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Alan Keyes is Making Sense
Alan KeyesJune 24, 2002
ALAN KEYES, HOST: Welcome to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Up front tonight, the Bush Mideast plan. Is it a blueprint for peace?
Today, the president finally announced his proposal for the region, a proposal that apparently does not include Yasser Arafat as the leader of the Palestinian people.
This could be a significant development. And before we get to our guests, which include Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert and Marwan Kanafani of the Palestinian Authority, let's get the latest from Washington and this report from MSNBC White House correspondent David Gregory — David?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID GREGORY, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Written off, Yasser Arafat, referring to him today without mentioning his name, Bush said that Arafat is — quote — "compromised by terror." It is exactly what Israel wanted to hear.
(voice-over): The president's aides say he felt the situation in the Middle East had become untenable, requiring him to lay out a comprehensive vision for peace. He spoke of the need for a Palestinian homeland only after its people replace Arafat. To the Palestinians Bush said...
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership so that a Palestinian state can be born.
GREGORY: To Israel...
BUSH: The Palestinian authority has rejected your offered hand and trafficked with terrorists.
GREGORY: At the heart of the president's proposal, a Palestinian state within temporary borders, largely land they now control. Final borders will be the subject of intense negotiations. As far as a deadline, the target date will be three years, but that isn't firm.
What's important, officials say, is that the Palestinians must meet numerous conditions to get a permanent state: an end to terrorism, the creation of a new security force that will be trained and monitored by the U.S. and others, democratic reforms, including a constitution and an independent judicial system, financial reform subject to review by international organizations.
The president also called for new Palestinian elections by year's end. In the interim, the president pressured Arab states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria to crack down on terror groups like Hamas, who are responsible for so much violence and who could ultimately sabotage any chance for peace.
BUSH: To be counted on the side of peace, nations must act.
GREGORY: Bush does place demands on the Israelis, as well, but they are not immediate: partial withdrawal from the West Bank, a freeze on Israeli settlements, an eventual withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders. But those steps would only follow an end to Palestinian terror attacks.
Still, some Arab officials like what they heard.
ADEL AL-JUBEIR, SAUDI FOREIGN POLICY ADVISER: A clear vision of what the end game looks like. We now have it — a Palestinian state on essentially the 1967 borders.
GREGORY (on camera): But that end game is a long way off and there are major hurdles. Just two, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
David Gregory, MSNBC News, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEYES: Joining us now is Marwan Kanafani, the spokesman for the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Welcome to MAKING SENSE.
MARWAN KANAFANI, SPOKESMAN FOR YASSER ARAFAT: Thank you.
KEYES: The first question, obviously, is what is your reaction and what do you think Yasser Arafat's reaction is to the speech that the president gave this afternoon?
KANAFANI: Very disappointing. We were very disappointed and I think President Bush managed again to make Mr. Sharon happy and make the entire Palestinian people depressed and angry. I think that the president took a position that is not in favor of the peace process.
I think by personalizing the issue of Yasser Arafat, he is making things more difficult. There was another approach that the president could have taken and that approach should end violence on both sides and start meaningful negotiations to reach peace.
KEYES: You specifically think, then, that the problem in the president's speech was the clear implication that the Palestinian people need new leadership not associated with terror. But don't you think something like that is necessary to give some assurances that these terrorists will actually be opposed?
KANAFANI: Well, I think this is not under the jurisdiction of the president of the United States. The Palestinian people will decide if they want to change their leader, and I think in any elections that might come, that might happen, that might not happen.
The fact is that the president incited the Palestinian people against their leadership and in my opinion, that was not a very clever act of a political leader like in such a — like President Bush and that will not help the situation, as I told you.
KEYES: Well one of the thing that I thought did transpire over the weekend that I thought was very interesting was a report that was sourced to “Al-Haaretz” newspaper, that Arafat, Yasser Arafat had made the statement that he would now accept the proposals that were put on the table by President Clinton at Camp David, and then again at Wye River.
It does raise a question, doesn't it, because he seems to be admitting that in rejecting those proposals and unleashing the period that we have seen in the last little while, he made a big mistake that has cost a lot of people their lives. Don't you think he...
KANAFANI: I'm not going to...
KEYES: ... needs to back away from that?
KANAFANI: ... I'm not going to comment on a newspaper report. I think that there was no opportunity missed during the Camp David negotiations. The issue was not serious. We did not refuse something that was good for our people. It was an Israeli plan to divide the country, to have control all over the country on the boarders of the country and to prevent the Palestinians from movement, prevent them from building a state. That deal was not good.
KEYES: Well not let me get this straight, though. You are saying that that report in “Al-Haaretz” is false, and that Yasser Arafat did not say that he would now accept the terms that had been put forward by President Clinton at that time?
KANAFANI: That's correct.
KEYES: Well, then and so you are also rejecting, though, the terms that are put forward by President Bush in his speech this afternoon. What alternative is there to just continuing with this awful cycle of tragic violence?
KANAFANI: There is an alternative. You know the president should have — President Bush should have us both sides to stop violence. The Israeli incursion in our — in our country, in our territory is violent. The Israeli army is performing an act of violence against the Palestinian civilians and some civilians are performing also acts of violence against the Israeli occupation.
The only way out of this impasse is to ask both parties, not only one party like the president did, to withdraw their forces and stop the violence and go back to the negotiating table with the elected representative of the nations. We do not — you know, we don't like Sharon. You know in fact, if you want to talk about Sharon, Sharon is a man who is, until this moment, accused of crimes against humanity.
KEYES: But...
KANAFANI: And by the way I'm not — we're not — we're not arguing with that. He has been elected by the Israeli people.
KEYES: But there is ...
KANAFANI: We will deal with him as such.
KEYES: ... there's one problem though, I think, in term of both sides and so forth. It seems to me that I have heard Mr. Arafat admit on several occasions that he can't control the violent forces on the Palestinian side, that he cannot, in fact, stop these forces. Are you telling us tonight that he lied and that he can in fact ...
KANAFANI: No, no, no, no, no...
KEYES: ... bring these persons under control?
KANAFANI: Listen, you know I — you know, why don't you listen? Maybe you will learn something. The president did not say that. He said that I cannot stop violence, only on my own. I cannot stop violence when the Israelis are using violence against the Palestinian people. That's what the president said. There is no way that we could stop violence when the Israeli army is...
KEYES: Well...
KANAFANI: ... incursioning on our country.
KEYES: ... so you are saying — wait, wait, wait — so you are saying that he is in fact responsible for the violence that has been conducted...
KANAFANI: No, I'm not saying that. You're saying that, you know.
KEYES: Well, I don't understand. Either he is or he isn't, Mr. Kanafani.
KANAFANI: Stop deceiving the American people. Stop deceiving the American people. I did not say that. I said not President Arafat, not any other leader in the world could stop violence from one side when the Israelis are attacking the Palestinian cities and villages, killing Palestinian civilians, maiming the Palestinian children, then there is no way that the violence should stop. But if Mr. Sharon controlled his army, and withdraw from...
KEYES: Mr. Kanafani...
KANAFANI: ... from all territories, and Mr. Arafat then will be able with the cooperation of Sharon to stop violence.
KEYES: Mr. Kanafani, I want to thank you for appearing with us tonight.
KANAFANI: Thank you.
KEYES: Appreciate it very much, glad we were able to hear a reaction from Mr. Arafat. Appreciate your being with us.
Joining us now Jerusalem to — also with a reaction to the president's proposal is Ehud Olmert, the mayor of Jerusalem. Welcome to MAKING SENSE.
EHUD OLMERT, JERUSALEM MAYOR: Good evening Alan.
KEYES: Well, what is your sense of what the president had to say this afternoon?
OLMERT: I think the president say the most simple and obvious truth about the situation in the Middle East that every person, I believe every American feel this way and expected the president to say — he basically said we are fighting terror everywhere. It's about time that we will fight terrorists in the Middle East, and the chief of the terrorist in the Middle East is Yasser Arafat.
So if we want to make peace, we have to get rid of the one who causes this terror in the Middle East and this is Yasser Arafat. And I think that this is the most obvious truth and we have enormous respect for the president for being able to spell it out the way it is. You know, it's great to finally have someone who is president of the United States of America who is not playing like a politician, who is a statesman and he is capable of spelling out the truth in a way that touches the hearts of so many people.
KEYES: Well, we just heard from a spokesman for Yasser Arafat, who obviously was not happy with the implication in the president's speech that new leadership is needed not associated with terror. Do you think that there's any prospect or likelihood that Yasser Arafat and those who still support him, will respond in a positive way to what the president had to say? We didn't seem to hear that response tonight.
