Relief groups report the military launched airstrikes today in Karen state, the political arm of
Karen state rebels, sent CNN this video, purporting to show the aftermath of an airstrike earlier in the week. No injuries reported in today's
action.
And the military isn't commenting. Well, Ivan Watson has more on Myanmar's rebel groups, now girding for the prospect of all-out civil war.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The deepening crisis in Myanmar is starting to spill across borders. Thousands
of civilians crossing the river between Myanmar and Thailand to escape airstrikes carried out by Myanmar's warplanes.
They're from a region controlled by the Karen national union. It's the oldest of dozens of armed ethnic militias that have fought off and on
against the military in Myanmar for generations.
This is a patchwork of just some of the militias that operate in Myanmar's border regions. Two months after the coup, the deadly crackdown on anti-
coup protesters in the cities have sent people fleeing to these militia enclaves, including the one controlled by this man.
WATSON (voice-over): Yawd Serk is the leader of the Shan state army. In an interview with CNN, he denounced the coup.
SERK (through translator): If the military continues to shoot and kill people, it means the junta have simply transformed themselves into
terrorists.
WATSON (voice-over): In the cities and towns of central Myanmar, the death toll amid the anti-coup protesters continues to grow.
WATSON: Do any of you have the training or background to lead a grassroots political protest?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, none of us. I work in an office. I was department head.
WATSON (voice-over): This man, who asks not to be identified for his safety, is the leader of the protest movement in a neighborhood of Yangon.
In just two months, it's gone from organizing festive but passionate gatherings, with costumes and signs, to desperate efforts to defend
barricades from the heavily armed security forces.
The protest leader says he's hearing growing calls for armed attacks.
WATSON: Do you support violent attacks on the military?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, not at all because, like I said, it won't accomplish our goal.
WATSON (voice-over): He said some demonstrators have made largely unsuccessful attempts to carry out what they call "car wash" operations.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A car wash operation is throwing Molotovs at a moving or stationary vehicle or whether there's army personnels (sic) in it.
[10:05:00]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Or whether it's an empty truck.
WATSON (voice-over): Demonstrators in Yangon tell CNN there are some efforts being made to arm anti-coup protesters and to send activists to
receive combat training in enclaves run by militias, like the Shan state army.
SERK (through translator): If they don't have training, we will train them.
WATSON (voice-over): Myanmar's military doesn't want to keep fighting these well-trained rebels. Instead, on Wednesday, it called a unilateral
cease-fire for one month. No such mercy for civilian protesters, who soldiers and police continue to kill with impunity, driving ordinary people
towards radicalization.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When ordinary civilians like us, all these workers like us, started taking arms and get maybe training for six months and start
shooting people, I guess civil war would be unavoidable.
WATSON (voice-over): Ivan Watson, CNN, Hong Kong.
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ANDERSON: My colleague, Anna Coren, also following developments for us from Hong Kong.
And what more are we learning at this point about the ongoing violence there, Anna?
ANNA COREN, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Becky, the violence hasn't stopped. Despite Myanmar's military announcing a month-long cease-fire, CNN
can confirm airstrikes were carried out in Karen state in the country's east, close to the Thai border today.
That comes following days of airstrikes in the region which have left many dead and forced thousands to flee to Thailand. We've just obtained some
extremely disturbing video of one of the airstrikes, carried out March 30th on a gold mine, which shows dismembered bodies strewn across the ground,
with multiple fires still burning.
This was filmed by the Karen national union, which is a political arm of the armed ethnic group in Karen state. This week has seen a sharp
escalation in a conflict that's plagued the country for decades, with multiple ethnic groups fighting for autonomy.
They're now being dragged into the civil unrest that kicked off in Myanmar two months ago, when the military staged a coup, arresting Aung San Suu
Kyi, the country's de facto leader.
The protests against the coup have been relentless, despite the military firing on its own people. So far, more than 520 civilians have been killed.
