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Foley Fallout Escalates; Africa's Misery; Gorillas Under Attack in Heart of Africa

Aired October 4, 2006 - 22:00   ET


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone.
Want to thank our international viewers around the world watching as well on CNN International.

Tonight, we are live from the broken heart of Africa, covering two devastating humanitarian crises, Darfur and what is happening here in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. More than three million people have been killed here in the last eight years of war -- tonight, the rapes that are still continuing, tens of thousands of women who have been raped in this country. What can be done to stop it, and the potentially devastating October surprise that has top Republicans blaming each other.


ANNOUNCER: Another resignation and another bombshell -- if you thought the congressional page scandal couldn't get more complicated, think again.

The killing fields of Congo.

COOPER: Children as young as 3 years are getting raped?

DR. LUC MALEMO, HEAL AFRICA: Yes, 3 years old, yes.

ANNOUNCER: Brutal facts of life -- an outrage, the victims shunned, while their attackers live free.

And, in the mountains of Congo, face to face with another casualty of war.

COOPER: Visiting the mountain gorillas, it's probably one of the most incredible and intimate experiences you can have with an animal in the wild.

ANNOUNCER: Gorillas under attack in the heart of Africa, and the humans risking their lives to save them.


ANNOUNCER: This is a special edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360: "The Killing Fields: Africa's Misery, The World's Shame."

Reporting from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, here's Anderson Cooper. COOPER: Good evening. Thanks for watching.

We are live tonight from Rutshuru on the eastern edge of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, not far from the borders of Uganda and Rwanda. That is a crucial fact, Congo sharing its borders with nine other nations. It has absorbed waves of refugees from more than half of them, including Sudan. We will have much more tonight from Congo, as well as neighboring Sudan, both countries, the futures literally hanging in the balance. Their future is being written right now.

But, first, John Roberts is in New York with new shockwaves in the scandal that is rocking the Republican Party -- John.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Anderson, thanks very much. And we will get back to you in just a couple of minutes.

A member of Congress has resigned tonight -- a story already full of contradictions, different stories from leaders, another day of accusations and denials. A new allegation says the speaker was told about problems three years ago that a former congressman resigned, another saying that Dennis Hastert knew about Foley's actions.

We have got all the angles tonight, starting with Dana Bash.

The growing pressure on Dennis Hastert, by the way, to resign, we have got reaction from the Democrats and election fallout as well.

Now here's CNN's Dana Bash.


UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For what purpose does the gentleman...

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A top House Republican aide says he warned the House speaker's chief of staff more than two years ago that Mark Foley was having inappropriate contact with pages, well before GOP leaders say they knew about it.

The aide making this new claim is Kirk Fordham, who was then Mark Foley's chief of staff. Fordham's attorney tells CNN Fordham told the speaker's top aide, Scott Palmer, that he was worried about Foley's conduct with pages. The attorney would not give specifics of the conversation.

In a statement, Fordham says: "Even prior to the existence of the Foley e-mail exchanges, I had more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest levels of the House of Representatives, asking them to intervene, when I was informed of Mr. Foley's inappropriate behavior."



BASH: If true, this would contradict the timeline the speaker's office released over the weekend, saying it only found out about Foley's conduct at the end of 2005, after a former page complained he got an e-mail from Foley asking for a picture.

But the speaker's chief of staff flatly denies that Fordham had warned him about Foley's conduct, saying, "What Kirk Fordham said did not happen."

Fordham dropped this political bomb hours after he resigned as chief of staff to New York Congressman Tom Reynolds. The new charge put the speaker back on the defensive, as senior GOP lawmakers continued to distance themselves from him.

The number-three Republican, Congressman Roy Blunt, seemed to take a shot at Hastert, telling reporters back home in Missouri he would have handled the Foley matter differently, had he known about it.

"You have to be curious. You have to ask all the questions you can think of," Blunt said.


BASH: And, tonight, GOP anxiety over the Foley scandal is palpable.

One senior official describes the way Republican leaders are feeling across the country as an all-out panic mode. And the fact that these new allegations are coming from Foley's former aide, saying that he warned the speaker about this a long time ago, puts the House speaker's future, political future, which was already in question, further in doubt tonight -- John.

ROBERTS: Dana Bash, thank you very much.

With the midterm elections now just five weeks ago -- away -- some Republicans now are scrambling to distance themselves from this scandal, while Democrats are trying to maximize the fallout for their own political gain, which raises the question: Is there a danger in fanning the flames?