OLMERT: Well Alan, definitely not immediately. But I think it was very interesting. The president didn't come and say, you know, "Kill him. Expel him." He just presented a choice to the Palestinian people. He said, "Hey, guys, you want to have peace? Then you need to use the authority that you can exercise in order to choose leaders that are ready to make peace." That's as simple as that.
Now it's incumbent to the Palestinian people. It certainly will not happen tomorrow because there is no democracy there. You know, Mr. Kanafani can say speak whatever he wants to say, but we all know there is not one single Arab society in the world, or Muslim society in the world which is democratic, neither the Palestinians nor any other.
KEYES: Well one of the problem I do see, though, which I think was foreshadowed a little bit in the response tonight from Mr. Kanafani, on the one hand, saying that there had to be a call for both sides to stop violence. And yet there seemed to be an implication that as long as Israel has to act against these terrorists in a forceful way, then that becomes an excuse for continued terrorism in an endless kind of cycle.
But it does point to a question, though. In the period where one is working to build institutions, have elections, transform leadership, do other things, there is still going to be a problem with these terrorists and with the need to do something to meet their force and stop their efforts to kill people. Does that mean an ongoing and continuing requirement for action by Israeli defense forces in the West Bank?
OLMERT: Look, Alan, if the Palestinians will try to combat terror effectively, it will definitely influence also the degree and the intensity of the Israeli operations. The fact is that, you know, there is so much talk about it, but Arafat didn't lift his finger up until now to do anything against terror. I mean, we are talking, and talking, and talking.
But, and that's what I guess frustrated the president so much, that after talking so much, after giving so many warnings, after advising the government of Israel many times to restrain its reaction in order to give Arafat a chance to do something, he did nothing, zero.
He continued to finance terror. He continued to support it. He continued to orchestrate it. He continued to speak on two different levels. To the media, he said, of course, that he condemns terrorist actions, and underneath he continued to support and finance it. So basically, if the Palestinians will show, and we have ways of knowing what they are really doing, and America has ways of knowing what they're really doing, if we will see that the Palestinians are effectively trying to battle it, and it takes time, of course, you can't stop it altogether overnight.
But if Arafat will seriously take it as a matter of the highest importance, and highest priority, and will fight terror, then of course even if there will be still be some expressions of terror, Israel will address its reaction to the efforts made by Arafat. But there hasn't yet been any case that justifies an Israeli strength.
KEYES: Well that essentially means, though, and this is one thing that I see that might be an obstacle here, that one must try to create an effective Palestinian-Arab response to this terrorism, essentially, to be quite frank about it, Mr. Olmert, you must fight a civil war on the Palestinian side against the terrorist elements, organized to fight that battle, while basically under the gun of the terrorists themselves, as that gun has been cocked and held at the head of Palestinian people as well. Do you think that that effort can be successfully organized under those circumstances?
OLMERT: It can be organized and America is ready to help those forces to organize themselves, and we are ready to help them if they are serious about it. But you have to understand, Alan, you know, it's ridiculous. We live in a very crooked world there. Arafat is the head of the terrorist groups. He is not the one who fights them. He's the one that organizes the terrorist groups.
The main terrorist operation in the last few weeks were done by Tanzim, a branch of the Fatah which is the organization of Yasser Arafat. So we are talking as if there is a problem. There is a confrontation between Arafat and the Hamas and the Hezbollah and the Islamic jihad and they are strong and Arafat can't control it. This is all ridiculous.
KEYES: Yes.
OLMERT: Most of the terrorist actions are perpetuated by Arafat himself, by people that he finances, that he equips with the weapons and explosives and everyone says, "What do you want from Arafat? He can't control it." What do you mean he can't control it? He operates it. He's the commander of terror in the Middle East.
KEYES: Mr. Mayor, I — as you know, I think that that's a true analysis, but it does raise a question about what one does. I think in order to replace Mr. Arafat and have an effective force that can act against the terror that he has been sponsoring, I think is a real insight.
Thank you for being with us tonight.
OLMERT: Thank you very much Alan.
KEYES: I really appreciate it.
OLMERT: Good night. Thank you.
KEYES: We are going to continue, of course, to discuss the president's speech as we get to the heart of the matter and look at the president's plan and whether it offers some hope for eventual peace in the region.
Our friends Frank Gaffney and Charles Kupchan will square off right here on America's news channel, coming up on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: President Bush is heading to the G-8 summit in Canada this week. High on the agenda, how to help the poor, the starving and the impoverished in Africa.
Coming up in our next half hour, we'll tackle one of the many problems on the African continent, slavery in Sudan and whether the trafficking of human beings is partially being funded with American dollars.
A reminder that the chat room is humming tonight and you can join in right now at chat.msnbc.com.
But first, another topic high on the agenda at the G-8 is sure to be President Bush's new proposal for Mideast peace.
Joining us to get to the heart of the matter, Frank Gaffney, the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy. He was a former assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration. Also with us, Charlie Kupchan, a former National Security Council member during the Clinton administration, now a professor of international studies at Georgetown University. Welcome to MAKING SENSE.
FRANK GAFFNEY, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: Thank you Alan.
KEYES: Now I think I want very quickly now to get a quick take from both of you as to how you respond to the president's speech this afternoon. Let me start with you, Frank. What did you think?
GAFFNEY: It wasn't as bad as I thought it might have been Alan, but I think it's bad in a number of respects. I think it represents, once again, this notion that somehow we'll be able by simply making new efforts, new investments, political capital, what have you, in a peace process that will overcome the underlying realities.
I'm afraid that you don't overcome those realities by ignoring them, and while I commend the president for basically saying, "Look, a number of things have to happen to change those realities," my fear is this is sort of the bizarre, if you will. This is where the haggling begins and that these various preconditions are going to be eroded, and what we'll see is Israel left, I'm afraid, in a position where it is unable to defend itself against people who remain determined to destroy it.
KEYES: Charles?
CHARLES KUPCHAN, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Alan, there are two thing I like about it and two things I don't. The good bits are that number one, he has basically said Arafat needs slowly to go. But he's cautioning the Israelis not to get him and take him out and send him into exile. I think that would be a mistake, but to move to some more natural process of political evolution.
The other thing I like is that he clearly made a declaration of a state conditional. That is you got to do X, Y, and Z, have functioning institutions before we will recognize the state.
The bad parts I my mind are the timing. I don't know why he gave it in the midst of the struggle in Ramallah continued suicide bombers. We're talking about this tonight. My guess is most people won't be talking it tomorrow. And the other thing I'm not wild about is the sense that he didn't really lay out much that's new. He didn't tell us a plan, a road map for how to get from A to Z. So in that sense, I don't think we know a lot more tonight than we did at noon before the speech was given about U.S. policy.
KEYES: Well, let me try to speak for a moment, because I actually thought that the speech had one really significant element, and that significant element was to lay squarely on the table the simple fact that institution-building, that is to say, the building of institutions of real representative self-government, is a prerequisite for peace in this region, and that that is a responsibility on the Palestinian side and the responsibility of the Arab states. I thought a clear articulation of that as a first priority, putting the onus on the Palestinians and on the Arabs for the development of the right kinds of institutions of self-government was actually a significant step, to have it clearly stated by an American administration. And it's a process that I think was long overdue in terms of outlining that set of Arab responsibilities to real self-government, that is, a prerequisite for the kind of state that might actually be able to maintain the peace.
The one problem I had, really big problem, is that we're dealing with a reality here that there are a bunch of folks on the Palestinian side who want to kill people and who are deeply and seriously committed to killing them, and are doing every day by all the different ugly means that we are aware of.
What in the speech, Frank, offers the solid instrument with which this killing is to be stopped so that the Israelis won't have to be intervening all the time and providing an excuse for propaganda to attack them?
GAFFNEY: That's my concern about it, Alan. I don't think it does that. I think to the contrary, it indicates that the Israelis ought to be pulling back now or certainly in the very near future first to the positions that they held in September, and then to the so-called green line where they began in 1967 when attacked by Arab armies bent on the destruction of the city of Israel.
I believe that this is again the underlying problem. It's not just the Islamic jihad, the Hamas and Hezbollah, or even Arafat's Palestinian Authority that remain committed to the destruction of the state of Israel. It is apparently a substantial majority of the Palestinian people who aspire to that as well.
And I think as long as we are signaling that this will be rewarded, that the violence that's taken place so far will conduce to perhaps not peace, but certainly to some kind of Palestinian state, you're going to get more violence. That's not good.
