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The Current Transcript for April 11, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

They kept firing and re-loading, people were screaming. My, head told me now you have to leave or you're going to die here. So I crawled all the way to the door and get out.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: She is one of the ones who got away, standing right up against the barriers by the stage that Friday night in November at the Bataclan in Paris. Five months later, she is still trying to cope with what happened. And as a victim of a terror attack, she is not alone in her anguish. From the airport in Brussels to the University in Garrisa, Kenya; from Boston to Beirut, to Jerusalem, to New York, to Baghdad and Nairobi. Stories of terror attacks dominate the news cycle, and then the stories disappear, and we all move on. Those who survive cannot. It doesn't work that way.

SOUNDCLIP

I don't know why I survived, and why other people who were better people than I was were killed. I just had to get to the point where I had to just accept it.

AMT: Today, three people who lived through terror attacks, from Al Shabaab to ISIS to an American right-wing militia, share what they've learned about survival and what never leaves them. That conversation begins in half an hour. Also today, there just isn't money to help those who need it.

SOUNDCLIP

It was a surprise to me because I expected all this equipment to be at the health centre. When all these things are not there, nurses say, “we cannot work on you.” Some women have lost their lives and babies.

AMT: The leak of the Panama Papers shows a link between the sums siphoned out of developing nations into tax havens, and away from basic public services for citizens. It adds up to an estimated $200 billion U.S. a year. In a moment, we connect the dots. But first, division and disappointment this weekend in Edmonton; and now the NDP needs a new leader. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current.

With Mulcair out, New Democrats grapple with a divided party

Guests: Peggy Nash

SOUNDCLIP

The disappointment from the election obviously is something that we're now going to be able to leave behind us with a change at the helm. And that's fine. We will always be the party that dreams no small dreams. We’ll always be the party…

[Crowd applause]

That thinks about the little guy. Don't let this very divided vote divide us. Let's all work together now to choose the best person to take our project forward. Merci, thank you, on continue.

[Crowd applause]

AMT: NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, speaking yesterday in Edmonton after losing his party's leadership vote. After a party convention characterized by robust debate and division over its future direction, a stunning 52 per cent of delegates cast their ballots for a leadership race to replace him. It is the first time a federal leader has been rejected by a majority of delegates at a party's annual convention. Mr. Mulcair plans to stay on until his successor is chosen. And now, the New Democrats' soul-searching has begun. Peggy Nash, a former NDP MP, former party president, was in Edmonton for that convention. She joins us from Toronto. Hello.

PEGGY NASH: Good morning.

AMT: Were you among that 52 per cent this weekend?

PEGGY NASH: [chuckles] After much agonizing and soul searching, ultimately, I was.

AMT: And so, what do you think, where do you think Mr. Mulcair went wrong?

PEGGY NASH: Well, I can just tell you my personal perspective. I mean, I was very critical of the national election campaign, but I have respect for Mr. Mulcair. I think he's a smart, talented person. And I was hoping that after six months of review and discussion after the election, that we would see a different Tom Mulcair; we'd see someone who was inspiring, we’d see someone who was more connected with the delegates. But in fact, we didn't see that. And I think his speech just confirmed the feeling that, this was not going to change and that, in fact, we needed to really… we needed to have a leadership review.

AMT: So delegates have now extended the timeline for a leadership convention to two years if needed. Mr. Mulcair says he'll stay on until there's a new leader, that means he could be leader for another two years. If 52 per cent didn't want him, how does that make sense?

PEGGY NASH: Well, you know, the house is sitting again this week, I believe, and so parliament goes on. I think, by all accounts, Tom Mulcair is a very effective leader in the house. And so he's there to provide stability and continuity for the party as we eventually go through a leadership campaign. And it gives us flexibility in terms of the timing of that campaign. So I think it's, I think it's something that, you know, that if he's willing to do that, can benefit the party while a campaign goes on.

AMT: And are there clear front runners?

PEGGY NASH: I don't know. I don't know who is going to run. There is names that are being bandied about, but I don't think anyone has jumped in, because this all just happened yesterday.

AMT: No, but again, this is clearly wanted by the party, and yet, the party is content for two years under the same leader?