Here's CNN's Joe Johns.


JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Scarcely 72 hours after the resignation of Mark Foley, Democrats were already working the story into their campaign ads -- no surprise.

But what's more striking on the campaign trail is that some Republicans running for Congress were also using questions about Mark Foley to separate themselves from the House Republican leadership.

Last night, in Maryland's Senate race, the Republican taking an uncompromising stance, saying -- quote -- "We need to investigate every member who touched this matter. And, if they're found conduct unbecoming, then, they, too, should resign, before they're removed." In a House debate in Iowa, the same warning from the Republican to the leadership.

QUESTION: Knowing what we know as of tonight, should Speaker Hastert resign?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we need to investigate. And, if somebody had information of improper activity that threatened the safety of pages, young children working at the Capitol, then, yes.

JOHNS: On top of all that, a Kentucky congressman disinvited the speaker from a campaign appearance because of the investigation.

For Republicans, especially conservatives, who like campaigns to be run on higher ground, this kind of scandal is especially hard.

MANUEL MIRANDA, CONSERVATIVE ACTIVIST: There's no doubt that Republicans are associated with moral values and legislation that reflects moral values. So, it's perfectly understandable that supporters of Republicans would hold them to a high standard.

JOHNS: But the counterattack they continue to search for is something that shows Democrats planned all this as an October surprise.

MIRANDA: Sure. You know, there's another side to this, of course, which is that this is a -- seems to be a fairly well- orchestrated war room tactic, to go after a congressman like this just short of an election. And, if Democrats were holding back information of this sort, they could also be held liable, under criminal law, for endangering the welfare of minors.

JOHNS: For the Democrats right now, some say the danger is the campaign ads. Democrat Patty Wetterling is running for the House in Minnesota.


NARRATOR: It shocks the conscious. Congressional leaders have admitted covering up the predatory behavior of a congressman who used the Internet to molest children.


JOHNS: Unproven allegations, no evidence made public so far suggests a molestation charge. Nor has there been any admission of a cover-up. And even some Democratic strategists warn that, if the party is seen to be politicizing something this serious, it could backfire.

JULIAN EPSTEIN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Democrats to start playing judge and jury and coming to legal conclusions or factual conclusions, before we know the facts, is, one, not the right thing to do from a legal point of view, a procedural point of view, but I think also not the right thing to do from a -- from a -- from a political point of view as well. JOHNS: Call it a Foley effect. It has already started, though no one knows how much damage it will ultimately do to Republicans.


JOHNS: Meanwhile, tonight, Congressman -- Congresswoman Deborah Pryce, the chair of the House Republican Conference, has written a letter, asking the clerk of the House to open an investigation.

Pryce wants the clerk to look into what she called rumors that, several years ago, then Congressman Foley in a -- quote -- "intoxicated state" was stopped by U.S. Capitol Police from entering the residence hall, where the congressional pages live. She said she called these allegations very serious. She requested a thorough investigation.

And we are also told the majority leader of the House, John Boehner, has written a similar letter on the same issue -- back to you.

ROBERTS: Joe Johns, thanks very much.

As we said before, this story is as tangled as they come. Republican leaders are not only blaming each other for the mess. They are telling conflicting stories about who knew what, and when they knew it. And they all have got a dog in the race in November. So, what does it all mean?

Joining me now, former presidential adviser David Gergen and "TIME" columnist and author of "Politics Lost," Joe Klein.

David Gergen, the FBI has told House officials don't delete any materials, e-mails or whatever else related to Mark Foley. That's never a good thing to hear.


This story took a very ominous turn for Republicans today. Not only is the FBI moving, but the -- the assertion by this former Foley chief of staff that he told Speaker Hastert's office some time ago, a long time ago, two to three years ago, that there were real problems and nothing happened, I think has -- has converted this from a -- a serious problem to a crisis for the speaker and for the Republicans.

They have got to deal with this very quickly, or it's going to become a huge issue and could cost them the House of Representatives.

For the Democrats, they can't overplay their hand. But, boy, the tide is really rolling for them now in these -- in these elections, both in the House and the Senate -- very importantly, the Senate.

ROBERTS: Mmm-hmm.

Joe Klein, Dana Bash re -- reported earlier tonight that a Republican strategist thought that Dennis Hastert would probably resign by the end of the week. Would -- would that help the party get past this, or would it just make it look worse?