KEYES: Now, Charles Kupchan, I put the same question to you. Who is actually going to stand up to these killers and stop them? Because at one level, what is clearly required here, and we're all talking about it kind of behind in different ways and in circumlocution, you need a civil war on the Palestinian side, forces that opposed the terror violence, to go against the forces that are conducting it, and to defeat them so that they stop.
Who's going to take on that responsibility? It sounded to me like Mr. Kanafani was using the usual weasel formulations to keep Mr. Arafat from having to commit to that real battle. So who's going to do it?
KUPCHAN: Well I think the answer, Alan, is related to the point you made a few minutes ago, in that the Bush administration has said, and I think rightfully, you can't just say there is a state. We recognize a state. First you have to do the hard work of building institutions, new security forces, people that will have an interest, a vested interest in seeing some sort of stable Palestinian middle class. And I think what Bush has said is, "Let's start working on that. Let's put the Arafat era behind us and try to, through inducements, through giving money, through cell phones, try to build some responsible Palestinian middle class that will fight against the terrorists."
Will it happen? I don't know. But that's clearly what he's betting on.
KEYES: Here's the hard part. The hard part is that if you were to wave a magic wand and there were to be a free and open election right today among all of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza, I would myself be surprised if Yasser Arafat got elected. I think the radical leaders of the bloodthirsty Hamas or the Al-Aqsa Martyrs or somebody would get elected.
KUPCHAN: We don't know yet. I mean his polls have been dropping...
KEYES: No I'm — Charles, Charles, I'm not talking about his polls. His polls are dropping in favor of more extreme elements, and I think that that's the problem. You can't suddenly wave a magic wand and change the consequences of years of indoctrination.
The culture of violence and death preached over the airwaves, inculcated in the schools, and so forth, it's not going to happen. Free elections taken among a people committed to violence are going to get a leadership committed to violence. Frank, how do you change that leadership in that process?
GAFFNEY: Well, I don't think it's by creating conditions under which they are empowered to be more, better able, really, to pursue the agenda that they've remained committed to from the beginning, which is the destruction of the state of Israel. And this is, again, this is the underlying reality, Alan.
I can't see why it's in America's interests, let alone in Israel's interests to have yet another irredentist radical Arab despotism, maybe one that came to power through the old one-man, one-vote, one-time process. When the institutions don't turn out to be what Charles and I hope they might be, and you create conditions that, in fact, are leading to war, not to peace.
KEYES: Let me try a radical suggestion that I'm sure everybody in the world will reject. I think that in the region right now there is a ready-made Wyatt Earp who could step into this disorderly West Bank filled with the gang thugs and so forth. Throw out the six-gun take them on and has at least in terms of the regime, has done it already successfully.
And that is the Jordanian monarchy. And you would also have a situation where Arab Muslims were taking on the responsibility of dealing with Arabs, so the propagandas couldn't say this was some war against Islam and all that other garbage they use if it's Americans or Israelis.
Because something actual has to be done here, with an organized force that can really take on these thugs, and I don't see how you organize such a force when every day the people trying to organize it will be subject to the same slaughter themselves that is threatening the Israelis. You need a ready-made, organized force, and I think there is one. Why shouldn't the king of Jordan take on this responsibility, Charles?
KUPCHAN: I don't disagree that you need someone to go in there and serve as a separator between the Israelis and the Palestinians. That's why I think the speech was short on specifics. I think you need — the president needs to lay out some sense of how do you get from A to B?
How do you get to a situation where you can even think about free and fair elections? Should it be the Jordanians? Should it be the U.N.? Tom Friedman of the “New York Times” has suggested it should be U.S. forces. I don't know what the answer is, but I agree with you that we do need to think about getting a third party in there.
KEYES: I...
GAFFNEY: We sure don't want...
KEYES: ... go ahead.
GAFFNEY: ... American forces there, Alan.
KEYES: Right.
GAFFNEY: That's for sure.
KEYES: I think that putting American forces in there is insane. We'd simply give a field day to the haters to hate us some more because there's going to be killing involved here, Charles. This isn't some peacekeeping effort. There is no peace to keep. There's a war to be fought, a war on the terrorist elements among the Palestinians.
And I don't see how anybody except the Arab-Muslims themselves can take on that war without being faulted on religious grounds or imperialism grounds or some other silly grounds. It's a responsibility the Arabs have to accept, and I think the king's in an ideal position to take the lead for them.
KUPCHAN: I'm just not sure that's a feasible proposal. You think the Jordanians and the Saudis and the Egyptians are going to go into the West Bank and start killing Palestinians? I don't really see that as a way out.
The status quo is not working, we're sliding toward a worse and worse situation. That's why the Israelis are there today, but I think we need to think more creatively about how to get some sort of international force in there, even if only short term to try to move us back to a plateau where you can begin building institutions and see a light at the end of the tunnel.
KEYES: Since we are dealing in the context of a worldwide terror war that has used as an excuse religious elements of the Middle Eastern conflict, the notion that some non-Islamic, non-Arab force can be injected in there to do the hard work of keeping and putting down these ugly killers — I think it lets us all in for further problems. This is an Arab responsibility and Frank, I thought the president pretty clearly put the onus on their shoulders today, and I was glad.
Gentlemen, thank you.
GAFFNEY: Thank you, Alan.
KEYES: We really appreciate you being with us. We have run out of time. We can talk about this a lot more. I hope you'll come back.
Next, the modern day slave trade in Sudan. Are Americans involved? We'll have a debate, and talk to a man who spent 10 years as a slave.
You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Later this week, President Bush meets with G-8 leaders on the agenda, a plan to significantly help Africa with health care and economic development. Tonight, we're going to highlight the plight of Sudan in the east, a country that has suffered from decades of civil war and a government which has caused men, women and children to be kidnapped, tortured and forced into slavery, among other things, sold, in some cases, for $33, less than the going rate for a goat.
Meanwhile, the White House has stalled a bill that would punish foreign companies that are in partnership with the Sudanese government in oil development, thereby providing the kind of funds that are used to buy weapons, and so continue this policy of persecution. Is the U.S. trading lives for oil?
First, joining us to paint the picture of the slave trade in Sudan is Francis Bok, a former Sudanese slave who was kidnapped at the age of seven and spent ten years of his life as a slave. Also with us, Ambassador Adbel Bagi Kabeir, the deputy chief of mission of the Sudanese embassy. Gentlemen, welcome both of you to MAKING SENSE.
AMB. ABDEL BAGI KABEIR, SUDANESE EMBASSY: Thank you.
FRANCIS BOK, FORMER SUDANESE SLAVE: Thank you.
KEYES: Francis, I want first to start with you, to give you just a chance to briefly share with the audience the experience of your life. You were actually the victim of these slave traders. What happened?
BOK: Well, what happened is is was 1986, when I was seven years old, my mother sent me to the market with other kids, which I went to the market. I didn't know something was going to happen to me in the next 30 minutes.
We got to the local market and were sitting under a big tree. Within the last 15 minutes we were in the market, we heard a gun was shooting and I heard an adult next to us saying that we saw big smoke and they were flying towards the village where we came from. In that moment, a lot of people started leaving the market.
And, eventually, I still there busy because I was excited to be in the market with other kids because I never had a chance to go to the market by myself. In this moment, we saw a lot of people coming towards to us, the horsemen and camelmen and a lot of people walking with machine guns. And they start shooting the people on the market. There was — a militia came from the north, and just stormed the market and started shooting the men.
I tried to run away and then I was captured by the horsemen. They took me and other children as slaves, which I witness a 12-year-old being shot in front of my eyes because she was screaming on the way. And one of the militia men told her to stop crying but she couldn't stop crying and she got shot in the head.
On the way up to the north, we divided two militiamen and I was given to a guy called Jim Abdullah. When I first came to Jim Abdullah's house, he called the whole family to meet me. And they — all his children had sticks and they all bit me and they laughed and called me abid (ph), abid (ph), which just means black slave. That was my welcome.
And I've been thinking all night how I am going to go back to see my parents again and how I'm going to see my friends who came to the market with me. And that never changed. Since that day, I never seen my parents again.
KEYES: Now how long were you held as a slave?
BOK: I've been a slave from age seven to seventeen, ten years being in slavery, you know, since 1986 to 1996.
KEYES: And were you always with the same people?
BOK: I was always working with the same person, doing the same job that he told me to do when I first came, was to take care of his goats. And then when I grow up, he switched my job to take care of his cows. This was my job, to take care of his cattle.
