Sean Riordan of the Palestine IMC gives an interview to CNN. Transcript follows:



CNN LIVE TODAY
Interview With Sean Riordan
Aired April 3, 2002 - 13:51 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, we have got someone inside of Bethlehem on the telephone with us. I believe his name is Sean Riordan. He's with the Independent Media Group. Sean, can you hear me?

SEAN RIORDAN, INDEPENDENT MEDIA GROUP: Yes, I can hear you.

LIN: All right. You are in Bethlehem right now, is that right?

RIORDAN: Right. We are in a media center that's at a major crossroads in Bethlehem. Some of the roads lead to refugee camps. In the other direction, it leads to Beit Jalla, which is the nearby town that has been occupied by the IDF.

LIN: All right, Sean, we were just talking with CNN's Ben Wedeman about the tight quarters there, possibly civilians being injured. What do you know about U.S. citizens and other Westerners being evacuated?

RIORDAN: As we understand it, a number of our colleagues from the international community have been evacuated from the Bethlehem Star Hotel and have arrived safely in Jerusalem. Among these is a group of Americans as well as a group of British and one Japanese lady.

LIN: Are they aid workers or are they tourists?

RIORDAN: I think closer to aid workers, but not exactly. They were members of the international solidarity movement in which this week came to the West Bank in order to show solidarity with the plight of the Palestinian people and practice non-violent, direct resistance against the occupation.

LIN: Well, are they resisting being evacuated then?

RIORDAN: No. Because of the escalation of the situation here, all of these individuals had to request the embassies directly to be evacuated.

LIN: Who is evacuating them and how are they going to get out?

RIORDAN: I'm sorry, I may have missed -- misstated my original comments. They have indeed been successfully evacuated to Jerusalem in an armored consulate convoy. I believe the British consulate and the American consulate sent two vehicles, which had to pass a checkpoint -- I'm sorry. A colleague here is reminding me that it was British vehicles that passed the checkpoint here at Bethlehem, proceeded to the Bethlehem Star Hotel, recovered the evacuees and took them back to Jerusalem.

LIN: Sean, why are you still there and what sorts of dangers are you facing right now staying?

RIORDAN: I'm still here because the reasons why I came to the West Bank to begin with have changed dramatically through my experience here in the past week. I now feel a great sense of responsibility to remain here and witness what is happening and be a part of disseminating information to the world about what the Palestinian people are experiencing in this absolutely horrible and escalating assault by the IDF upon their lives.

LIN: Sean, I've got to say though, you know, obviously there are two sides to every story. The Palestinians, yes indeed, suffering, but there are Palestinian gunmen now holed up inside the Church of the Nativity. The Israeli Defense Forces are saying that they have been shooting at Israeli soldiers. Civilians are getting caught in the crossfire and there was some grenade activity.

RIORDAN: Right. I very much understand that there is a strong Palestinian resistance in Bethlehem, and especially in one of the refugee camps in particular, the Hasha (ph). The problem -- the issue I would take with any other statement that indeed the two sides in this story are equal is that the IDF has traditionally practiced a much more -- I would say -- much more destructive work there on the Palestinian people than any Palestinian gunman could possibly inflict upon an Israeli soldier trying to occupy his territory. The way the IDF goes about occupying these spaces, these Palestinian villages and camps is humiliating...

LIN: What do you mean?

RIORDAN: What I mean is that, for example, what we have experienced today, both with our eyes and through verbal reports of people that are in the camps and in Bethlehem, is of the IDF coming in with armored personnel carriers and tanks, destroying water lines, occupying municipal buildings, shooting civilians, shelling houses, killing civilians in those houses, all in the name of promoting security of the state of Israel.

LIN: Sean, this is a war. Israel has said this is a war against terrorism. They are finding weapons. They are finding documents that may support this idea that the Palestinian Authority may be directly behind and funding these suicide bombings. Do you think that this incursion into these Palestinian territories can in any way be justified in terms of certainly not shooting civilians, but rooting out the terrorists who are perpetrating these acts?

RIORDAN: I very much understand why Israel thinks it's at war with the Palestinian people, although I think that the occupation in general and the current occupation of cities as is occurring in Ramallah and Bethlehem, is in fact going to make life worse for Israelis in that they will have to deal with an increasingly humiliated Palestinian population and increasingly discouraged Palestinian population that finds no other way of defending itself than carrying out so-called suicide bombings.

And very much whether or not Yasser Arafat's political group is behind the bombings, I think that in the end, the occupation is destructive for both Palestinians and Israelis.

LIN: All right. Thank you very much, Sean Riordan. Obviously, a situation there where it is just one side of the story, an important side of the story. There has been suffering on both sides, Palestinians and the Israelis, as gunfire is exchanged, possibly civilians getting caught in the crossfire. Now, massive evacuations having taken place in Bethlehem to get Westerners out of the area. The Church of the Nativity still under siege with Palestinian gunmen on the inside and Israeli troops and tanks surrounding the holy city of Bethlehem, the birth place of Jesus Christ.