Traveling south of the city known as Osh in Kyrgyzstan, I enter an Uzbek village to get an eyewitness account of the deadly events that started what the local population are calling the “four-day war.” Speaking mainly with Uzbek women, I am told a frightening and heartbreaking story of violence and mayhem. According to the first women I met, “At 4 a.m. gunfire erupted in the village and a military truck broke the gates down. Men wearing masks and speaking Kyrgyz told everyone to get out as looters ransacked their homes before burning everything to the ground. Children were seen running through the village on fire as snipers were firing into the community from a Kyrgyz dormitory on the edge of this Uzbek neighborhood.” In this report, you hear-in their own words-a narrative about a night of horror that has left this community living in tents among the ruins of what once were their homes.
The team presents an exclusive interview with Commandant Kursan. The Commandant is in charge of securing and maintaining peace in the turbulent city of Osh. This is a behind the scenes, up close and very personal interview from ground zero in the battle for control of Kyrgyzstan.
Shirin Aitmatova tirelessly connects us with the Commandant and lends her skills as translator. Shirin is an influential personality in Kyrgyzstan. She is the daughter of Chingiz Aitmatov, the writer and politician who is considered by some to be responsible for single-handedly stopping the conflict between the Uzbeks and Kyrgyz a decade earlier. You will not get this information anywhere else.
I would like to thanks Sellers-producer-shooter for following me in when others are running out-& Shirin for her efforts in helping us get to the facts.
iReport —
The people at CARE have been hard at work in Haiti. In this episode of LIFE ADDICT…
On July 13th, 2010, Mildrede Beliard led me to a camp in the Leogane area of Haiti. Mildrede is the communications officer for CARE HAITI. Leogane was very close to the epicenter of the earthquake that destroyed much of Haiti and is home to a camp inhabited by some very special women. Women who have taken the lead role in the post-disaster restructuring of their communities after the earthquake that occurred just six months earlier. 700 hundred people in 150 families call the CHHPL camp their home. This CARE camp is the cleanest and most organized camp I visited in Haiti.
iReport —
HAITI is the once-proud pugilist who is now staggering in the center of the ring. Sweat glistening off his ebony skin as he struggles to raise his fist in protection from a knockout punch that has “Hurricane” tattooed across its knuckles. The world is taking big business bets while selling concessions of hope to an audience that watches their future stumbling around punch-drunk under the lights. In the cheap seats, people simply starve while eating their self-esteem served up on plates of humanitarian relief. Upstairs, the box seats view the situation with a prescribed self-righteous distance as chess pieces are moved across the financial board in dollars and cents speculation.
What Haiti’s pugilistic hero needs is time. Time to recover from the deadly earthquake that has slipped through his protective guard and landed squarely on his glass jaw. Like all great athletes, Haiti has suffered all his life. Again, like all great athletes, Haiti has taken that suffering with a stoic smile. Time, unfortunately, is an incredibly difficult commodity when your hulking opponent is stalking you in a country that grows smaller and smaller.
In the corner, against the ropes with broken ribs and a bloody face, will the hero magically defy physics and pull out of his daze to throw a combination of solutions that no one saw coming? If so, we could be witnessing the greatest comeback in recorded history. Unfortunately, I take my cue from Haiti’s elite who already have the car idling outside the sports pavilion in preparation for a quick escape from the impending disaster that will follow if the nation’s hero drops to the canvas and is counted out.
If the infamous referee known as Mother Nature counts to ten, we could be witnessing the greatest humanitarian disaster of our lifetime. One where the cheap seats fill with landslides of earthquake rubble and drown under deforested mudslides as the elite take flight on the wings of wealth.
God bless Haiti and her amazing people as I choose not to eat the bacon on my hotel breakfast plate. A decision that will no doubt haunt me as I spend my day in the camps surrounded by starving children who do nothing but flash a huge smile at the sight of my tattoos. Little kids whose eyes dance when they meet mine. These children take the crazy colorful blanc (white man) they found wandering the camp to their parents. Parents whose eyes dance, laugh and smile as they welcome me into the sweltering tents they call home.
I put my money on the hero, but I am an optimist and a sucker for a happy ending.