PEGGY NASH: Well I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think that's what this message is. I think the message is that we're going to go through a period of discussion and renewal. Policy renewal, leadership renewal, that's a very exciting thing. And throughout that period, there's going to be a continuity of having representation in the house of commons, stability and continuity in terms of how we function as a party. So I think that's a framework that will allow this renewal to take place.

AMT: We saw rifts within your party, especially between East and West, on the question of the fossil fuel industry. How split would you say the NDP is at the moment?

PEGGY NASH: Anna Maria, I’d say we're very united in terms of our basic core values. I was heartened by the response to Rachel Notley, by the response to Stephen Lewis, by the vigorous debate. You know, we're not a party that's afraid of debate, we are a democratic party. And there are real issues that confront this country. And whether it's our energy policy, or inequality, our relationship with First Nations people. So I think that the kind of debate that we saw during the convention is, in fact, a strength of this party. We need Albertans where, which is the heart of the energy sector in our country. We need Albertans and people who work every day in that sector to be part of a debate as we transition, as Rachel Notley said, into a more energy efficient and more sustainable economy.

AMT: Well, except that you've got people who say no pipelines now. And you have Alberta NDP-ers who have a greater voice now, because of the fact that Rachel Notley is the premier, saying, no we have to do this. We have to bring this to market. So, how do you square that circle?

PEGGY NASH: Well, I don't know about you, but when I…

AMT: It’s not about me, it’s how does the NDP square that circle?

PEGGY NASH: No, but I don't know about you, but when I get up in the morning, I like to turn on the lights and know that I have electricity. Nobody's saying that from today till tomorrow, suddenly, miraculously, we move to renewables. But I think if you look around the world, there is a move over time to renewables. That doesn't happen immediately. As it stands, we have an oil and gas sector that's part of our Canadian economy. And a lot of people rely on that to put food on the table. So I think, you know, Rachel Notley made a strong argument for the need to continue that sector, and not to do anything rash. But nobody did anything rash. I think what people were saying is we have to have this debate to evolve our economy and our society into greater sustainability. The world is moving in that direction.

AMT: Okay. Peggy Nash, thanks for your thoughts this morning.

PEGGY NASH: Thanks, Anna Maria.

AMT: Peggy Nash, former NDP MP and former president of the party. We reached her in Toronto.

Panama Papers expose human costs of global tax avoidance

Guests: Michael O'Hagan, Mike Lewis

[Music: Upbeat]

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One and online on cbc.ca/thecurrent. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Hundreds of high profile politicians, sports stars, and actors are implicated.

VOICE 2: Some of the big names out in the leak are Russian president Vladimir Putin and soccer star Lionel Messi.

VOICE 3: The Icelandic prime minister, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson…

VOICE 4: Prime Minister David Cameron’s father has come up in the leak…

AMT: In the week since the leak of the Panama Papers, it's been a global story, as you heard there. Largely a story about the rich and powerful caught up in the financial exposé. But dig through those records from the law firm Mossack Fonesca, and the real stories are between the ledger lines. As some of the world's poorest, and least powerful, bear the burden of tax avoidance schemes.

SOUNDCLIP

In Uganda, a company that wanted to sell a perspective oil field paid Mossack Fonseca to help it avoid $400 million in taxes. It was simple paperwork. The company's address was changed from one tax haven to another. In a country where one in three people live on less than $1.25 a day, 400 million dollars represents more than the government's annual health budget. Uganda spent years in court trying to force the country to pay its taxes. Meanwhile, hospitals in the shadow of the oil field lacked funds for even the most basic equipment. Patients slept on floors. They were asked to bring their own medical supplies like sterile gloves and cotton balls.

AMT: Our thanks to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists who provided that clip for us. It is the same group behind the reports of the leak of the Panama Papers. For all the flashy headlines that the secret documents have sparked, perhaps what they show most clearly is the real human cost to developing countries when companies do not pay their fair share of tax. In 2010, Heritage Oil was set to sell its oil fields in Uganda to another oil company Tullow for $1.5 billion U.S. The sale would have meant that the company would owe the Ugandan government over $400 million dollars in capital gains tax. Documents leaked as part of the Panama Papers show Heritage Oil asking to re-locate their company to Mauritius, a country with no capital gains tax. Michael O'Hagan is a freelance journalist in Kampala, Uganda, and he's with us now. Hello!

