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INSIDE AFRICA
Interview With Actor Turned Humanitarian Karlheinz Bohm; Interview With Music Legend Miriam Makeba
Aired December 15, 2007 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FEMI OKE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Femi Oke, and this is INSIDE AFRICA, your weekly look at life and issues on the continent. This week, we meet some people who are performing good works in Africa, including legendary South African singer Miriam Makeba.
We'll also meet Austrian actor turned humanitarian Karlheinz Bohm, a Canadian who is helping educate Sudanese refugee children in Egypt, and even a U.S. Army general.
Which is where we begin. U.S. forces are beefing up their presence around Africa, and they're on a mission to improve healthcare and promote development on the continent. The effort is being directed by AFRICOM, which is short for Africa Command. The general in charge hopes to accomplish the strategic objective of increased stability. Not my words, that's military speak. Barbara Starr explains more.
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BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In Ghana, U.S. Navy sailors help paint and clean up a school. In Senegal, they play a concert and offer a bit of friendship to local children. This is the leading edge of a new U.S. military strategy. The U.S. has just set up Africa Command to oversee aid and development projects, assistance that U.S. hopes will bring stability and keep terrorism from taking hold.
Gerald William Ward, the head of Africa Command, says it's as basic as understanding that providing clean water can change life in an African village, and listening to what Africans say they need.
GEN. WILLIAM WARD, AFRICA COMMAND: From health that includes basic inoculations, controlling malaria, HIV/AIDS, other diseases that may be a part of the environment. When those things are under control, they can then pursue other -- other life objectives. That is -- that is a stabilizing factor and it helps prevent unrest.
STARR: But Ward knows relief organizations worry they may now be viewed on the ground as agents of the U.S. military. Ward has assured them he will keep his distance.
WARD: I wanted to reassure them that it is not the intent of Africa Command to do their job. They do it well.
STARR: African Command has enormous challenges. In the trans-Sahara, the U.S. believes there are extremist groups. Arms and other illicit trade flow freely. In Somalia, warlords and gangs still rule. The U.S. has launched failed missions to capture al-Qaeda operatives. In Darfur, any U.S. role is limited, perhaps just helping get African Union peacekeepers into the region.
But any experts question if this new command can gain the confidence of the African people. It's a delicate line between offering help and making sure U.S. troops are not seen as another outside force dictating unwanted change.
Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: Still ahead on INSIDE AFRICA, giving refugee children hope for a better life giving them an education. And a singing legend who still works to pay the bills, but somehow finds more to give. Stay with us.
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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Making business news in Africa this week. Libya's national oil corporation says the country has awarded gas exploration contracts to U.S. oil giant Occidental Petroleum and German company RWE. Four other companies received exploration licenses a week earlier -- Russia's Gazprom, Europe's Shell, Poland's PGNiG, and Algeria's national oil company. This is the first time Libya has ever entertained offers for natural gas exploration. It has the largest oil reserves in Africa.
And Kenya has secured a $20 million loan from a Kuwaiti economic development organization. Kenya's Foreign Ministry says the money will finance an irrigation and resettlement project that will improve living standards for thousands of families. The loan is repayable in 25 years.
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OKE: Hello again, you're watching INSIDE AFRICA.
The United Nations has registered tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees living in Egypt, but by some estimates the number may be in the hundreds of thousands. Many are subjected to discrimination and even violence. And most of the refugee children don't have access to education. But one privately funded school has stepped into the void, and as Aneesh Raman reports, it's giving its Sudanese students some hope for the future.
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ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As much as they come to learn, they also come for this -- a chance inside these walls to be students and to be happy. This is one of a handful of schools, all privately funded, that teach Sudanese refugees, displaced by decades of civil war back home. Many were persecuted for being Christians from the south. Here, 230 of them are able to go from the first to the seventh grade, learning everything from math to English.
Principal Narko Ukoth, a refugee himself, says without this school these children would be without hope:
MARKO UKOTH, PRINCIPAL: These children would have been on the street, you know, as you've seen some of these kids, those who have finished (ph) with a high level of education, they have no opportunity to go, you know, as you can see, moving around, no opportunity, bad things.
RAMAN: The Egyptian government bars Sudanese refugees from attending all but one school in Cairo. Reason enough for Rebecca Atallah, a Canadian in Egypt for over two decades, to get involved. She sits on the board that runs this school. And like all here which are for refugees, it has a heavy Christian influence. But unlike the others, there is no church backing them, and the $4,000 U.S. dollars a month it costs to operate come mainly from friends. Rebecca says with recent exaggerated hopes for a peace in Sudan the importance of this school is rising as the number of options for its students dwindles.