KEYES: And how did you get out of that situation? How did you escape?
BOK: Well, it was really hard situation. I did plan it since I've been there, even I knew that I was young, I promised myself that I'm not going to be here forever. I knew this is totally the wrong place to me and I didn't want to be treated the way they treat me and also the way I saw slaves were treated badly.
You know, I began to being asked my master to do my job the way he told me to do, but I'm leading another life which he didn't know. I'm planning to get away. And I did try until when I reached the age of 14 years old, I first decided to escape. And before that, I asked him a trick question that made me decide to escape immediately.
You know, while I've been there, I asked him one day, Jim Abdullah, I asked him why he called me abid, black slave, and why he forced me to live as animals and why nobody loved me. When I asked him those questions, he didn't answer to me. He told me that never ever ask me those questions again. You know, when he beat me up, you know, because he didn't like my questions.
KEYES: Now, if you can give me a moment, I want to turn to Ambassador Kabeir, because I have heard and talked to many people. I've even talked to folks who have been part of the efforts to buy people out of slavery, who have been sold into slavery in Sudan. And many folks implicate the Sudanese government as well as other elements in this trafficking. What do you say to that charge?
KABEIR: Well, thank you, first, for having me on the show and giving me an opportunity for both sides of the story to be told.
But in responding to your question, it's very important to know that all the allegations that have been curried against the government of Sudan or against the people of Sudan are baseless simply because currently, we do have a war going on in the country, unfortunately, as you said at the beginning of the show, for so many decades. And during war time, bad things happen.
And as far as we're concerned, war is the real crime. The real problem is the war itself. And now, our focus is towards ending the war and not focusing on citing examples of acts which are questionable, very seriously questionable, and, first and foremost, not acceptable. This government is not doing it as a policy.
KEYES: So, you are saying then, you know that there is trafficking in slaves, that people have been kidnapped and sold into slavery? That is actually taking place, but it's an incident of the war?
KABEIR: No. I'm telling you — I'm not saying that anything of such is happening. There is abduction, it's true. And the abduction has been going on unfortunately in most of the African countries ever since, due to the tribal wars. And my friend — or my brother who was speaking right now and saying that he had been kidnapped, as if all the people in southern Sudan or northern Sudan, and that means myself, I should have been a slave as well too. I shouldn't be here representing the government.
So, the story doesn't work, that because he says he walked all the way from southern Sudan up the way into Cairo, I don't know how he made it. My question should be how did he move from the south to the north...
KEYES: Doesn't a government, though, have a responsibility to stop this kind of trafficking of human life? I mean, I take a deep personal interest in this. Somebody sold one of my ancestors into slavery in just this fashion centuries ago. And it seems like we thought that something had been done to stop it, and it's going on right in the very place where it was going on centuries ago. Doesn't your government have a responsibility to step in and stop this?
KABEIR: The government has a responsibility to make sure that nobody has been abducted. And the government is actually acting, and ever since this issue has been brought into the light of concentration, especially by NGOs, the government has taken very clear, major steps. And I'm sure you must be aware that just a couple of weeks ago, a group of imminent (ph) persons have been appointed as a result of Senator Danforth's efforts, Bush's special envoy to Sudan for peace.
And the group has just released a report and they have not said that slavery, per se, as we know here in the United States now, does exist. There's no such thing. They're saying that there are abductions. And the government has never denied that there are abductions taking place between the southerners themselves, between the northerners themselves.
And what I'm trying to say, that the situation where my brother here is describing, it's very important to outline the nature of the relationship between the tribes themselves, being the Dinka tribe, where I'm sure that where he's from, and the Arab origin tribes and the — who are having problem in the grazing lands. But, nevertheless, what we are concentrating on right now, and as I'm talking to you right now, there are peace talks going on now to stop the war and make sure that everybody is not being hurt.
KEYES: Now you are saying, because I have talked to folks who have simply stated explicitly that the government of Sudan uses these kidnappings, among other things, as a weapon in this war against those who are opposing them. And that they have also refused humanitarian flights, food, aid, other things have been done which they have plead on military excuse, but they have been getting in the way of these humanitarian efforts. Are you telling me that's false?
KABEIR: I'm telling you that is not true. That's different from what you're saying. It depends how you are describing it. And I'm trying to tell you that the government has not been stopping the food going into the needy people. I've been in charge of that one. In fact, actually, I was on the other side, on the regular side for a couple of years, more than eight to nine years.
I had some disagreement a couple of years back and I went to the Sudan. So I'm trying to tell you that the outside groups who are interested in the continuation of the war in the Sudan are not doing the war (ph) to make sure that a comprehensive cease-fire is achieved rather than people talking about the byproducts of war, which I agree with you that it's not something that is going on...
KEYES: Mr. Ambassador?
KABEIR: Yes, please.
KEYES: We have come to the end of our time. I want to thank both you and Francis for joining us tonight and putting both sides of this issue on the table, Francis, in a very moving and first-hand account of one person's life.
And we're going to talk next to a Congressman who is fighting to use U.S. financial muscle against the slavery traffic in Sudan.
Stay with us. You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: We're back talking about slavery in the Sudan, in particular, and in other parts of the world.
Joining us now, Republican Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey. He's a member of the International Relations Committee, and he has fought for the abolition of the trafficking in persons, this modern practice of slavery around the world. Chris, welcome back to MAKING SENSE.
REP. CHRIS SMITH (R), NEW JERSEY: Alan, thanks for inviting me back.
KEYES: Well, I am always glad to talk to you, especially about this urgent and important topic to which you've given such high priority. And I want to thank you for that because I think it's critically important.
For step No. 1, we were just talking, one, to Francis Bok and to the representative from the Sudanese embassy saying the kinds of things one would expect him to say. But all that I have seen, read over the years suggest that there has been a conscious complicity of the Sudanese government in this trafficking. It has been used as an element, a weapon, if you like, in the civil war against targeted non-Muslim populations in particular. Is that your sense of it as well?
SMITH: It is absolutely my assessment. As a matter of fact, Alan, I had the first hearing, the first congressional hearing ever held on modern day slavery in the Sudan. It was in 1996. And when we had that hearing, we were met with disbelief. The U.S. civil rights community by and large thought that it was an exaggeration, that we were engaging in hyperbole.
And we heard from many nongovernmental organizations and even victims who came out and spoke both at the hearing and then later on at a press conference that we had about this abomination called slavery, shadow slavery, where men and women and children are bought and sold. The Khartoum government has been doing it for years. The 19, 20-year-old civil war has given them added reason, more crime to add upon the crime of 2 million dead, 4 million displaced people in Sudan as a result of this horrific war that they have carried on against their own people.
KEYES: Now, you have placed before the Congress a law, Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. What is this aimed at doing, this bill that you've proposed?
SMITH: It's actually been signed into law. It's a very comprehensive bill that aims at prosecuting those who traffic, harbor, seduce in a way by force, fraud or coercion, mostly women, although boys and young children are often trafficked. We think the estimate from the state department now is upwards of 4 million people who are trafficked globally, 50,000 into the United States of America every year.
And they end up in our brothels, in our major cities. And these are women, mostly, who are raped every day. We now have up to life imprisonment for that kind of behavior and we treat the victims, the women, as victims. And we don't deport them. We've created a new (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and on and on.
KEYES: Now there's also — we're running out of time. There is also a proposal before the Congress that would actually target the spigots of financial support for governments like Sudan that engage in trafficking. Do you support that effort, or do you think it's got to go?
SMITH: Oh, without a doubt. Tom Tancredo is the prime sponsor of that bill. It's already passed the House and the Senate. We're waiting to get it to conference. There are those in the administration trying to stop it.
It says that groups like Talisman Oil, which is sold — and people buy shares in the United States, it is a Canadian-based oil company which has become the lifeline for the Khartoum government, the Sudanese government, to continue to wage this war. They buy the helicopters and the planes by selling oil. If you cut off the oil and deny them access to our markets, we then can cut off, we think, or at least cripple this war so that less people are killed.
KEYES: Chris, I'm going to have to run. I want to thank you for the efforts that you're making, and I hope that bill will move forward.
SMITH: Thank you, Alan.
KEYES: Next, we get to my “Outrage of the Day,” hopefully. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Now my “Outrage of the Day.”
I've told you how Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe have shut down thousands of white farmers who were producing food for his people. He brought the country now to the brink of starvation. To push them over, over the weekend, he shut down 2,000 more farms so that the people will surely starve. What sense does that make?