That's according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, as you mentioned earlier in the program, has warned the U.N. Security Council of an imminent bloodbath and
risk of civil war and is calling on the international community to act.
So far the U.N. isn't taking any action, other than issuing statements against the violence. China has ruled out sanctions against Myanmar, saying
it will only aggravate tension there.
ANDERSON: Anna is on the story. Thank you.
"An epidemic within an epidemic." Those are the words of the French president. He says a more contagious, deadly variant of the COVID-19 virus,
which originated in the U.K., is fueling a surge in cases in France, overwhelming hospitals.
France is about to expand limited lockdown measures, imposing them now across the entire country. The World Health Organization warns that slow
vaccine rollouts across Europe are prolonging the pandemic. That's a hard slam from the world health body. The French president says plans are in the
works to scale up vaccine production.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (through translator): In the coming weeks, we will further accelerate the number of doses we get and will
gradually become the first continent in the world in terms of vaccine production.
This will build our independence. It will guarantee that, if additional doses are needed, we'll no longer depend on others.
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ANDERSON: CNN's Melissa Bell is in Paris, where that limited lockdown is now already in place.
And I just wonder what you made of the French president's address to the nation.
Wishful thinking, Melissa, from a president here?
This has been -- this vaccine rollout has been a disaster for the E.U. And yet the president seems to suggest it all started to go, well, soon.
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What he's referring to is an actual plan announced by Brussels to try to ramp up vaccine production within the
European Union. That's because, of course, as you say, Brussels has been so stung by the criticism it's received over the way the contracts were
negotiated, the speed with which that was done, the way the vaccines have been distributed, since there is, of course, that ongoing export ban
mechanism, which has been extended to keep as many doses inside the E.U. and the vaccine dose shortages that continue to be a problem in terms of
that rollout.
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BELL: Now what Brussels wants is to have 53 operational sites, production sites, in the E.U. by the end of the year -- many of those not yet online -
- that will be producing the vaccines on behalf of the companies that have had their vaccines approved. The aim of Europe is to have 2 to 3 billion
doses produced within the E.U. by the end of the year.
That's an ambitious target as of those announced by Emmanuel Macron repeated last night, that he wants every adult in France to have a vaccine
by the end of the year. For the time being, the latest figure is only 12 percent of the French population has had at least one dose.
And there remain going forward over the immediate next few weeks those issues of supply, the Johnson & Johnson due to come online. But those
deliveries won't start until April. And there are shortages, of course, of the others -- Becky.
ANDERSON: Yes, of course. And then we saw the back and forth in Europe over the AstraZeneca vaccine. I wonder what impact that's had. A new YouGov
poll certainly showing that vaccine hesitancy in France is rising, specifically towards that AstraZeneca vaccine after what was the massive
politicization around that.
Just how concerned should the French government be about whether people are prepared to take these vaccines when, not if, it seems but when they become
available to everybody?
BELL: Well, vaccine hesitancy was already a problem in countries like France, thinking back to last summer. Only one in two French people planned
to take them at all. That's been made worse.
The AstraZeneca vaccine, at the heart of so many of those delivery issues, ongoing rows with the European Commission and the very changing and often
contradictory health advice we've had from national authorities, many of them initially saying that AstraZeneca should only be given to younger
populations, then saying, suspending the rollout altogether.
Now in several countries, France amongst them saying the AstraZeneca vaccine can only be given to older populations because of those fears of
blood clots, particularly in younger women.
And perhaps the biggest measure of how worried European governments are is the decision by the Italians this week to oblige all medical workers to
have the vaccine -- Becky.
ANDERSON: Fascinating. Melissa, it's always a pleasure. Thank you very much indeed. Sorry about the lockdown. I'm sure you'll cope.
One is getting used to these things, right?
Life in a Russian prison camp has taken a new turn for Alexei Navalny. The Kremlin's most vocal critic is now on hunger strike. This is the letter
Navalny sent to prison officials, shared by his team on social media.