JOE KLEIN, COLUMNIST, "TIME": Well, I think it is not going to make it look good. And it depends on what happens then, who takes over the party, and so on.

I mean, you know, I have spent 25 years writing about the incompetence of Democrats when it comes to tough situations. But the Republicans have given us two weeks unlike any I have ever seen. I mean, the combination of this scandal and the inability to really get control over it, the fact that, you know, there's a circular firing squad right now among the Republicans, people taking potshots at each other, you know, that's almost good news for the president, because it's taken his inept handling of Iraq, the national intelligence estimate, the Bob Woodward book, off of the front pages.

But that stuff is still there, too. This is really a very difficult moment for the Republican Party.

ROBERTS: Circular firing squads are usually the realm of the Democrats, not the Republicans.

KLEIN: Exactly right.

ROBERTS: David Gergen, earlier tonight, former Clinton White House counsel Lanny Davis cautioned Democrats not to push this story. Just leave it alone, he said.

Are they at risk here of looking they're trying to exploit it?

GERGEN: Absolutely.

And they could -- they -- they don't want to go so far, but they still want to press it at the local level. They do want to press people in debates. You know, are you for this or against it? Are you for Speaker Hastert or are you not? That seems to me fair game. I think to walk away from it entirely would be a mistake.

But they don't want to be in the middle of the national story. And the national story, from the Democratic point of view, the Republicans are engaged in self-immolation right now. Why get involved with that? Just, you know -- and, if they want to fight, hold their coats.

But I -- I -- I believe that there is a way out for -- that might -- that -- that if the speaker were to consider saying, I'm resigning at the end of this year, so, there's a more Solomonic decision and said, look, I -- I understand, for the good of the country, the good of the country -- of our party, I'm stepping down at the end of the year, postpone any fight within the Republican Party, try to close this thing down, try to cauterize the wound, and then move on, and get back to other issues, that may be the Republicans' best solution.

ROBERTS: Joe Klein, a moment ago, you...

KLEIN: I think David is exactly right about that, by the way. And there are efforts, from what I have heard tonight, speaking to top Republican strategists, to get Hastert to do just that, to say that he will not seek...


KLEIN: ... the speakership in the next Congress.

ROBERTS: Yes, get him through this election, and then make a change after that.

KLEIN: Right.

ROBERTS: Joe, you mentioned President Bush just a second ago.

I want to turn to the president. According to a new CNN poll conduced by Opinion Research Corporation, voters say that they're more likely to vote for a candidate who opposes President Bush. Look at these numbers. Fifty-seven percent would vote for a candidate who opposes President Bush.

Is he becoming a drag on the party?

KLEIN: Well, I think he is having a tough, tough year. And I think that the -- the chickens are really coming home to roost in -- in Iraq.

I mean, the country has really turned against this war. And what they're hearing from the president, what you hear from him even now, every day, is the same old line, which, in effect, is stay the course.

ROBERTS: All right, Joe Klein, David Gergen, as always, good to talk to you.

GERGEN: Thank you.

ROBERTS: Thanks very much.

GERGEN: Thank you.

ROBERTS: Some more background on Congressman Dennis Hastert, the man who may or may not be the next casualty in the Foley scandal.

Here's the "Raw Data" for you. Hastert is 64 years old. This is his fourth term as speaker of the House. He was first elected to Congress in 1986. Before entering politics, Hastert was a history teacher. He also coached high school football and wrestling. And, in 1976, he was named Illinois coach of the year.

More on this developing story -- coming up on 360, we will hear from two former pages who say they received sexually explicit messages from former Congressman Mark Foley. They even went to the congressman's house. What happened? Their story ahead.

But, right now, let's go back to Anderson in the Congo -- Anderson. COOPER: Hey, John.

We are looking at African countries on the brink tonight -- so much pain, but so many people here trying to help. But will the -- the question is, will the violence continue or peace prevail?

Plus, the gorilla population of Central Africa is in danger, and the baby gorillas are at particular risk.


COOPER: After several months here, these gorillas have improved dramatically. They're once again playful and naturally curious, as interested in us as we are of them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have a gorilla behind you.

COOPER: I know. I can -- I can feel...


COOPER: I can feel the gorilla behind me. Any advice on...




UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, just ignore.

This is a gorilla named Itaberry (ph). She's three-and-a-half. She was rescued from poachers about a year ago. They -- they stole her from her family and hoped to sell her on the black market.

She is now smelling my armpit.


