Transcripts For WETA Worldfocus 20100301 : vimarsana.com

tonight on worldfocus in chile, scenes of devastation as rescuers search for people who may have survived the massive earthquake. some coastal towns almost wiped out by the tsunami that followed. the impact of the earthquake on chile s economy, which until now had weathered the recession well. in the netherlands the words of a an accused war barian. the former bosnian serb leader defends himself against charges of conducting the worst genocide in europe since the holocaust. and, a birthday tribute to a musical genius, frederick chopin, born 200 years ago today. from the different perspectives of reporters and analysts from around the globe, this is worldfocus. major support has been provided by rosalind p. walter and the peter g. peterson foundation, dedicated to promoting fiscal responsibility and addressing key economic challenges facing america s future. and additional funding is provided by the following supporters good evening. i m daljit dhaliwal in new york. welcome to worldfocus. two days after a massive earthquake in chile there is now a desperate struggle who find people who may have survived, as international assistance began to arrive. officials now say at least 723 people have died in the quake. 19 others are missing and they expect the number ofo go higher. many survivors were left without water, food, and power as the president of chile called it an emergency unparalleled in the country s history. the city of concepcion, not far from the epicenter, was especially hard-hit. while the quake itself with a magnitude of 8.8 caused many of the deaths, it became clear today that tsunamis that quickly followed may have killed hundreds in coastal towns. in tonight s lead focus it is on the coast where mariana sanchez of al jazeera english begins her report. including what may have been a very costly mistake just after the earthquake struck. reporter: this is what s left of the chilean coastline. dozens of small villages completely pulverized. smashed and washed away by massive waves, driven ashore soon after the earthquake struck. and all of this despite the fact that chilean government told people just after the quake there was no danger of a tsunami. government officials are now backtracking and they say they made an error based on incorrect data. it s clear from the scene that it was a very significant error. residents here reported massive waves surging hundreds of meters ashore, smashing homes and factories to bits. one lot resident says the only thing he s concerned about right now is what happens next. translator: now that the dis the crisis begins. there won t be work. nothing. people will be hungry. reporter: as the relief work continues as quickly as possible the military is struggling to deal with scenes like this. in many areas, a lack of food and water or any kind of fuel and shelter has left people to do whatever they can to look after themselves and their families. translator: i have five children. we re starving. we haven t got water. they came in a helicopter but didn t do anything. what do they expect to us do? we just want food. reporter: images like these are what have prompted the decision to impose an immediate curfew in some regions as the government tries to stop widespread looting. in the meantime, rescue teams have been working nonstop to search for any survivors fill trapped in these collapsed buildings. eventually that side of the operation will come to a close. and when it does, all the efforts will turn to rebuild homes and look after those lives who have been torn apart. now let s hear from someone who lived through the earthquake early on saturday morning. she s pascal bonafoy, a correspondent based in chile for our partner global post. this afternoon, we spoke with her about her experience. . the earthquake didn t cause that much damage in santiago, nevertheless terrifying and horrible misways. it was very strong. i had never been through an earthquake before. i was on the second floor of my house. it just started rocking and shaking and flying from one side to the other. it felt like the houses were made of rubber. we were all terrified, actually. down south, just last it in the president announced a state of catastrophe, which meant that the military is starting today to take control of the streets. one, to retore order because there s massive looting and massive looting at the beginning it was looting of supermarkets to get food, but also electric appliances, toys, diapers, anything. and it s also spreading to homes. people are going into abandoned apartment buildings, people s homes. and it s kind of a far west situation in many places and towns were completely obliterated. fishing hamlets. there were hundreds of people on the coast. no one really knows and the government doesn t have official of courses for how many people have disappeared. we have there s going to be a new balance soon, this afternoon. the number of disappeared could be several hundred, or many hundred, of people. already, concepcion, cities in the south are already some of the poorest ones in the country. i mean, the ones with the highest unemployment rate in general and chronically. so this is going be a very, very heavy toll on those local economies. and it s going to take on national terms it s going to take some reshuffling of the budget also. nothing s been announced. there s still no assessment in terms of material damage or