REBECCA ATALLAH, SCHOOL OFFICIAL: They used to be going to Australia, Canada, England, the States, you know. But now they don't have that hope anymore. So it's either stuck in Egypt or go back to Sudan.
RAMAN: Which is an awful choice. For years, the relationship between Egypt and its Sudanese refugees has been strained. In December 2005, the refugees set up this tent city just outside the United Nations Refugee Office in Cairo. They were demanding asylum and help from the U.N., but one night the Egyptian police brought it all to an end, breaking them up and in the process killing over 20 refugees.
ATALLAH: That whole episode really made things worse. I mean, between the Sudanese and the Egyptians.
RAMAN: And we haven't recovered from that yet.
ATALLAH: I don't think so. That was less than two years ago, you know. Those things don't get forgotten real fast.
RAMAN: It is a life in limbo for these children, unable to go home to Sudan, unable to feel at home in Egypt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they look at themselves and they compare with other people, it's really very hard, you know, for some people, you know. You get this sad feelings, you know. It's a problem. This is what, you know, it's giving them -- is directing them to frustration, because they tell themselves they're useless.
RAMAN: But not 17-year old Martin Eisa, who cannot wait to go home and make a difference.
MARTIN EISA, STUDENT: I return (inaudible) to see my country, I'm going to do things there.
RAMAN: And you get the sense one day, he will. One day they all might. Which is why the future of Sudan rests not just in resolving a civil war, but in educating these forgotten children.
Aneesh Raman, CNN, Cairo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: Coming up on INSIDE AFRICA: A man who traded a successful acting career for the chance to help Ethiopia. And still ahead, singing legend Miriam Makeba has taken some hard knocks in her life, but she hasn't lost her generosity. See you on the other side.
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OKE: Good to see you again. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA.
Now we meet an Austrian actor who saw a need and took action. Karlheinz Bohm is perhaps best known for his role as the young emperor Franz Joseph in the German-language film trilogy "Sissi". He was in the middle of a successful stage and screen career when illness struck and he went to Africa to recover. That experience changed his life and the lives of countless Africans forever. He decided to give up acting to take on a new role -- leading a humanitarian effort in Africa. In the process, he helped scores of Ethiopians to help themselves, and he met a kindred spirit who became his wife.
For his humanitarian work, he recently won the prestigious Balzan Prize for Humanity, Peace and Brotherhood. We caught up with him after the ceremony in Switzerland. He discussed his organization, Menschen fur Menschen, and described how his first career helped him launch his second.
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KARLHEINZ BOHM, ACTOR TURNED HUMANITARIAN: I did 46 films, out of which some films have even survived the whole time up to day, and are shown. If it is "Peeping Tom," the English film I did for Michael Powell, or if it is the three films about the life of the emperors, "Sissi", the Austrian emperors and the emperor Franz Joseph.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Franz!
BOHM: Yes!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to have a child.
BOHM: Sissi? Is that true?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes!
BOHM: Is that really true?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOHM: The people knew me, and this gave me a lot of popularity for this stuff of Menschen fur Menschen
We don't want to develop the people. We want as an organization and of my person, too, from the very beginning, we want to give the people in the country the possibility of their own development.
In the beginning, I was too European in some things. I bought and I got as a present ploughs and tractors and all that, and I tried to work with it. And the people worked very fast with it, but they cannot maintain, they cannot do anything, because it's not their own development, it's not their own society. And they have no technicians to support such a plough whatsoever, a modern one.
I must say that my greatest gift, what I've been given not only my whole infrastructure of Menschen fur Menschen, be it in Ethiopia or be it in Europe, but I have met the person whom I was looking for all my life. Twenty years ago, I met my wife Almaz, an Ethiopian, who comes from -- who was born in the east of the country in Jitika (ph), and she was an archaeologist (ph).
So my wife worked in a project of Menschen fur Menschen. She was taken there under contract before I came from Europe, and I met her there for the first time, and we met each other, and have found to each other that in spite of our different skin color we felt, in spite of our difference of age of 36 years, we are the two people who want to live together, and we live together. We lived now for 20 years.
But she has worked herself into the duties of Menschen fur Menschen in such a way, which is hard to believe. She speaks perfect German -- German language. She can communicate with the people here in Europe as if she would be -- had been born here.
And then she will, without any doubt, she is now my deputy, my official deputy -- but without any doubt, she will take over the job when I have to go back to nature, and this is to me a relief, an inside relief, because I know that Menshcen fur Menschen will go on for a long time. Because she is a bit younger than me, and I think she has some 20, 30 years she can work for Menschen fur Menschen.