COOPER: We will have story and much more, as we come to you from a town called -- a little village called Bunagana, where we have started to attract quite a crowd.

We will be right back from the Congo.


ROBERTS: More now on the Mark Foley scandal that has rocked Capitol Hill. Some former pages are breaking their silence and sharing disturbing stories of encounters they said they had with the former congressman.

CNN's Brian Todd reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tyson Vivyan says, when he was a page in 1996 and 1997, Congressman Mark Foley didn't speak to him. But Vivyan says, shortly after he left Capitol Hill, the congressman initiated contact with instant messages. Vivyan says he was 17 at the time, a minor.

TYSON VIVYAN, FORMER CONGRESSIONAL PAGE: The conversation turned sexual almost immediately.

TODD: It went on for years, according to Vivyan -- e-mails, brief phone conversations, instant messages.

VIVYAN: We're probably talking upwards of 40 to 50 instant message conversations that took place over that entire period, some of them sexual in nature -- the majority of them sexual in nature, some of them not.

TODD: Vivyan tells CNN, on one occasion, after his tenure as a page, when he was about 19, he returned to Washington, and was invited to Foley's house. He says he brought another former page with him to make sure things didn't get out of hand.

VIVYAN: He and I went together to Congressman's Foley's brownstone on Capitol Hill, a few blocks away from the Capitol. He ordered pizza for us. He offered us beer, but we were minors at the time. We both declined.

TODD: The other former page who went with Vivyan that night, Josh Abrons, tells CNN he doesn't recall alcohol being present.

Vivyan and Abrons both say nothing inappropriate happened. But Abrons also says Foley had exchanged instant messages with him after he left the page program, but while he was still a minor. Abrons says he initiated contact with Foley, but only to talk about politics. He says Foley did talk politics, and:

JOSH ABRONS, FORMER CONGRESSIONAL PAGE: He did make explicit references. He talked about anatomy, his own and other people's. He did enjoy talking about sex frequently, and asking questions, making statements. And he did ask if I was attracted to him physically or if I would ever be interested in him in the future.

TODD: Neither Abrons, nor Vivyan could provide copies of their alleged communications with Foley from that time. Vivyan showed us correspondence he said he had with Foley when Vivyan was in his mid- 20s.

Abrons and Vivyan say they made it clear they were not interested in physical relationships with Foley. But why didn't they report this contact to authorities?

ABRONS: For a 17-year-old to receive instant messages from a member of Congress is quite something. And you do not want to -- want to burn that bridge with a member of Congress.

TODD (on camera): We tried to reach Mark Foley's attorney, David Roth, for reaction to Vivyan's and Abrons' accounts. He did not return our calls. Tyson Vivyan tells us he is a liberal Democrat. Josh Abrons says he's been both Republican and Democrat, and now considers himself independent.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.


COOPER: We will have more on the Mark Foley scandal coming up on 360.

But, right now, let's go back to Anderson in Congo -- Anderson.

COOPER: John, thanks very much.

Here in Africa, an alarming rise in sexual violence against women. The question is, why is it happening and what can be done about it? A lot of people here are helping those in need. We will talk to some of them about what they are seeing here on the ground.

And life inside a refugee camp. 360 M.D. Dr. Sanjay Gupta with some unforgettable stories from those hopeful for a brighter day.

You are watching a special edition of 360, "The Killing Fields."

Stay tuned.


COOPER: A passion for a better life here in Africa, after years of heartache, how some are trying to change it around -- 360 next.


COOPER: Welcome back. We are live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The level of everyday violence here in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been simply unfathomable over the last several years. Guns and machetes, of course, are common. But the most ruthless weapon that has been used here is rape, tens of thousands of women, children have been attacked, mostly by gangs of soldiers and bands of outlaws.

According to Doctors Without Borders, an estimated 40 percent of the rape victims are under the age of 18. Often, there are multiple assailants. It is something that's hard to report on, but is something that is fact. And this story may be certainly hard to watch, but we can't avoid it. It is part of life here. And the world should know what the women here are facing.


COOPER (voice-over): At a busy hospital in Goma, a silent little girl sits on a stoop. She is 5 years old now, but still cannot speak of the terrible thing happened to her. Two years ago, when she was just 3, she was gang-raped by soldiers.

COOPER (on camera): Children as young as 3 years are getting raped?


COOPER: That's -- it's -- it's crazy.

MALEMO: Very crazy. And we -- it's difficult to understand the -- the social causes of these events.