CNN producer note
JOHNNYCOLT visited the Marti San neighborhood of Carrefour, Haiti, which he was told is the ‘most dangerous’ neighborhood in the area. There are no signs of restoration and it’s an area riddled with convicts who allegedly escaped during the quake, he said. But, Colt was relieved to meet kind, gentle residents when he was there. ‘As the video shows, I was warned not to go in - and when I dropped my wallet on the street a group of women went out of their way to make sure I got it back,’ he said.
- zdan, CNN iReport producer jogos casino online
iReport —
On July 13th, 2010, we travel to the most dangerous place in Haiti.
The area known as Carrefour has been described to us as a haven
for gangs as well as the home of many convicts that have escaped
incarceration since the devastating earthquake. If one is going
to understand Haiti, then we have to try and get a feel for Carrefour.
On this scorching hot day in Haiti, I load up the cameras and take the very nervous Life Addict team straight to the heart of Marti San, Carrefour.
CNN producer note
JOHNNYCOLT is in Haiti for the six-month anniversary of the earthquake. He met a woman named Nadine, who gave birth to boy one month after her due date. Doctors say the trauma from the earthquake delayed her giving birth. Nadine credits one of CARE’s psycho/social programs for mothers for helping her improve her mental state so she could give birth. Nadine hopes her husband can find work so they can move out of the tent they are living in.
- zdan, CNN iReport producer Bonus Fara Depunere
iReport —
July 12, 2010, marks the six-month anniversary of the devastating earthquake that has destroyed much of Haiti. We decided to mark the unfortunate occasion by focusing on a story showing the strength of the Haitian people.
We found that story today when we met Nadine, a woman who has just given birth to a baby boy after being more than a month overdue. The doctors had explained to Nadine that the trauma from the earthquake and her deep state of depression were preventing her pregnancy from moving forward. The fact that Nadine wasn’t eating and felt there was nothing to live for was certainly taking a toll on her unborn baby.
Pregnant during the earthquake, Nadine lost her five-year-old daughter, her home and the small business she ran before the disaster. Her husband was injured when a wall fell directly on top of him and he is currently unable to work. Nadine and her husband Ajutethomme have three other children scattered about the camps living with relatives and friends. The couple now call Gaston Margon campsite-with its tiny tents and dirt floors-their home. The camp is located in the Marianna neighborhood in a notorious section called Carrefour. This location is considered to be one of the most dangerous places in the world.
Nadine has recently gone through a psycho/social program for mothers offered by the CARE organization. Nadine gives this program all the credit for helping her find the change of heart and mind that she needed to move forward with her life. Discovering the personal strength she needed, Nadine was able to successfully move forward into the process of birth and becoming a new mother once again.
In this episode of Life Addict, we head to the Gaston Margo campsite to see Nadine, her husband and their newborn son within hours of the baby’s arrival.
CNN producer note
JOHNNYCOLT captured these images Sunday, July 11, 2010. The bulk of the footage is shot in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
- tyson, CNN iReport producer
Johnny Colt in Haiti six months after the devastating earthquake.
CNN producer note
JOHNNYCOLT reported about the violence between the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks this week from Osh, Kyrgyzstan. He was embedded with Spetznaz special forces as they unearthed the bodies of two Kyrgyz police officers that had gone missing weeks before. He was invited to the wailing room, where the officers’ wives and family members cried, shouted and grieved for their loved ones. He learned that this process is typical in Kyrgyzstan. ‘The wailer is actually a person hired to lead the grieving process. The idea being the harder you wail the faster the grieve passes through you,’ he said.
- zdan, CNN iReport producer
iReport —
In this episode of LIFE ADDICT… sojo
The grieving families of two dead Kyrgyz police officers invite me into their Wailing Room. In a rural village outside the turbulent city of Osh, a memorial service is held in honor of the officers. The men’s bodies were discovered in a makeshift grave after they went missing two weeks prior while entering an Uzbek neighborhood and trying to negotiate for peace. Police arrested six men and that led to discovering the location of their grave. The police officers had been beaten, tortured and killed.
thank you SHIRIN
KEY
SOJO = solo piece
LAD = team piece
RAW = unedited & uncut