I can show you something, which I brought because I thought it was quite important to show it to you. This is my passport, and there is inside, as I became Ethiopian citizen, but not only Ethiopian citizen, but here is a stamp.
OKE: Honorary national of Ethiopia.
BOHM: Yes. And this is the fourth honorary national of Ethiopia in the history of Ethiopia. Because they have recognized I didn't come as a stranger, to show them how and what they should do, and to have a lot of money and say, now I'm going to show you what you have to do to become -- to get out of your poverty. No. I tried to find out what the people are missing, and how they can help themselves.
It means what your heart is -- my heart has become deeply Ethiopian in the deepest sense of the word. I live for that country. I found the sense and the reason why I live in this country, and I don't live only for myself anymore, but I live for other people, and I hope people will remember that for some time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: And the Balzan Prize comes with $2 million. Bohm says he will use the money to fund more humanitarian projects in Ethiopia. He has already helped build three hospitals and more than 170 schools, hostels and training centers.
Now, when INSIDE AFRICA continues, riches have not come with fame for Miriam Makeba, but that hasn't stopped her from giving her time and money to a worthy cause. See you soon.
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OKE: Hello again. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA.
The life of singing legend Miriam Makeba has been filled with high and low notes. She lost her South African citizenship in the early 1960s for the crime of telling the United Nations about apartheid. But she must have gotten some satisfaction more than 20 years later, when she returned home a free woman.
Today, Makeba still must sing for a living. She says the music business has not been kind. But bitterness is not part of her repertoire. Although much has been taken from her, giving is still a top priority. Robyn Curnow has her story.
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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: She turned 75 this year, and Miriam Makeba is still singing.
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CURNOW: Lovingly nicknamed Mama Africa, Makeba is an African music legend.
MIRIAM MAKEBA, SOUTH AFRICAN SINGER: I know I made African music universal. I'm the first artist to come out of the continent of Africa, and particularly from South Africa, to go to Europe, America and other countries and sing the songs of my people and have people come by the thousands to just queue up and want to see this young African woman.
CURNOW: She's still singing some of her early hits, composed in the 1950s.
(MUSIC)
MAKEBA: People would kill me if I do a performance and not sing "Pata Pata" (ph) or (inaudible). So what I do, is I try to put them in a medley of songs. I do a medley of songs, then I just thing bits and pieces of them, because I'm too tired of singing the song.
CURNOW: Tired and short-changed, she says. She doesn't own the rights or get revenue from some of her most recognizable compositions.
MAKEBA: And not being very well educated to know the ins and outs of finances and stuff. We get robbed all the time by promoters, managers, record companies, this and that.
CURNOW: So she still works, taking to the stage and touring the world to make ends meet.
And to fund her passion, supporting 18 disadvantaged teenaged girls who live in a home Makeba established near Johannesburg in 2001.
MAKEBA: I'm not rich, but I shared with these children whatever it is I could afford.
CURNOW: Her life has been filled with ups and downs, in exile for 31 years for speaking out on apartheid. During those years, though, she sang for John F. Kennedy, collaborated with Harry Belafonte. She was once married to jazz legend Hugh Masekela and the controversial Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael.
But after 50 years in show business ...
MAKEBA: I know what it is not to have. I know what it is to go to bed some days without food.
CURNOW: Robyn Curnow, CNN, Johannesburg, South Africa.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: Staying with the arts in South Africa. A Capetown theater troupe has put a new twist on a Charles Dickens classic just in time for Christmas.
This is "A Christmas Carol" township style, setting the minds of Johannesburg with dialogue written in five South African languages. The general plot stays true to the original work, with three ghosts, a Tiny Tim character, and, of course, Scrooge. But this time, she's a powerful black woman, and the cast does lots of dancing.
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MBALI KGOSIDINTSI: I remember the first time we watched the video, we were like, men in top hats and how does that relate to us? But once we get it, and we get the message and we make it our own stories and our own songs and our own music, then everybody gets excited about that, because you're telling a new story, but you're telling it in your own way.
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OKE: Thirty young actors make up the cast. Some have extensive showbiz experience; others had never set foot on a stage before. Now, they're all performing for an international audience. They are doing a show at London's Young Vick theater until January the 19th. I love that. Go check out the production.
And that's it for this week's program. I hope you'll let INSIDE AFRICA be your window to the continent. I'll see you back here next week.
I'm Femi Oke, but let me leave you with a more important name. Miriam Makeba. We are going to play out some of their music. Enjoy.
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