But we think that people are so disappointed, and they have been in a dictatorship for 40 years, that now the war came. So, they lost all the hope. And they start behaving like animals.



MALEMO: We -- we think that -- that the -- the first reason, that the rape is too violent. Some of them, they will use, after -- after raping the lady, they will use maybe -- they may use a weapon, a knife, or even a piece of wood. And some of them have been shot on after being raped.

COOPER: So, women aren't just getting raped, and they're not just getting gang-raped; they're -- they're often being shot internally afterward, or -- or -- or people putting objects inside them, knives, clubs?

MALEMO: Yes. Yes.

All -- they're being raped. But some of them, mainly those who develop fistula, tell that, after being raped, they will be shot on, or just be traumatized by a weapon.



COOPER: Angela was raped in front of her children.

(on camera): This is all the burn?

(voice-over): She says her attackers also burned her daughter, Godaliv (ph). We agreed to protect their identities, because of the stigma still associated with rape in the Congo.





ANGELA (through translator): He heard I was raped. And he just said: "Go on your own. I don't need you anymore. If we live together, you now might have HIV, so, you might infect me."





COOPER: But the group Doctors Without Borders says, last year, they treated nearly 1,300 victims of sexual violence right here in Congo's North Kivu Province. And, in just the first sixth months of this year, they have already treated as many more.

Romain Gitenet of Doctors Without Borders joins us now.

Thanks for being with us.

Why are so many women getting raped here?

ROMAIN GITENET, DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS: We don't know if there is an increase of violence, actually, or it's because we develop our network to refer some people quickly to -- because they know that now we take care of them when there is sexual violence. But we think it's a combination of both.

COOPER: And you -- you have seen an increase just in recent weeks?


We have -- we are curing something like 100 raped women a week now, which was the -- which was not exactly like this before. Like, this, in -- in -- in July, we were just curing 200 raped women by month. And now it's -- it's on a weekly basis.

COOPER: Do -- do the rapists, do the men ever get brought to justice?

GITENET: I don't think so. Really -- really, it's -- those women are just living in the forests at night. They are scared to be at risk, scared to be looted.

And, I mean, they have no -- no way to go to justice. They are just trying to live, to survive. That is all. This -- this type of justice is not there for the moment. And they're not even thinking about it. They could -- they could get trouble to go to justice.

COOPER: Because the -- the rapists are still living in the communities, and -- and there -- I mean, there is no place to put them. There's no jails. There is no law. There is no nothing.

GITENET: Yes. I -- I don't know, actually. There is many problem in the country. This is just one of the problem, but what is our preoccupation and what is shocking us, actually, is the level of violence against the civilian population.

We are talking about sexual violence. Actually, I can tell you that women sleep in the forest at night. All the people are looted. There is malnutrition because they have no more money, no more food. And there is just all those armed groups around and doing whatever they want with impunity.

COOPER: With impunity. There's no -- there's no repercussions for anything they do?

GITENET: What we are following on the field, on the ground, no. I mean, people are still there. Population is suffering, and we have a higher and higher rate of raped women. Just today we had 19 raped women in the area.

COOPER: Just today, 19 women came to your hospital.

GITENET: Yes. One under 15 years old. Most of the women are raped -- the women who are 45 or 50 years old are raped by children of 16. Really shocking for them, also. For us, also. And that's incredible.

Last week we have around 100 case of rape, and among them, you had four people coming back for the -- they were raped for the second time. We cure them one month before, and they come back again for a second case of rape.

COOPER: In traditional African society, there's a strict moral code and sort of village system. That seems to have completely broken down here. I mean, it's been decades of corruption and war, and there just -- it seems like there is no -- there's no responsibility.

GITENET: In this typical area, since '93, you have trouble really. That's why they think violence and the war following and now we are supposed to be in peace, peace period. But not all the people (ph) and you still have armed group in looking in an area like this.

COOPER: Doesn't feel like peace?

GITENET: No. And you just have the population, tomorrow, you have time coming, they have the women but they think about the situation, what is their daily life and how they are scared then they go to the field.

Before they were living in the field with their house. Now they have to move two hours from the field. They have to walk two hours in the morning, two hours in the evening to come back. Just because it will be -- they will be raped in the field and more distance, more risk of being attacked on the road and being raped.

COOPER: It really doesn't feel like peace. Appreciate what you're doing, and we'll come by the hospital tomorrow. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Doctors without Borders. An extraordinary organization working here on the ground.