That's my sense of it. Thanks. I'll see you tomorrow.
Up front tonight, the Bush Mideast plan. Is it a blueprint for peace?
Today, the president finally announced his proposal for the region, a proposal that apparently does not include Yasser Arafat as the leader of the Palestinian people.
This could be a significant development. And before we get to our guests, which include Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert and Marwan Kanafani of the Palestinian Authority, let's get the latest from Washington and this report from MSNBC White House correspondent David Gregory — David?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID GREGORY, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Written off, Yasser Arafat, referring to him today without mentioning his name, Bush said that Arafat is — quote — "compromised by terror." It is exactly what Israel wanted to hear.
(voice-over): The president's aides say he felt the situation in the Middle East had become untenable, requiring him to lay out a comprehensive vision for peace. He spoke of the need for a Palestinian homeland only after its people replace Arafat. To the Palestinians Bush said...
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership so that a Palestinian state can be born.
GREGORY: To Israel...
BUSH: The Palestinian authority has rejected your offered hand and trafficked with terrorists.
GREGORY: At the heart of the president's proposal, a Palestinian state within temporary borders, largely land they now control. Final borders will be the subject of intense negotiations. As far as a deadline, the target date will be three years, but that isn't firm.
What's important, officials say, is that the Palestinians must meet numerous conditions to get a permanent state: an end to terrorism, the creation of a new security force that will be trained and monitored by the U.S. and others, democratic reforms, including a constitution and an independent judicial system, financial reform subject to review by international organizations.
The president also called for new Palestinian elections by year's end. In the interim, the president pressured Arab states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria to crack down on terror groups like Hamas, who are responsible for so much violence and who could ultimately sabotage any chance for peace.
BUSH: To be counted on the side of peace, nations must act.
GREGORY: Bush does place demands on the Israelis, as well, but they are not immediate: partial withdrawal from the West Bank, a freeze on Israeli settlements, an eventual withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders. But those steps would only follow an end to Palestinian terror attacks.
Still, some Arab officials like what they heard.
ADEL AL-JUBEIR, SAUDI FOREIGN POLICY ADVISER: A clear vision of what the end game looks like. We now have it — a Palestinian state on essentially the 1967 borders.
GREGORY (on camera): But that end game is a long way off and there are major hurdles. Just two, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
David Gregory, MSNBC News, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEYES: Joining us now is Marwan Kanafani, the spokesman for the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Welcome to MAKING SENSE.
MARWAN KANAFANI, SPOKESMAN FOR YASSER ARAFAT: Thank you.
KEYES: The first question, obviously, is what is your reaction and what do you think Yasser Arafat's reaction is to the speech that the president gave this afternoon?
KANAFANI: Very disappointing. We were very disappointed and I think President Bush managed again to make Mr. Sharon happy and make the entire Palestinian people depressed and angry. I think that the president took a position that is not in favor of the peace process.
I think by personalizing the issue of Yasser Arafat, he is making things more difficult. There was another approach that the president could have taken and that approach should end violence on both sides and start meaningful negotiations to reach peace.
KEYES: You specifically think, then, that the problem in the president's speech was the clear implication that the Palestinian people need new leadership not associated with terror. But don't you think something like that is necessary to give some assurances that these terrorists will actually be opposed?
KANAFANI: Well, I think this is not under the jurisdiction of the president of the United States. The Palestinian people will decide if they want to change their leader, and I think in any elections that might come, that might happen, that might not happen.
The fact is that the president incited the Palestinian people against their leadership and in my opinion, that was not a very clever act of a political leader like in such a — like President Bush and that will not help the situation, as I told you.
KEYES: Well one of the thing that I thought did transpire over the weekend that I thought was very interesting was a report that was sourced to “Al-Haaretz” newspaper, that Arafat, Yasser Arafat had made the statement that he would now accept the proposals that were put on the table by President Clinton at Camp David, and then again at Wye River.
It does raise a question, doesn't it, because he seems to be admitting that in rejecting those proposals and unleashing the period that we have seen in the last little while, he made a big mistake that has cost a lot of people their lives. Don't you think he...
KANAFANI: I'm not going to...
KEYES: ... needs to back away from that?
KANAFANI: ... I'm not going to comment on a newspaper report. I think that there was no opportunity missed during the Camp David negotiations. The issue was not serious. We did not refuse something that was good for our people. It was an Israeli plan to divide the country, to have control all over the country on the boarders of the country and to prevent the Palestinians from movement, prevent them from building a state. That deal was not good.
KEYES: Well not let me get this straight, though. You are saying that that report in “Al-Haaretz” is false, and that Yasser Arafat did not say that he would now accept the terms that had been put forward by President Clinton at that time?
KANAFANI: That's correct.
KEYES: Well, then and so you are also rejecting, though, the terms that are put forward by President Bush in his speech this afternoon. What alternative is there to just continuing with this awful cycle of tragic violence?
KANAFANI: There is an alternative. You know the president should have — President Bush should have us both sides to stop violence. The Israeli incursion in our — in our country, in our territory is violent. The Israeli army is performing an act of violence against the Palestinian civilians and some civilians are performing also acts of violence against the Israeli occupation.
The only way out of this impasse is to ask both parties, not only one party like the president did, to withdraw their forces and stop the violence and go back to the negotiating table with the elected representative of the nations. We do not — you know, we don't like Sharon. You know in fact, if you want to talk about Sharon, Sharon is a man who is, until this moment, accused of crimes against humanity.
KEYES: But...
KANAFANI: And by the way I'm not — we're not — we're not arguing with that. He has been elected by the Israeli people.
KEYES: But there is ...
KANAFANI: We will deal with him as such.
KEYES: ... there's one problem though, I think, in term of both sides and so forth. It seems to me that I have heard Mr. Arafat admit on several occasions that he can't control the violent forces on the Palestinian side, that he cannot, in fact, stop these forces. Are you telling us tonight that he lied and that he can in fact ...
KANAFANI: No, no, no, no, no...
KEYES: ... bring these persons under control?
KANAFANI: Listen, you know I — you know, why don't you listen? Maybe you will learn something. The president did not say that. He said that I cannot stop violence, only on my own. I cannot stop violence when the Israelis are using violence against the Palestinian people. That's what the president said. There is no way that we could stop violence when the Israeli army is...
KEYES: Well...
KANAFANI: ... incursioning on our country.
KEYES: ... so you are saying — wait, wait, wait — so you are saying that he is in fact responsible for the violence that has been conducted...
KANAFANI: No, I'm not saying that. You're saying that, you know.
KEYES: Well, I don't understand. Either he is or he isn't, Mr. Kanafani.
KANAFANI: Stop deceiving the American people. Stop deceiving the American people. I did not say that. I said not President Arafat, not any other leader in the world could stop violence from one side when the Israelis are attacking the Palestinian cities and villages, killing Palestinian civilians, maiming the Palestinian children, then there is no way that the violence should stop. But if Mr. Sharon controlled his army, and withdraw from...
KEYES: Mr. Kanafani...
KANAFANI: ... from all territories, and Mr. Arafat then will be able with the cooperation of Sharon to stop violence.
KEYES: Mr. Kanafani, I want to thank you for appearing with us tonight.
KANAFANI: Thank you.
KEYES: Appreciate it very much, glad we were able to hear a reaction from Mr. Arafat. Appreciate your being with us.
Joining us now Jerusalem to — also with a reaction to the president's proposal is Ehud Olmert, the mayor of Jerusalem. Welcome to MAKING SENSE.
EHUD OLMERT, JERUSALEM MAYOR: Good evening Alan.
KEYES: Well, what is your sense of what the president had to say this afternoon?
OLMERT: I think the president say the most simple and obvious truth about the situation in the Middle East that every person, I believe every American feel this way and expected the president to say — he basically said we are fighting terror everywhere. It's about time that we will fight terrorists in the Middle East, and the chief of the terrorist in the Middle East is Yasser Arafat.
So if we want to make peace, we have to get rid of the one who causes this terror in the Middle East and this is Yasser Arafat. And I think that this is the most obvious truth and we have enormous respect for the president for being able to spell it out the way it is. You know, it's great to finally have someone who is president of the United States of America who is not playing like a politician, who is a statesman and he is capable of spelling out the truth in a way that touches the hearts of so many people.
KEYES: Well, we just heard from a spokesman for Yasser Arafat, who obviously was not happy with the implication in the president's speech that new leadership is needed not associated with terror. Do you think that there's any prospect or likelihood that Yasser Arafat and those who still support him, will respond in a positive way to what the president had to say? We didn't seem to hear that response tonight.