He writes he has no access to proper medical care for back and leg problems. Officials say he's being treated like any other prisoner. We are
connecting you to Moscow and CNN's Matthew Chance.
What do we know at this point, Matthew?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know that the continued plight of Navalny continues to attract international
attention and, of course, concern around the world as well, because, first of all, he was poisoned with a suspected nerve agent back in August.
He was evacuated to Germany, where he recovered quite dramatically in a clinic in the German capital, Berlin. He then came back earlier this year
to Russia, said he wanted to come back because he was a Russian politician.
And he was arrested at the airport, sent to jail, essentially convicted of a violation of a previous embezzlement charge he had a suspended sentence
for and, since then, has been languishing in this pretty strict penal colony about 60 miles, a couple of hours' drive from the Russian capital.
He's now said he's on hunger strike. He's not going to eat any more food, Navalny says, until he's allowed to see a doctor from outside the prison of
his choosing. He's been complaining for some time about back pain and about how that back pain has spread from his back to both of his legs.
He said he's lost sensitivity in his left and right leg now. And he wants - - been given a couple of pain-killing tablets. He wants a much more careful examination of his medical condition.
The root of the concern is that, of course, if Navalny, this leading opposition figure, was indeed poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent, then
there's a chance that this sensitivity or lack of sensitivity he's reporting in his limbs could have been caused by some kind of neurological
damage caused by that nerve agent.
It's not simply that he's got a bad back. So that warrants further investigation.
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CHANCE: That's why Navalny and his team want to get a specialist doctor in from outside to take a really close look at him. He also says that he's
being subjected to sleep deprivation, torture by sleep deprivation.
What the prison guards do, every hour at nighttime, when he's in bed, they come around. They video record him to make sure he's still in his bed. They
say it's what they do with all prisoners in that very tough penal colony, prison colony number two, a couple of hours drive from Moscow in the
Vladimir region, to make sure that they're all still there.
But what Navalny and his team say is that's tantamount to torture because it deprives him of sleep. So there are a lot of concerns about how he's
been treated and a lot of concerns about his apparently deteriorating medical condition, compounded by the fact that Navalny has now said he'll
be on a hunger strike.
ANDERSON: Matthew Chance is in Moscow. Your insight is extremely valuable. Thank you.
In just a few minutes, the trial of the former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, resumes. On Wednesday, emotions ran high in the courtroom,
as jurors saw Chauvin's police body cam footage for the first time and heard firsthand testimony from those who witnessed George Floyd's death.
Josh Campbell has the details.
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JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: More emotional testimony in the Derek Chauvin trial Wednesday from eyewitnesses were just feet away
from the final moments of George Floyd's life, like 61-year-old Charles McMillian, who took the stand and broke down in tears as the prosecution
played this body cam video.
GEORGE FLOYD, DIED IN POLICE CUSTODY: Mama, mama.
MCMILLIAN: I felt helpless. I don't have it in me to understand him.
CAMPBELL: McMillian, who frequently walks in that Minneapolis neighborhood, happened upon the scene and testified he saw officers
arresting Floyd. He is heard urging Floyd to cooperate with police as they tried to get him in a squad car.
MCMILLIAN: Let them get in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So were you trying to just help him to --
MCMILLIAN: Make the situation easy.
CAMPBELL: On Wednesday, the jury was presented body cam footage from all four officers. Much of it had never before been made public.
The prosecution presented nearly every moment of interaction between the four officers and Floyd from several angles, including the initial moment
when two officers approached Floyd while he was inside his car
Officer Lane draws a gun at Floyd.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get your (INAUDIBLE) hands up right now.
CAMPBELL: Officers then remove him from his vehicle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Step out of the vehicle.
FLOYD: Please don't shoot me, Mr. Officer. Please, don't shoot me, man.
CAMPBELL: Floyd is cuffed and walked to the police car.