Not just the Congo where women and children, many others are trying to start over.

Coming up, 360 M.D. Sanjay Gupta takes us to a refugee camp. Also in the Congo, where hundreds of people have gone, actually, in Chad, I should say, where hundreds of people gone after fleeing Darfur and the Sudan. It is a place where everyone has a story and everyone dreams of a better life.

Plus, gorillas in the cross fire. The fight to save them here in the Congo and this special edition of 360 continues, "The Killing Fields". Stay tuned.


COOPER: The fighting and dying in Darfur region, of course, continues. There are now some 200,000 refugees who fled that fighting, living in refugee camps in Chad.

You hear that number, 200,000, and it doesn't almost have any reality. It's easy to just think of it as a statistics, but those are peoples' mothers and fathers. They're brothers and sisters, and all of them have stories to tell.

360 M.D. Sanjay Gupta recently went to the border with Chad.


SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Everyone here has a story.

"Like knight riders, they came after midnight," this man tells me. He's talking about Janjaweed, a pro-government militia accused of atrocities across Darfur.

Armed gunmen on horseback. A single bullet, they crippled these twin girls. Scrambling for their lives, they ran on shattered legs, desperate to escape Darfur. Though the wounds are healing, they may never recover from the terror.

(on camera) How many of you feel safe here? Nobody.


(voice-over) This woman lost a daughter. Her story is so painful her mother must speak for her.

As she was fleeing, she put her 2-year-old little baby girl on her back. Two years later, she still can't talk about it, but her mother witnessed it all. Gun fire rang out, and suddenly her daughter went quiet and limp, shot dead with a bullet meant for her. Now, they are bonded by that terrible moment and by their new lives as refugees.

(on camera) How is your life here in this camp?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We live in the situation that you see right now. We don't have many things.

GUPTA: A lot of people ask what does a refugee camp look like? Well, you're looking at one of the biggest ones where so many of the 200,000 displaced people from Darfur are living.

These little huts is where people actually live. These trees are actually bound together. They use this to actually pound food into a paste that they can cook. And over here is where they keep some of their water.

It's not enough. Everyone tells us that all the time. They don't have enough food or water. This is where they're living on. This is how they're living.

(voice-over) Few of them know how they're going to get through next week, much less if or when they'll ever return home. Even so, they're trying to create new lives.

(on camera) Look at all the brightly colored clothing around here. These are all refugees that actually come to this market to exchange goods. They don't have any money. They actually barter one service for another so they can take some of these goods back to their homes.

(voice-over) Or what they now call homes. Huts, really. Made of sticks. Women preparing what little food they have.

(on camera) Besides food and clothing, what do you want for your grandchildren?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Food and education.

GUPTA (voice-over): The children also have stories. So many of them are losing their parents.

LAURA PEREZ, UNICEF OFFICER: We've heard just really terrible heartbreaking stories. I heard a story of a young girl who's 14 who was gang raped by 15 men, 15 Janjaweed.

Children who witnessed the murder of their parents. We've heard stories of mothers and girls being taken from their villages by Janjaweed. We don't know where they're taken to. Just atrocities and horrible, horrible stories that are traumatic. These children are traumatized and adults are traumatized, as well.

GUPTA (on camera): The stories are horrifying and so many start just beyond those hills where the Sudan-Chad border is. So many people came by foot, walked all the way to these refugee camps.


(voice-over) When their sleep is not broken by nightmares, they dream the dreams we all dream. It's so basic. They want a better future for their children. They want their kids to be safe.


COOPER: And Sanjay Gupta joins us now.

Sanjay, it's nice to have you here in the Congo, coming down from Chad. Those two twins, those girls that got out. How did they get out?

GUPTA: Well, it was remarkable. So many people have to walk, and 65, 70 kilometers they're walking. In their case, they actually built a stretcher for them. A man that you saw that actually built a stretcher for these girls and carried them. I was just stunned by that. He carried them in and all the time sort of evading attack by the Janjaweed.

COOPER: And these camps, they're incredibly crowded and they're anticipating, like, 40,000 more people.

GUPTA: By the end of the year, as soon as the rainy season ends they talk about. They have to build more camps.

And what was interesting, I actually visited some of the potential camp sites. And they talk about the fact that the most important thing is trying to find water. You know, you talk about they need 15 liters of water a day per refugee, compared to about 100 liters a day for an American. Now just for a scale of reference. They want to find a well of some sort they can actually build and then purify so that they can actually get water from the source. Because it just becomes too much to try to ship all that water in continuously.