OLMERT: Well Alan, definitely not immediately. But I think it was very interesting. The president didn't come and say, you know, "Kill him. Expel him." He just presented a choice to the Palestinian people. He said, "Hey, guys, you want to have peace? Then you need to use the authority that you can exercise in order to choose leaders that are ready to make peace." That's as simple as that.
Now it's incumbent to the Palestinian people. It certainly will not happen tomorrow because there is no democracy there. You know, Mr. Kanafani can say speak whatever he wants to say, but we all know there is not one single Arab society in the world, or Muslim society in the world which is democratic, neither the Palestinians nor any other.
KEYES: Well one of the problem I do see, though, which I think was foreshadowed a little bit in the response tonight from Mr. Kanafani, on the one hand, saying that there had to be a call for both sides to stop violence. And yet there seemed to be an implication that as long as Israel has to act against these terrorists in a forceful way, then that becomes an excuse for continued terrorism in an endless kind of cycle.
But it does point to a question, though. In the period where one is working to build institutions, have elections, transform leadership, do other things, there is still going to be a problem with these terrorists and with the need to do something to meet their force and stop their efforts to kill people. Does that mean an ongoing and continuing requirement for action by Israeli defense forces in the West Bank?
OLMERT: Look, Alan, if the Palestinians will try to combat terror effectively, it will definitely influence also the degree and the intensity of the Israeli operations. The fact is that, you know, there is so much talk about it, but Arafat didn't lift his finger up until now to do anything against terror. I mean, we are talking, and talking, and talking.
But, and that's what I guess frustrated the president so much, that after talking so much, after giving so many warnings, after advising the government of Israel many times to restrain its reaction in order to give Arafat a chance to do something, he did nothing, zero.
He continued to finance terror. He continued to support it. He continued to orchestrate it. He continued to speak on two different levels. To the media, he said, of course, that he condemns terrorist actions, and underneath he continued to support and finance it. So basically, if the Palestinians will show, and we have ways of knowing what they are really doing, and America has ways of knowing what they're really doing, if we will see that the Palestinians are effectively trying to battle it, and it takes time, of course, you can't stop it altogether overnight.
But if Arafat will seriously take it as a matter of the highest importance, and highest priority, and will fight terror, then of course even if there will be still be some expressions of terror, Israel will address its reaction to the efforts made by Arafat. But there hasn't yet been any case that justifies an Israeli strength.
KEYES: Well that essentially means, though, and this is one thing that I see that might be an obstacle here, that one must try to create an effective Palestinian-Arab response to this terrorism, essentially, to be quite frank about it, Mr. Olmert, you must fight a civil war on the Palestinian side against the terrorist elements, organized to fight that battle, while basically under the gun of the terrorists themselves, as that gun has been cocked and held at the head of Palestinian people as well. Do you think that that effort can be successfully organized under those circumstances?
OLMERT: It can be organized and America is ready to help those forces to organize themselves, and we are ready to help them if they are serious about it. But you have to understand, Alan, you know, it's ridiculous. We live in a very crooked world there. Arafat is the head of the terrorist groups. He is not the one who fights them. He's the one that organizes the terrorist groups.
The main terrorist operation in the last few weeks were done by Tanzim, a branch of the Fatah which is the organization of Yasser Arafat. So we are talking as if there is a problem. There is a confrontation between Arafat and the Hamas and the Hezbollah and the Islamic jihad and they are strong and Arafat can't control it. This is all ridiculous.
KEYES: Yes.
OLMERT: Most of the terrorist actions are perpetuated by Arafat himself, by people that he finances, that he equips with the weapons and explosives and everyone says, "What do you want from Arafat? He can't control it." What do you mean he can't control it? He operates it. He's the commander of terror in the Middle East.
KEYES: Mr. Mayor, I — as you know, I think that that's a true analysis, but it does raise a question about what one does. I think in order to replace Mr. Arafat and have an effective force that can act against the terror that he has been sponsoring, I think is a real insight.
Thank you for being with us tonight.
OLMERT: Thank you very much Alan.
KEYES: I really appreciate it.
OLMERT: Good night. Thank you.
KEYES: We are going to continue, of course, to discuss the president's speech as we get to the heart of the matter and look at the president's plan and whether it offers some hope for eventual peace in the region.
Our friends Frank Gaffney and Charles Kupchan will square off right here on America's news channel, coming up on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: President Bush is heading to the G-8 summit in Canada this week. High on the agenda, how to help the poor, the starving and the impoverished in Africa.
Coming up in our next half hour, we'll tackle one of the many problems on the African continent, slavery in Sudan and whether the trafficking of human beings is partially being funded with American dollars.
A reminder that the chat room is humming tonight and you can join in right now at chat.msnbc.com.
But first, another topic high on the agenda at the G-8 is sure to be President Bush's new proposal for Mideast peace.
Joining us to get to the heart of the matter, Frank Gaffney, the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy. He was a former assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration. Also with us, Charlie Kupchan, a former National Security Council member during the Clinton administration, now a professor of international studies at Georgetown University. Welcome to MAKING SENSE.
FRANK GAFFNEY, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: Thank you Alan.
KEYES: Now I think I want very quickly now to get a quick take from both of you as to how you respond to the president's speech this afternoon. Let me start with you, Frank. What did you think?
GAFFNEY: It wasn't as bad as I thought it might have been Alan, but I think it's bad in a number of respects. I think it represents, once again, this notion that somehow we'll be able by simply making new efforts, new investments, political capital, what have you, in a peace process that will overcome the underlying realities.
I'm afraid that you don't overcome those realities by ignoring them, and while I commend the president for basically saying, "Look, a number of things have to happen to change those realities," my fear is this is sort of the bizarre, if you will. This is where the haggling begins and that these various preconditions are going to be eroded, and what we'll see is Israel left, I'm afraid, in a position where it is unable to defend itself against people who remain determined to destroy it.
KEYES: Charles?
CHARLES KUPCHAN, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Alan, there are two thing I like about it and two things I don't. The good bits are that number one, he has basically said Arafat needs slowly to go. But he's cautioning the Israelis not to get him and take him out and send him into exile. I think that would be a mistake, but to move to some more natural process of political evolution.
The other thing I like is that he clearly made a declaration of a state conditional. That is you got to do X, Y, and Z, have functioning institutions before we will recognize the state.
The bad parts I my mind are the timing. I don't know why he gave it in the midst of the struggle in Ramallah continued suicide bombers. We're talking about this tonight. My guess is most people won't be talking it tomorrow. And the other thing I'm not wild about is the sense that he didn't really lay out much that's new. He didn't tell us a plan, a road map for how to get from A to Z. So in that sense, I don't think we know a lot more tonight than we did at noon before the speech was given about U.S. policy.
KEYES: Well, let me try to speak for a moment, because I actually thought that the speech had one really significant element, and that significant element was to lay squarely on the table the simple fact that institution-building, that is to say, the building of institutions of real representative self-government, is a prerequisite for peace in this region, and that that is a responsibility on the Palestinian side and the responsibility of the Arab states. I thought a clear articulation of that as a first priority, putting the onus on the Palestinians and on the Arabs for the development of the right kinds of institutions of self-government was actually a significant step, to have it clearly stated by an American administration. And it's a process that I think was long overdue in terms of outlining that set of Arab responsibilities to real self-government, that is, a prerequisite for the kind of state that might actually be able to maintain the peace.
The one problem I had, really big problem, is that we're dealing with a reality here that there are a bunch of folks on the Palestinian side who want to kill people and who are deeply and seriously committed to killing them, and are doing every day by all the different ugly means that we are aware of.
What in the speech, Frank, offers the solid instrument with which this killing is to be stopped so that the Israelis won't have to be intervening all the time and providing an excuse for propaganda to attack them?
GAFFNEY: That's my concern about it, Alan. I don't think it does that. I think to the contrary, it indicates that the Israelis ought to be pulling back now or certainly in the very near future first to the positions that they held in September, and then to the so-called green line where they began in 1967 when attacked by Arab armies bent on the destruction of the city of Israel.
I believe that this is again the underlying problem. It's not just the Islamic jihad, the Hamas and Hezbollah, or even Arafat's Palestinian Authority that remain committed to the destruction of the state of Israel. It is apparently a substantial majority of the Palestinian people who aspire to that as well.
And I think as long as we are signaling that this will be rewarded, that the violence that's taken place so far will conduce to perhaps not peace, but certainly to some kind of Palestinian state, you're going to get more violence. That's not good.