how much it would cost to rebuild. it s going to have a heavy toll on the economy. that was pascal bonafoy in santiago. now let s look more closely at chile s economy. in tonight s signature story. before the earthquake the country lad wihad weathered thel recession relativelywell. we re going to discuss the impact of the earthquake with an expert on chile, but first some context. let s take a look at story we ran on the chilean economy, driven largely by that country s copper industry. well before the recession chile had made some smart decisions as we hear from edie magnes. reporter: this is not for the claustrophobic. we re going deep inside a mountain through a vast tunnel system into el tineiene copper mines. the owner here is the chilean government. the world s largest producer and exporter of copper. here there doesn t exist miner like in the old time. reporter: today s miner brandished not a pickax but a joystick. to chop up the rock and send it down through the shafts and out of the mountain for processing. copper has been the secret of chile s success in navigating today s uncertain economic times. chile s economy has certainly been hurt by the world recessions. unemployment is up and productivity is down. but if you pick up a newspaper, you won t read about bank bailouts or wide-spread layoffs or massive stimulus spending plans which no one s sure how to pay for. that s because a few years a2 when copper prices were exploding, the government chose to squirrel away part of the proceeds, saving for a rainy day. so when it rained last year and world economies fell apart, they were ready. what we have done in chile is not very different from what any reasonable household would do. reporter: andre velasco is chile s finance minister. if you re chugging along with one level of income and suddenly you get an extra bit of money, you ask yourself, will this repeat itself? if you think that there s a good chance that it will be transitory, then you take a good chunk of it, you put it aside, you invest it, and you spend it slowly over time. understanding that the good times may not last. reporter: now drawing on its so-called copper bonanza, chile is financing its own stimulus plan, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on public works projects. creating jobs. giving cash stipends to the poor. the government hasn t had to borrow a peso to keep its economy afloat. newspapers are full of flattering headlines. and even president obama, appearing with chile s president michelle bachelet, complimented the country on maneuvering through bad times in a good way. minister velasco says chile profits from keeping the bad memories fresh. example, in the early 1980s nearly every bank in the country went under and they are now tightly regulated. does this sound familiar? you have a bubble. you have a period of fast consumption. everybody gets a loan. things seem easy. at some point, things turn around. loans become impossible to pay. people begin defaulting. and what seemed like a safe institution is suddenly a troubled institution. obviously the u.s. watched you go through this. why do you think it is that the lesson didn t stick? for the states? i suppose that when you re in the midst of a bubble and things are going well, the temptation is to think that it will be like that forever. we re still paying for the bank bailout that happened in 1982. and the political system has to understand that. in the wake of a crisis there will be many people who come up with easy solutions, panaceas, cure-alls. there s no such thing. reporter: only hard work, he says, and the knowledge that whether you re a small developing country or a large industrial one, whether you re an individual or a government, certain principles always apply. when things are good you better be saving. one should not borrow and consume on the assumption that your income will go up forever. if you do, it is likely that you ll end up in trouble. reporter: for worldfocus, idie magnus in santiago, chile. for more on the impact on the earthquake on chile s economy, susan segal, president and ceo of the america society and the council of the americas. thank you very much for joining us on the program. thank you for inviting me. we just saw a piece about how the country s copper industry played a major role after the global economic recession. will revenue from the copper industry help in the aid effort in this massive earthquake? absolutely. since really the early 90s, chile s had an offshore copper stabilization fund where a number of the revenues from copper actually flow. so during the world economic crisis, the offshore fund was used to fund some of the fiscal stimulus. and i m certain that some of the offshore copper stabilization revenues will also be used to help the reconstruction after the devastating earthquake. what was the state of the economy before the earthquake? the state of the economy was very strong. chile has been growing for a number of years. and in 2009 its decline was very small. maybe 1.5% to plus .7% growth. and it was due to grow, return to growth, in 2010. between 5% and 5.5%. and i actually think that chile will grow quite substantially in 2010, because while the impact of the earthquake will be felt in the first quarter, maybe the second, clearly reconstruction from the earthquake will have a stimulating effect on the economy. and investment will create jobs and create growth. talk a little bit about how you think the government in this time of crisis is dealing with the devastation. are there any sort of points of comparison? for example, with the earthquake in haiti? i think the government in chile is dealing with the crisis quite well. it was a devastating earthquake. 