COOPER: Have you ever been to a place like the Congo? I mean, what is your first impression?

GUPTA: The first -- you know, going to Chad and then the Congo, I mean, just the refugee camps, just the numbers of people living in such close proximity. It is a haven for the things that we talk about, infectious diseases, malnutrition.

I think people in the -- I talk to friends about this. People sometimes wonder is it as bad as we see sometimes in the images. And as far as I can tell, it is. I mean, it's not an exaggeration.

COOPER: For me, the sexual violence against women is just -- is shocking. And it's -- it's sort of unfathomable and it's something else we're going to continue to focus on in this edition of 360 as well as tomorrow.

Also tonight, it's not just -- it is not just people in jeopardy, of course. Animals, as well. Mountain gorillas and lowland gorillas. Thousands of gorillas at risk of extinction. We'll have their story coming up.


COOPER: Central Africa is home to several species of gorillas, all of which are endangered right now. Animal conservationists have their work cut out for them trying to save these gorillas.

Not only is their natural habitat disappearing; the young gorillas, the baby gorillas, are regularly snatched by poachers who sell them on a thriving black market, often killing the entire family in order to snatch the baby.

I met with some of those on a mission to rescue orphaned gorillas.


COOPER (voice-over): A baby gorilla stolen from her mother, a young victim of a chaos here in the Congo. She's just 5 or 6 months old, one of four young lowland or growler (ph) gorillas who found a temporary refugee behind the guarded walls of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Headquarters in Goma.

Like the other gorillas here, she was brutally taken from her family to be sold on the black market. Now, none of these gorillas can survive in the wild in their own.

(on camera) So someone, soldiers or whomever, would just go in and grab them from their families and hope to sell them? ALECIA LILLY, PRIMATE PSYCHOLOGIST: Exactly. The worst thing is they had to kill significant numbers of their family members to get them. They are like human children that are suffering from war and have seen family members killed.

COOPER (voice-over): Lilly is a primate psychologist who hopes one day to reintroduce these gorillas into the wild.

LILLY: We work with them to encourage them to bond with their caregivers, because gorillas are like babies. They're like human babies. They have to have a close bond with the caregiver when you don't have a parent or they don't survive.


LILLY: You have a gorilla...

COOPER (on camera): I know. I can feel the gorilla behind me. Any advice on...

LILLY: Just ignore her.

COOPER: Ignore the gorilla?

LILLY: Just ignore her.

COOPER: This is a gorilla named Utabari (ph). She's 3 1/2. She was rescued from poachers about a year ago. They stole her from her family and hoped to sell her on the black market.

She's now smelling my armpit.

(voice-over) It's not known how many lowland gorillas still live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Estimates range from 7,000 to 15,000, but their population has dropped 25 percent in recent years.

LILLY: And so there's hunting in the forest. People are going in to bring in food for the mining camps.

COOPER (on camera): So the more mining there is, the great the threat?

LILLY: Exactly.

COOPER (voice-over): It's believed a gorilla like this one might fetch from $50,000 to $100,000 on the black market, sold to buyers in Asia or Eastern Europe.

LILLY: Someone, in fact, came here trying to sell us a baby gorilla, because we had...

COOPER: They tried to sell the baby gorilla to you? LILLY: Yes, yes. Dian Fosse Gorilla Fund International. Because they saw our logo with the gorilla on the gate, and they thought, oh, they must like gorillas. So, we called the wildlife authorities and set up a sting, pretended we were going to buy the gorillas.

COOPER (voice-over): It was a small victory in a war these gorillas are not yet winning. Innocent victims of a conflict they simply know nothing about.


COOPER: It's not just the gorillas. Other creatures from this region need protection, as well. Illegally captured animals are ending up in pet stores in the United States and even in specialty butcher shops. Conservationists and wild expert Steve Corwin talks to us about the animals at risk, next on this special edition of 360.


COOPER: After years of war here in the Congo, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and need for land and need for food on the part of many people here, a number of species of animals are under threat. We've been looking at gorillas tonight, but it is not just gorillas.

Animal conservationist and wildlife biologist Jeff Corwin came in and showed us some of the other animals at risk now in this area.


COOPER: Jeff, we've been focusing on mountain gorillas and lowland gorillas, which in the DRC are under threat of extinction. But there's a lot of animals under threat. You've got a bush baby with you. What's that?

