One Voice
Rita Beamish interviews journalist Christiane Amanpour

Rita Beamish: You covered the crisis in Romania after Ceausescu was overthrown in 1989. You wrote about the plight of the orphans. How did this affect you?

Christiane Amanpour: I realized that over a period of a couple of years that perhaps the illusion I had to start out with, that journalism, foreign correspondence, was kind of cool - a way to see the world - I realized it's more than that. We have so much more responsibility: to go to these places, to take risks, to confront the powerful, and to hold the powerful to account. And sometimes that's not comfortable.

RB: What was the most important story you covered?

CA: Bosnia, without a doubt. Bosnia erupted onto the world consciousness in a huge way throughout the 1990's. This was a significant and traumatic conflict, and point of conscience and morality as well. Things were happening in Europe on our watch that we thought could never be allowed to happen again after World War II. The notion that a war based on attacking civilians because of their ethnic or religious origins was just anathema to anything I had grown up learning. There was a bond of highly committed journalists who recognized something deeply, deeply wrong and who risked their lives to tell the story, because we believed it was important.

RB: Do you think about the danger when you're working?

CA: I've always understood the nature of the danger. I've always taken calculated risks. I consider myself to have so far been very lucky. All around me people have been wounded or killed. I've not been touched yet. For me it used to be about managing fear. One can never say you're not afraid because there's so much to be afraid of when you're covering these things. It's accentuated most definitely since I got married and since I have a child. You've got people who depend on you and that makes it much more difficult mentally.

RB: Do you think Americans have much interest in the plight of people outside U.S. borders?

CA: I think Americans are compassionate people, good people, who, when they recognize injustice or violations of human rights, I think they do care. That's been proved many, many times. America is such an important country and has so much influence over the world and is held up to such an ideal in many parts of the world that Americans have a responsibility to understand the impact that they have on the rest of the world. And also to understand the types of people and the types of lives that other people live.

RB: Who is the most compelling leader you've interviewed?

CA: The most significant interview I did with a leader was with the new president in Iran in 1998, Mohammed Khatami. It had quite a lot of impact. It introduced a new face of Iran. He apologized for the excesses that Iran committed during the revolution, notably the taking of American hostages in the American embassy in Iran.

RB: You've visited Afghanistan both before and after the Taliban fell. What is the status of women and their future there?

CA: The less poor people are, the better things are for their women...you've got women reading the news and taking part in all sorts of public life. Women in the ministries, in films, dancing, cultural and music things. There's an enormous amount of progress. Having said that, all of this risks falling back into the abyss if the rest of the world doesn't make good on the promises, because all Afghanistan needs is help getting back on its feet. If it doesn't get it, I don't see a very bright future.

RB: Since having your own child, do you have a different outlook on the children of war?

CA: Yes. Even before I had a child, I could barely contain tears whenever I saw any child in distress. It was just for me an unacceptable proposition, whether it be in Somalia during the famine or in Bosnia when children were among the shelling or the sniping victims. I find it even harder to take now.

RB: Whom would you most like to interview today?

CA: Ariel Sharon, or maybe Sadadam Hussein. These are people who have so far refused to sit down with me. I wish I had been a reporter when Eisenhower and Churchill and FDR were our leaders. The depth and the breadth of what they accomplished and their morality as well as their political prowess were just phenomenal.

RB: How do you unwind?

CA: I like to be outside. I seek out things of beauty after all of the ugliness of war. I seek refuge in my family.


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