8.8 on the scale. and they did have plans to focus, because chile has been prone to earthquakes. remember 1960 and then 1985. they had two previous earthquakes. and so they ve come in and thief started to assess the damage. and they ve deployed their own resources. and now for the first time they re asking for some international help as they assess the damage. but i thinkthey ve done a good job overall. right. just very briefly, we know a new president is going to be sworn in later on this month. how can the government prepare for the transition in a time of crisis, effectively? the morning after the election, they had breakfast together. so i think that this obviously will be the focal point of both the outgoing government and the incoming government. but i think that the transition will go on smoothly and on schedule. all right, susan segal, thank you very much for joining us. thank you. in a courtroom in the netherlands, the man accused of presiding over one of europe s worst cases of genocide since world war ii began his defense today. he is rad van care owe vich, the former bosnian serb leader charged with mass murder, the destruction of muslim and croat villages, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people all during the war in bosnia in the early 1990s. in this next report you will see how robert moore of itn was in the courtroom and got close to cara vich as he counted his defense. reporter: they were outside demanding justice from the international court. the grieving mothers braced to hear the arguments of the man they hold directly responsible for the loss they suffered. radovan cara vich stands accused of genocide and authoring the worst massacre in europe since 1945. yet we have never heard his full defense. until now. he claimed before the court that he was simply responding to muslim provocation and western diplomatic blunders. translator: i will defend that nation of ours and their cause, which is just and holy. and in that way, i shall be able to defend myself too. and my nation. reporter: for so long, cara vich escaped justice. heavily disguised and living in the serb capital bell grade. but he was finally tracked down and captured. and now he must try and defend his conduct in a war that s shocked and shamed europe. translator: they were filming free people. reporter: cara vich lashed out at the journalism of itv news. coverage that in 1982 so dramatically revealed the horrors of the bosnian serb detention camps. reporter penny marshall and her crew brought these pictures to the world. in an extraordinary twist today cara vich attempted to use them in his own defense. translator: i wonder how miss penny marshall sleeps after all the harm she inflicted on us. reporter: before the court cameras were rolling this morning i watched as radovan cara vich laughed and joked with his legal advisers. his strategy is now clear. the bosnian serbs are all victims and others are to blame. british reporters, western diplomats, and of course bosnian muslims. and don t expect justice any time soon. the verdict here is not expected for at three years. robert moore, itv news, in the hague. for more on the trial of radovan karavich we turn to a specialist on genocide and international law. she is belinda cooper, senior fellow at the world policy institute, a nonpartisan research organization based right here in new york. belinda, thank you very much for joining us on worldfocus. at the international criminal tribunal today we heard radovan speaking in his own defense, saying that his actions were just and holy. i mean, those are his words. what is his legal argument here, and do you think that this is going to work? he s not making a legal argument, he s grandstanding. he s making very general arguments that he thinks are in his favor, although i don t think they re going to have much effect. he s arguing that i think the serbs were victims, that this was a defensive action that he took. of course none of that is a defense to genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, the things he s been charged with. i think he s playing to his audience at home, maybe. perhaps really expressing what he believes. but none of this is relevant, really, to the legal argument or to his legal defense. how important do you think that this trial is to the people of the former yugoslavia? i think the trial is very important in general in the fact that these war crimes try do you knows exist is extremely important. they didn t exist 20 years ago, 15 years ago. this one started about 15 years ago. this is an amazing development, that we have trials like this. someone like him would have gotten away scot free before these tribunals existed. these are important. how important they are to the people of former yugoslavia is another question. i think trials like this one are unlikely to change people s minds. the tribunal hasn t been very popular in the countries of former yugoslavia. in each country, citizens believe many people believe they were the victims in the war. that they were in the right. some of these people who have been tried at the tribunal have been considered heroes at home. so i think the importance to the country, to yugoslavia