FLOYD: I'm just (INAUDIBLE).
CAMPBELL: Chauvin's body cam footage shows his first interaction with Floyd before his body camera falls to the ground. A struggle ensues between
Floyd and the officers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).
FLOYD: (INAUDIBLE).
CAMPBELL: Chauvin, the man wearing black gloves, places his hands around Floyd's neck as another officer tries to restrain him. You hear Chauvin's
voice for the first time.
DEREK CHAUVIN, FORMER MINNEAPOLIS POLICE OFFICER: I can't control this guy, because he's a sizable guy. Looks like -- looks like he's probably on
something.
CAMPBELL: It takes several minutes before you hear an officer raise concerns.
THOMAS LANE, FORMER MINNEAPOLIS POLICE OFFICER: Roll him on his side?
I'm just worried about the excited delirium or whatever.
CAMPBELL: The jury also saw surveillance video from inside the Cup Foods showing George Floyd shortly before he was detained. Floyd was suspected of
paying for cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill.
MARTIN: When I saw the bill, I noticed that it had a blue pigment sort of, kind of how a $100 bill had and I found that odd, so I assumed that it was
fake.
CAMPBELL: The cashier, 19-year-old Christopher Martin, told his manager his suspicions and they tried unsuccessfully to bring Floyd back into the
store. When that failed, one of his coworkers called the police.
Martin testified he feels guilty about what happened that day, a common theme felt by many of the eyewitnesses this week.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why guilt?
MARTIN: If I would have just not taken the bill, this could have been avoided.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON: The continuation of that trial will be shortly. And CNN has full coverage of that.
To a story that has, unfortunately, become too familiar in the United States: another deadly mass shooting. Four people, including a child, were
killed when a gunman opened fire at an office complex in southern California.
Another person is in critical condition. There have now been at least 20 mass shootings in the U.S. in just the last two weeks.
[10:20:00]
ANDERSON: CNN's Kyung Lah is on the ground in Orange in California.
What are the details as we understand them, Kyung Lah?
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR U.S. CORRESPONDENT: Well, we don't have a whole ton of details quite yet, Becky. We are waiting for police to update the press.
We're anticipating that in the next few hours or so.
But details have been very scarce in these overnight hours here in California. What we can tell you is what we see. This is a depressingly
familiar sight in this country. And the news is very similar to what we've been reporting over the last couple of weeks.
Here in Orange, what people in this neighborhood heard, coming out of this business complex, a business complex with six different businesses in it,
they heard the sound of gunfire and then shortly after that, sirens, as police approached.
And then more gunfire; as officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect, wounding the suspect, that suspect went to the hospital wounded. We don't
have much more details than that.
When officers then started to walk through this business complex, they discovered four people who had been shot dead, one of them a child. We
don't have the age of that child. And we also don't know much about the relationship between these two people, if they knew the suspect.
We did hear from someone who says he knows the people inside this complex. Paul Tovar says his brother and his niece are missing. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL TOVAR, BROTHER AND UNCLE OF COMPLEX TENANTS: I'm just trying to find out his well-being. He's not answering his phone, either, and my niece, I'm
pretty scared and worried. I wish I knew more. I don't know. I ran out. I'm just praying really hard.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAH: He still doesn't have any further updated information, Becky. The police do tell us there was just one weapon recovered here -- Becky.
ANDERSON: Kyung Lah is on the story for us. Thank you.
Well, still ahead, a movement in the United Kingdom to end rape culture is building momentum. And it is focusing on schools. CNN speaks to the woman
who started the project.
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ANDERSON: You're watching CONNECT THE WORLD. I'm Becky Anderson.
Pfizer and BioNTech say their COVID vaccine works longer than previously thought and protects against variants of the illness. That is good news and
we'll get more on our COVID news as we move through the hours.
Firstly, let's get to Minneapolis and the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer, charged with murder in the death of George Floyd.
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