STEVE CORWIN, WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST: Exactly. You bring up a very important point. When it comes to the conservation, the incredible lots (ph) of these primates. So I brought you a very, very cool looking primate right here.

When you look at this, Anderson, what first comes to your mind is sort of like a squirrel-type creature. But this is, in fact, a primate, just as much as a chimp is and just as much as a gorilla would be. This is a bush baby.

Just like the other primates, this creature has an uncertain future because this is an animal that has two threats. One is a loss of habitat, which is a result of human beings and ever expanding population into the rural areas and pristine areas of Africa.

The other threat it faces is it's hunted for what we call the bush meat trade. You know, you talked about the gorillas. Lowland gorilla population has tragically almost, amazingly dropped, it's from about 20,000 animals to 5,000 animals in about a decade. And the mountain gorillas, there's only 600 left, and 300 of them are in one area. So these are creatures with very uncertain futures as with this bush baby.

COOPER: You also have another animal, called a tree hyrax.


COOPER: And I understand that's hunted for...

CORWIN: I'm going to show you this creature. This is a moderately sized mammal. It's about cat size. As you see, it's brown and it's shaggy. It's got big eyes.

But when you look at it, it looks very rodent-like. But in fact, this is nothing like a rodent. This is actually, if anything, a type of elephant.

But despite its incredible ancient history of evolution to get it to where it is today, it has a very modern problem. And that is, that this is a creature that's heavily hunted for the bush meat trade.

And we have sort of a new thing happening, Anderson, today that wasn't happening in the past. And that is, bush meat from Africa is now showing up in markets thought urban areas in North America.

COOPER: You also, I think, have a sea creature. I think it's a sea creature. A tortoise.

CORWIN: This is really an incredible tortoise. This is Jackie. She's helping me. Jackie right now will be seeing her chiropractor.

COOPER: How heavy is that?

CORWIN: This guy, probably weighs about 75 pounds. He's a very, very big, big tortoise. It's a sulcata tortoise. Often called the African hinged tortoise or spirit dye tortoise (ph).

This individual is probably about 40, 50 years in age. It takes this animal about 30 years to reach an age where it can actually be viable to reproduce.

So if you actually go out to the environment and you kill a tortoise like this, when you add up all the challenges this creature faces, it will take that environment easily 100 years to replace a viable sexually mature, healthy or tortoise just like this.

COOPER: And is that the same case with parrots?

CORWIN: Absolutely. They're extremely intelligent birds. There's a scientist out of -- hi, sweetheart. This bird's also famous because she likes to take your knuckles off.

But there's a scientist that actually believes that she's proven that these birds have the ability to create language and actually model words. These animals are hunted sometimes for the meat. Sometimes they're hunted for their feathers.

But these African gray parrots are often pulled from the wild for the pet trade. Last year alone at least, at least 30,000 of these birds came right out of the area where you're at now.

COOPER: Hey, Jeff. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.

CORWIN: Thanks, Anderson.

COOPER: I know you probably think that that's happening here in the Congo has little to do with your daily life, but you're wrong. You probably don't realize it, but you're carrying a piece of the Congo with you wherever you go. If you're using a cell phone, if you're using a laptop computer or your child's PlayStation. Minerals mined the Congo wind up in just about every cell phone that's being manufactured right now.

You're going to see how the demand for those minerals is fueling part of the violence here and causing, in many ways, some of the problems here. Problems that really shouldn't exist at all. We'll have that coming up in the next hour of 360.

Also John Roberts will report on the latest on Congressman Mark Foley. Two former congressional pages speak out. Hear what they say happened to them when they visited the congressman at his home.


COOPER: Thanks for joining us for the second hour of 360. We have much more ahead from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as from Sudan, two countries with futures hanging in the balance. The dangers ahead, as huge as the losses behind them.

Also tonight, the red hot scandal that is rocking the Republican Party and getting hotter by the minute.

ANNOUNCER: The ripple effect. Another resignation. The Mark Foley scandal widens on Capitol Hill.

Bloody Baghdad. From bad to worse. Bomb attacks hit an all-time high. In just four days, 19 U.S. troops killed in Iraq.

MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL, SPOKESMAN, MULTINATIONAL FORCES IN IRAQ: As far as U.S. casualties goes, you know, this has been our week.

ANNOUNCER: And now an Iraqi police brigade is accused of the unthinkable.


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