itself, is perhaps a little bit less so than one will hope. i think it will take a generation before the children and grandchildren of the people who were involved start to, as in germany, for example, after world war ii, really start to think about what their own complicity was. but i think the tribunal in general is very important for the world, for ensuring that people are not granted impunity for the kind of crimes committed, and for perhaps their deterrent effect. and karavich is a former slobodan milosevic was also faced trial at the international tribunal. he died before his trial ended. what lessons do the international court learn from his trial that they might be able to apply in the case of karavich? i think the problem with the milosevic trial is it was allowed to drag on, he dragged it out. i think this trial, most likely that s not going to happen. i think already the court has said he has to begin that he managed to delay the tribunal for a number of months. the court has said, no more delay. i think this trial will be quicker than the milosevic. it s still going to take a couple of years. it also has to be quicker because the tribunal is slated to end its activity in a couple of years. it really has to complete the tribunal in less time than the milosevic trial took. belinda cooper, thank you very much for joining s. thank you. you heard a few minutes ago a verdict is not expected in the trial of radovan karavich for three years. he s representing himself and he has complained that the proceedings were moving too quickly. and that brings us to today s question. is the pace of justice too slow at international trials like this one? and what can be done to bring about faster resolutions? you can give us your opinion by going to the how you see it section of our website at worldfocus.org. and a follow-up tonight on a story about another alleged atrocity we brought youlier this month from nigeria. it was the purported execution of civilians by the country s special forces police after fighting between muslim militants and police left hundreds dead last year. the story was from our partner al jazeera english which showed these pictures of the police allegedly ordering the shooting of a group of unarmed young men. today the nigerian police said that they had detained 17 officers for questioning in connection with the shootings. a police spokesman said that the al jazeera video had led to the arrests. finally tonight, a story that we don t think you ll find elsewhere on american television. it s about one of the world s greatest musical geniuses, frederick chopin, born in poland 200 years ago on this day. we chose this story from deutsche welle because it s a fascinating look at chopin s life and full of the wonderful music chopin left the world. let s take a listen. reporter: chopin spent many years in exile. in his day, large parts of poland were ruled by russia. living in paris he fought back to the house in rural poland where he was born and he remembered his childhood in warsaw where he learned to play piano and compose music. reporter: we wondered how that longing is interpreted by today s musicians. music critic mikhail stegerman thinks it s usually done poorly. when he goes on the radio to argue with a colleague about new recordings, it sounds like this. sorry but that s just pure deed up. i just wanted to say something nice. but you can t say anything nice about this. it s impossible. this is one of those superfluous new chopin releases of which i fear we will have more than a few of this year. they ve just phoned to death. to put it bluntly, the big record labels are trying to produce a kind of young, pretty, marketable. they re plumped in front of a piano and told to play nocturnes. it has little to do with the past grade interpreters of chopin. most of what s been released this year is expenitentiariable. but there are exceptions. i think the young russian pianist anna gurari is truly remarkable. her recording of chopin mezurkas is of an unbelievable intensity and musicality. reporter: anna gurari is rehearsing for one of her numerous television appearses. she wants to free chopin from kitsch and bombast. for her he s more than a melancholy pole from the 19th century. translator: to me, chopin is a european, which is why i think his music is incredibly modern. he was born in poland, emigrated at the age of 20, and lived in austria, vienna, and in paris. no nation can lay so claim to him because he was an absolute european. the french consider him a french composer and in a way they re right. reporter: chopin emigrated to paris where he lived for 18 years. he spent his time in the areas where the rich and influential lived. where luxury is still on disphere the introverted genius impressed concertgoers with his restrained manner of playing. he died in paris but as per his wishes his heart was buried in a polish church. the timeless music of chopin. and that is worldfocus for this monday. you can find more news and perspective at worldfocus.org. drop us a line about the program. i m daljit dhaliwal in new york. for me and the rest of the team, thanks for joining us and good-bye. captions by vitac www.vitac.com major support for worldfocus has been provided by rosalind p. walter and the peter g. peterson foundation, dedicated to promoting fiscal responsibility and addressing key economic challenges facing america s future. and additional funding is provided by the following supporters