KEYES: Now, Charles Kupchan, I put the same question to you. Who is actually going to stand up to these killers and stop them? Because at one level, what is clearly required here, and we're all talking about it kind of behind in different ways and in circumlocution, you need a civil war on the Palestinian side, forces that opposed the terror violence, to go against the forces that are conducting it, and to defeat them so that they stop.
Who's going to take on that responsibility? It sounded to me like Mr. Kanafani was using the usual weasel formulations to keep Mr. Arafat from having to commit to that real battle. So who's going to do it?
KUPCHAN: Well I think the answer, Alan, is related to the point you made a few minutes ago, in that the Bush administration has said, and I think rightfully, you can't just say there is a state. We recognize a state. First you have to do the hard work of building institutions, new security forces, people that will have an interest, a vested interest in seeing some sort of stable Palestinian middle class. And I think what Bush has said is, "Let's start working on that. Let's put the Arafat era behind us and try to, through inducements, through giving money, through cell phones, try to build some responsible Palestinian middle class that will fight against the terrorists."
Will it happen? I don't know. But that's clearly what he's betting on.
KEYES: Here's the hard part. The hard part is that if you were to wave a magic wand and there were to be a free and open election right today among all of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza, I would myself be surprised if Yasser Arafat got elected. I think the radical leaders of the bloodthirsty Hamas or the Al-Aqsa Martyrs or somebody would get elected.
KUPCHAN: We don't know yet. I mean his polls have been dropping...
KEYES: No I'm — Charles, Charles, I'm not talking about his polls. His polls are dropping in favor of more extreme elements, and I think that that's the problem. You can't suddenly wave a magic wand and change the consequences of years of indoctrination.
The culture of violence and death preached over the airwaves, inculcated in the schools, and so forth, it's not going to happen. Free elections taken among a people committed to violence are going to get a leadership committed to violence. Frank, how do you change that leadership in that process?
GAFFNEY: Well, I don't think it's by creating conditions under which they are empowered to be more, better able, really, to pursue the agenda that they've remained committed to from the beginning, which is the destruction of the state of Israel. And this is, again, this is the underlying reality, Alan.
I can't see why it's in America's interests, let alone in Israel's interests to have yet another irredentist radical Arab despotism, maybe one that came to power through the old one-man, one-vote, one-time process. When the institutions don't turn out to be what Charles and I hope they might be, and you create conditions that, in fact, are leading to war, not to peace.
KEYES: Let me try a radical suggestion that I'm sure everybody in the world will reject. I think that in the region right now there is a ready-made Wyatt Earp who could step into this disorderly West Bank filled with the gang thugs and so forth. Throw out the six-gun take them on and has at least in terms of the regime, has done it already successfully.
And that is the Jordanian monarchy. And you would also have a situation where Arab Muslims were taking on the responsibility of dealing with Arabs, so the propagandas couldn't say this was some war against Islam and all that other garbage they use if it's Americans or Israelis.
Because something actual has to be done here, with an organized force that can really take on these thugs, and I don't see how you organize such a force when every day the people trying to organize it will be subject to the same slaughter themselves that is threatening the Israelis. You need a ready-made, organized force, and I think there is one. Why shouldn't the king of Jordan take on this responsibility, Charles?
KUPCHAN: I don't disagree that you need someone to go in there and serve as a separator between the Israelis and the Palestinians. That's why I think the speech was short on specifics. I think you need — the president needs to lay out some sense of how do you get from A to B?
How do you get to a situation where you can even think about free and fair elections? Should it be the Jordanians? Should it be the U.N.? Tom Friedman of the “New York Times” has suggested it should be U.S. forces. I don't know what the answer is, but I agree with you that we do need to think about getting a third party in there.
KEYES: I...
GAFFNEY: We sure don't want...
KEYES: ... go ahead.
GAFFNEY: ... American forces there, Alan.
KEYES: Right.
GAFFNEY: That's for sure.
KEYES: I think that putting American forces in there is insane. We'd simply give a field day to the haters to hate us some more because there's going to be killing involved here, Charles. This isn't some peacekeeping effort. There is no peace to keep. There's a war to be fought, a war on the terrorist elements among the Palestinians.
And I don't see how anybody except the Arab-Muslims themselves can take on that war without being faulted on religious grounds or imperialism grounds or some other silly grounds. It's a responsibility the Arabs have to accept, and I think the king's in an ideal position to take the lead for them.
KUPCHAN: I'm just not sure that's a feasible proposal. You think the Jordanians and the Saudis and the Egyptians are going to go into the West Bank and start killing Palestinians? I don't really see that as a way out.
The status quo is not working, we're sliding toward a worse and worse situation. That's why the Israelis are there today, but I think we need to think more creatively about how to get some sort of international force in there, even if only short term to try to move us back to a plateau where you can begin building institutions and see a light at the end of the tunnel.
KEYES: Since we are dealing in the context of a worldwide terror war that has used as an excuse religious elements of the Middle Eastern conflict, the notion that some non-Islamic, non-Arab force can be injected in there to do the hard work of keeping and putting down these ugly killers — I think it lets us all in for further problems. This is an Arab responsibility and Frank, I thought the president pretty clearly put the onus on their shoulders today, and I was glad.
Gentlemen, thank you.
GAFFNEY: Thank you, Alan.
KEYES: We really appreciate you being with us. We have run out of time. We can talk about this a lot more. I hope you'll come back.
Next, the modern day slave trade in Sudan. Are Americans involved? We'll have a debate, and talk to a man who spent 10 years as a slave.
You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
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KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Later this week, President Bush meets with G-8 leaders on the agenda, a plan to significantly help Africa with health care and economic development. Tonight, we're going to highlight the plight of Sudan in the east, a country that has suffered from decades of civil war and a government which has caused men, women and children to be kidnapped, tortured and forced into slavery, among other things, sold, in some cases, for $33, less than the going rate for a goat.
Meanwhile, the White House has stalled a bill that would punish foreign companies that are in partnership with the Sudanese government in oil development, thereby providing the kind of funds that are used to buy weapons, and so continue this policy of persecution. Is the U.S. trading lives for oil?
First, joining us to paint the picture of the slave trade in Sudan is Francis Bok, a former Sudanese slave who was kidnapped at the age of seven and spent ten years of his life as a slave. Also with us, Ambassador Adbel Bagi Kabeir, the deputy chief of mission of the Sudanese embassy. Gentlemen, welcome both of you to MAKING SENSE.
AMB. ABDEL BAGI KABEIR, SUDANESE EMBASSY: Thank you.
FRANCIS BOK, FORMER SUDANESE SLAVE: Thank you.
KEYES: Francis, I want first to start with you, to give you just a chance to briefly share with the audience the experience of your life. You were actually the victim of these slave traders. What happened?
BOK: Well, what happened is is was 1986, when I was seven years old, my mother sent me to the market with other kids, which I went to the market. I didn't know something was going to happen to me in the next 30 minutes.
We got to the local market and were sitting under a big tree. Within the last 15 minutes we were in the market, we heard a gun was shooting and I heard an adult next to us saying that we saw big smoke and they were flying towards the village where we came from. In that moment, a lot of people started leaving the market.
And, eventually, I still there busy because I was excited to be in the market with other kids because I never had a chance to go to the market by myself. In this moment, we saw a lot of people coming towards to us, the horsemen and camelmen and a lot of people walking with machine guns. And they start shooting the people on the market. There was — a militia came from the north, and just stormed the market and started shooting the men.
I tried to run away and then I was captured by the horsemen. They took me and other children as slaves, which I witness a 12-year-old being shot in front of my eyes because she was screaming on the way. And one of the militia men told her to stop crying but she couldn't stop crying and she got shot in the head.
On the way up to the north, we divided two militiamen and I was given to a guy called Jim Abdullah. When I first came to Jim Abdullah's house, he called the whole family to meet me. And they — all his children had sticks and they all bit me and they laughed and called me abid (ph), abid (ph), which just means black slave. That was my welcome.
And I've been thinking all night how I am going to go back to see my parents again and how I'm going to see my friends who came to the market with me. And that never changed. Since that day, I never seen my parents again.
KEYES: Now how long were you held as a slave?
BOK: I've been a slave from age seven to seventeen, ten years being in slavery, you know, since 1986 to 1996.
KEYES: And were you always with the same people?
BOK: I was always working with the same person, doing the same job that he told me to do when I first came, was to take care of his goats. And then when I grow up, he switched my job to take care of his cows. This was my job, to take care of his cattle.