MICHAEL O'HAGAN: Hello.

AMT: What has been the reaction since these revelations came to light that Heritage Oil was explicitly trying to skirt paying that $400 million in tax?

MICHAEL O'HAGAN: Members of civil society organizations in Uganda have been very upset, although people on the street have not been surprised, because they feel that their tax money disappears all the time unfairly.

AMT: Has Uganda received all of the money owed to the government by Heritage Oil or Tullow, the company that bought the oil fields?

MICHAEL O'HAGAN: Yes. There was a series of court cases, part of which was very secretive. But the outcome of the last in 2015 was that the Ugandan government was awarded the total amount, and has received that money.

AMT: The capital gains was over $400 million U.S., can you give us a sense of what that money can do in a country like Uganda?

MICHAEL O'HAGAN: For Uganda, the total expenditure on health services from the Ugandan government and from donors is about $413 million dollars per year. So $404million is about double the Ugandan government’s health care budget and it approximately matches the total in health care, including donor care.

AMT: And so you say that the civil society groups are upset, but the actual public is just kind of hardened to this kind of thing?

MICHAEL O'HAGAN: Yes, there's a great deal of skepticism about these sorts of deals in Uganda. So people are hardened to it, to the extent they think this is what goes on every day. And they feel that they are at the whim of corrupt people in Uganda, and also at the whim of big international corporations.

AMT: Has there been fallout for the government, then?

MICHAEL O'HAGAN: The government has received some praise from the people for the way it has handled this. Because the government stuck very rigidly to the to the demands that tax is not a donation. It's not a compromise. It's simply an obligation that companies, wherever they come from, have to pay. And the government resisted pressure for a settlement for less.

AMT: And how is the government tackling the issue of tax avoidance for the future, given that there are other multinational companies, including multinational oil companies, working in your country?

MICHAEL O'HAGAN: The government is increasingly secretive about the deals that it is striking with the oil companies. The production sharing agreements are not public. Campaign groups and journalists constantly try to squeeze a little bit of information out about the terms of these agreements, but the government are very secretive. So we don’t know exactly what they are doing to try and stop this from happening again.

AMT: What's at stake for Uganda, if it doesn't get its fair share of tax revenue from the country's resources?

MICHAEL O'HAGAN: Well, Uganda is a country that suffers from a high rate of HIV infections. There are approximately 1.5 million people who are HIV-positive in Uganda, and 300,000 of them currently receive no treatment whatsoever. This some $400 million dollars could easily be used to treat those people who have never been reached, and who are at biggest risk. The health care system in Uganda is crumbling. Just this week, the only radiography, radio therapy machine in Uganda, broke down. And it's going to be two years before a new machine can be paid for and delivered and built. Part of that is because there is simply no money available to plan for contingencies such as these breakdowns, and cancer patients are going to suffer very seriously as a result.

AMT: So it's, connecting the dots is pretty obvious, then, on something like this. Michael O'Hagan, thank you for your time today.

MICHAEL O'HAGAN: Thank you.

AMT: Michael O'Hagan is a freelance journalist; we reached him in Kampala, Uganda. We did ask Heritage Oil to comment for this story, we did not hear back. As shocking as many of the Panama Papers revelations have been, many of those most familiar with the practices of multinational corporations say that what we've seen so far is likely just the tip of the iceberg. Mike Lewis is an independent finance and policy researcher. He joins us from our studio in London, England. Hello.

MIKE LEWIS: Good morning.

AMT: I'll just stick with Heritage Oil for a minute. It told The Guardian, it didn't give us an interview, but it did tell The Guardian that it started the process of relocating from the Bahamas to Mauritius, “long before the completion of the transaction.” What do you make of that statement?

MIKE LEWIS: I mean, I haven't seen all the Heritage documents, so it's difficult for me to comment directly on them. But what I would say is that the practice of which they're accused is a practice called treaty shopping. Basically, where you shift a transaction or a company from one place to a tax haven at the stroke of a lawyer’s pen. And that's an incredibly common tax avoidance technique. We see it in dozens and dozens of major listed public companies, operating right across the developing world and the developed world. So it wouldn't in any way be an uncommon strategy. It's unusual to see it expressed as clearly as this in the Panama Papers, that this is definitely for tax avoidance, but it's a very common practice.

AMT: Yeah, the email is quite pointed in those papers. In your work, you've uncovered tax avoidance practices similar to this. Tell us a bit about what you found.

MIKE LEWIS: So I used to work for the organization ActionAid, an international development charity, and we looked into a multinational sugar company operating across sub-Saharan Africa. And we found this specific tactic of which Heritage is accused, to be incredibly common, in terms of routing big fees, transactions, entities, through tax havens in order to avoid tax on those transactions. And the numbers are, as you mentioned in your intro, the numbers are quite small by the standards of economies like the U.K. and Canada. But we found that just one company in Zambia, for example, was using this tactic to avoid enough tax revenues to pay for all the micronutrients needed to end malnutrition in Zambia; This is a place where 45 per cent of all children are malnourished to the point of stunting.

AMT: Mm. So, is it necessarily companies trying to re-domicile a company, or do they, you found them using consultants, or…?

MIKE LEWIS: There's lots of--

AMT: [interposing] How do they move money around?

MIKE LEWIS: That's right, there's lots of different ways it can be done. One of the things we see is large fees or interest payments on intercompany loans being paid out to, or via tax havens, in order to take advantage of these agreements between tax havens and big economies, to avoid a tax on them. So we looked into companies that were supposed to be providing millions of pounds of consultancy fees, for example, of consultancy services every year from Ireland. A company that we found had no employees, and when we visited the address in Ireland, Nobody'd ever heard of the company. This was a subsidiary of a major U.K. listed public company. So it's a common, it's a common tactic, and it's facilitated by, of course, the lawyers, the company formation agents, the auditors, who keep these shell companies running in in tax havens.

AMT: So who is hurt most by these practices?

MIKE LEWIS: Well certainly, research by the IMF is very clear that although the impact in dollar terms is huge in the most wealthy economies, actually, poorer economies are more vulnerable than those to these kinds of practices. So they estimate that something like 200 billion U.S. dollars of tax revenue is lost every year by developing economies, just by corporate tax avoidance. Which is about the same as the entire global development aid budget. So it doesn't help Canadian taxpayers, either, who are very laudably, paying from their from their tax dollars, for international aid, when it's being sucked out again the other way.

AMT: I was just going to say, so wait a minute, it’s like a big circle. We put in 200 billion dollars U.S. collectively as the developed countries through our tax money, and then that gets sucked out by multinational firms doing tax avoidance?

MIKE LEWIS: Well, it's not just multinational firms, it's also wealthy individuals in those countries themselves, but yes, it's essentially a big circle.

AMT: So it does rip off the average taxpayer.

MIKE LEWIS: Well, to the extent that the average Canadian taxpayer is paying for Canada’s aid budget, and that's a great thing that they do that. It's a great piece of international solidarity, but at the same time, it doesn't make any sense when wealthy economies like Canada or the U.K. are setting the rules at the OECD that allow these kinds of practices to continue.

AMT: Hmm. So what happens now?

MIKE LEWIS: Well, I think it's early days to see what happens with the Panama Papers, and I'm sure there's more revelations on the way, but it's important to note that we've just been through a round of international tax reforms at the OECD, where Canada sits at the table and developing countries are not allowed to sit at the table. And they explicitly decided not to deal with the kinds of treaty shopping tactics that Heritage has been accused of. So they dodged that bullet, so to speak. So the pressure is really on now to say, well, what didn't you do, and why didn't you do it?

AMT: And so do you expect this to go forward to another G8 meeting, given what's going on in Britain, as well?

MIKE LEWIS: Well, I think there's a couple of things that need to happen. As I said, we've been through a couple rounds of these kinds of international debates about tax now, and the policies that need to be put in place a very clear. So yeah, the question is, I think, what are wealthy, developed economies going to do about both the kinds of tax regimes that exist in the tax havens that they have under their control, so, you know, I am sitting here in the U.K. with a number of tax havens around us linked to the U.K. What are they going to do that they didn't do in the last couple of rounds?