KEYES: And how did you get out of that situation? How did you escape?
BOK: Well, it was really hard situation. I did plan it since I've been there, even I knew that I was young, I promised myself that I'm not going to be here forever. I knew this is totally the wrong place to me and I didn't want to be treated the way they treat me and also the way I saw slaves were treated badly.
You know, I began to being asked my master to do my job the way he told me to do, but I'm leading another life which he didn't know. I'm planning to get away. And I did try until when I reached the age of 14 years old, I first decided to escape. And before that, I asked him a trick question that made me decide to escape immediately.
You know, while I've been there, I asked him one day, Jim Abdullah, I asked him why he called me abid, black slave, and why he forced me to live as animals and why nobody loved me. When I asked him those questions, he didn't answer to me. He told me that never ever ask me those questions again. You know, when he beat me up, you know, because he didn't like my questions.
KEYES: Now, if you can give me a moment, I want to turn to Ambassador Kabeir, because I have heard and talked to many people. I've even talked to folks who have been part of the efforts to buy people out of slavery, who have been sold into slavery in Sudan. And many folks implicate the Sudanese government as well as other elements in this trafficking. What do you say to that charge?
KABEIR: Well, thank you, first, for having me on the show and giving me an opportunity for both sides of the story to be told.
But in responding to your question, it's very important to know that all the allegations that have been curried against the government of Sudan or against the people of Sudan are baseless simply because currently, we do have a war going on in the country, unfortunately, as you said at the beginning of the show, for so many decades. And during war time, bad things happen.
And as far as we're concerned, war is the real crime. The real problem is the war itself. And now, our focus is towards ending the war and not focusing on citing examples of acts which are questionable, very seriously questionable, and, first and foremost, not acceptable. This government is not doing it as a policy.
KEYES: So, you are saying then, you know that there is trafficking in slaves, that people have been kidnapped and sold into slavery? That is actually taking place, but it's an incident of the war?
KABEIR: No. I'm telling you — I'm not saying that anything of such is happening. There is abduction, it's true. And the abduction has been going on unfortunately in most of the African countries ever since, due to the tribal wars. And my friend — or my brother who was speaking right now and saying that he had been kidnapped, as if all the people in southern Sudan or northern Sudan, and that means myself, I should have been a slave as well too. I shouldn't be here representing the government.
So, the story doesn't work, that because he says he walked all the way from southern Sudan up the way into Cairo, I don't know how he made it. My question should be how did he move from the south to the north...
KEYES: Doesn't a government, though, have a responsibility to stop this kind of trafficking of human life? I mean, I take a deep personal interest in this. Somebody sold one of my ancestors into slavery in just this fashion centuries ago. And it seems like we thought that something had been done to stop it, and it's going on right in the very place where it was going on centuries ago. Doesn't your government have a responsibility to step in and stop this?
KABEIR: The government has a responsibility to make sure that nobody has been abducted. And the government is actually acting, and ever since this issue has been brought into the light of concentration, especially by NGOs, the government has taken very clear, major steps. And I'm sure you must be aware that just a couple of weeks ago, a group of imminent (ph) persons have been appointed as a result of Senator Danforth's efforts, Bush's special envoy to Sudan for peace.
And the group has just released a report and they have not said that slavery, per se, as we know here in the United States now, does exist. There's no such thing. They're saying that there are abductions. And the government has never denied that there are abductions taking place between the southerners themselves, between the northerners themselves.
And what I'm trying to say, that the situation where my brother here is describing, it's very important to outline the nature of the relationship between the tribes themselves, being the Dinka tribe, where I'm sure that where he's from, and the Arab origin tribes and the — who are having problem in the grazing lands. But, nevertheless, what we are concentrating on right now, and as I'm talking to you right now, there are peace talks going on now to stop the war and make sure that everybody is not being hurt.
KEYES: Now you are saying, because I have talked to folks who have simply stated explicitly that the government of Sudan uses these kidnappings, among other things, as a weapon in this war against those who are opposing them. And that they have also refused humanitarian flights, food, aid, other things have been done which they have plead on military excuse, but they have been getting in the way of these humanitarian efforts. Are you telling me that's false?
KABEIR: I'm telling you that is not true. That's different from what you're saying. It depends how you are describing it. And I'm trying to tell you that the government has not been stopping the food going into the needy people. I've been in charge of that one. In fact, actually, I was on the other side, on the regular side for a couple of years, more than eight to nine years.
I had some disagreement a couple of years back and I went to the Sudan. So I'm trying to tell you that the outside groups who are interested in the continuation of the war in the Sudan are not doing the war (ph) to make sure that a comprehensive cease-fire is achieved rather than people talking about the byproducts of war, which I agree with you that it's not something that is going on...
KEYES: Mr. Ambassador?
KABEIR: Yes, please.
KEYES: We have come to the end of our time. I want to thank both you and Francis for joining us tonight and putting both sides of this issue on the table, Francis, in a very moving and first-hand account of one person's life.
And we're going to talk next to a Congressman who is fighting to use U.S. financial muscle against the slavery traffic in Sudan.
Stay with us. You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: We're back talking about slavery in the Sudan, in particular, and in other parts of the world.
Joining us now, Republican Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey. He's a member of the International Relations Committee, and he has fought for the abolition of the trafficking in persons, this modern practice of slavery around the world. Chris, welcome back to MAKING SENSE.
REP. CHRIS SMITH (R), NEW JERSEY: Alan, thanks for inviting me back.
KEYES: Well, I am always glad to talk to you, especially about this urgent and important topic to which you've given such high priority. And I want to thank you for that because I think it's critically important.
For step No. 1, we were just talking, one, to Francis Bok and to the representative from the Sudanese embassy saying the kinds of things one would expect him to say. But all that I have seen, read over the years suggest that there has been a conscious complicity of the Sudanese government in this trafficking. It has been used as an element, a weapon, if you like, in the civil war against targeted non-Muslim populations in particular. Is that your sense of it as well?
SMITH: It is absolutely my assessment. As a matter of fact, Alan, I had the first hearing, the first congressional hearing ever held on modern day slavery in the Sudan. It was in 1996. And when we had that hearing, we were met with disbelief. The U.S. civil rights community by and large thought that it was an exaggeration, that we were engaging in hyperbole.
And we heard from many nongovernmental organizations and even victims who came out and spoke both at the hearing and then later on at a press conference that we had about this abomination called slavery, shadow slavery, where men and women and children are bought and sold. The Khartoum government has been doing it for years. The 19, 20-year-old civil war has given them added reason, more crime to add upon the crime of 2 million dead, 4 million displaced people in Sudan as a result of this horrific war that they have carried on against their own people.
KEYES: Now, you have placed before the Congress a law, Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. What is this aimed at doing, this bill that you've proposed?
SMITH: It's actually been signed into law. It's a very comprehensive bill that aims at prosecuting those who traffic, harbor, seduce in a way by force, fraud or coercion, mostly women, although boys and young children are often trafficked. We think the estimate from the state department now is upwards of 4 million people who are trafficked globally, 50,000 into the United States of America every year.
And they end up in our brothels, in our major cities. And these are women, mostly, who are raped every day. We now have up to life imprisonment for that kind of behavior and we treat the victims, the women, as victims. And we don't deport them. We've created a new (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and on and on.
KEYES: Now there's also — we're running out of time. There is also a proposal before the Congress that would actually target the spigots of financial support for governments like Sudan that engage in trafficking. Do you support that effort, or do you think it's got to go?
SMITH: Oh, without a doubt. Tom Tancredo is the prime sponsor of that bill. It's already passed the House and the Senate. We're waiting to get it to conference. There are those in the administration trying to stop it.
It says that groups like Talisman Oil, which is sold — and people buy shares in the United States, it is a Canadian-based oil company which has become the lifeline for the Khartoum government, the Sudanese government, to continue to wage this war. They buy the helicopters and the planes by selling oil. If you cut off the oil and deny them access to our markets, we then can cut off, we think, or at least cripple this war so that less people are killed.
KEYES: Chris, I'm going to have to run. I want to thank you for the efforts that you're making, and I hope that bill will move forward.
SMITH: Thank you, Alan.
KEYES: Next, we get to my “Outrage of the Day,” hopefully. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
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KEYES: Now my “Outrage of the Day.”
I've told you how Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe have shut down thousands of white farmers who were producing food for his people. He brought the country now to the brink of starvation. To push them over, over the weekend, he shut down 2,000 more farms so that the people will surely starve. What sense does that make?
That's my sense of it. Thanks. I'll see you tomorrow.