AMT: Well, we can ask that question, I guess, of our own government, as well, then. Thank you, Mike Lewis.

MIKE LEWIS: Thanks a lot.

AMT: Mike Lewis, independent finance and policy researcher, joined us from London, England. You want to comment on this, tweet us, we are @TheCurrentCBC.

'I don't know why I survived': Survivors reflect on coping after a terror attack

Guests: Lydia Berkennou Vassallo, Edwin Orango, Dennis Purifoy

[Music: theme]

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. For the next hour, three very personal stories from survivors of terror attacks.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We start with some breaking news reports coming in overnight, or quite possibly several attacks in Paris. A burst of gunfire--

VOICE 2: The Somali based group al-Shabaab attacked the college campus at dawn when most students were asleep. The gunman shot dead security guards before firing at police officers stationed at Garissa University College. Witnesses say there was panic—

VOICE 3: The first bomb that was in the federal building did go off. It did the damage that you see right there. It is just incredible to think that there was that much heavy artillery that was somehow moved into downtown Oklahoma City federal building.

AMT: Paris, Garissa, Kenya, Oklahoma City. These are just three of the too many terror attacks that have brought the world to a standstill. For a matter of hours or days, attacks on this scale will always dominate headlines and give us all pause. Waves of sympathy go out for victims and their families and friends. But just as the world's attention inevitably moves on, there are scores of people whose lives cannot. The survivors of such terror attacks continue to live with the attacks day in day out. And their voices are seldom heard in our ongoing conversations about terrorism. We have brought together three survivors from three attacks to share memories today, and share with each other how they have managed to cope. Edwin Orango is a university student. A year ago, April 2^nd, 2015, his school was attacked by al- Shabaab. The gunman killed 148 people at Garisssa University College that day, most of them students, many of them his friends. Garissa University College is in Kenya and Edwin Orango joins us from Eldoret, Kenya. Lydia Berkennou-Vassallo was at the Eagles of Death Metal concert in the Bataclan theatre in Paris last November, the night ISIS-linked terrorists struck the city. 130 people were killed that night, at least 89 of them at the Bataclan theatre alone. Lydia Berkennou-Vassallo joins us from Paris. And Dennis Purifoy is a survivor of the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the worst act of domestic terrorism in US history. 168 people died in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, 30 of them in the Social Security office where Dennis Purifoy worked, and where he was sitting when the bomb went off. He is in Oklahoma City. Hello and welcome to all three of you. I’m going to start by taking a few moments with each of so we can understand a little more about what happened to each of you. Lydia Berkennou-Vassallo, it's only been five months since the attack at the Bataclan in Paris, can you tell us what happened?

LYDIA Berkennou Vassallo: I went to the gate expecting to just see the Eagles of Death Metal and 40 minutes later, people got in with guns and shot at us. After that, it was like everything collapsed and I tried to do everything to get out and I left the venue after five minutes.

AMT: Where were you in the venue when it all began?

LYDIA: I was on the barrier at the front.

AMT: Right by the stage.

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: Right by the stage, yes.

AMT: And so, did you see them come out?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: My memory is still really bad, I can remember seeing the bullets.

AMT: And so you were up so close you were obviously in the line of fire. What did you do?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: I looked around me, everybody was on the floor. I felt a movement towards the front. At that point, I tried to jump above the barrier to get on the other side between the barrier and the stage, but I was too slow. My right leg got stuck against it and this is when I looked behind. So, what was up happening the whole time, I was trying to go on the other side, they kept firing and rioting and people were screaming, and then I thought, this is it and I told my friends that we had to leave, that we couldn't stay there because if we did no way we can survive this. This is when one of my friends helped me get my leg free and I went on the other side, took a deep breath and looked around me again, saw people taking the exit and helped my friend get on the other side with me. The other one couldn't talk because she was shot and at that point my head told me now you have to leave or you're going to die here. So, I crawled all the way to the door and got out.

AMT: So, you got out of the building and where did you go?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: I ran as far as I could, but the distance seemed so short compared to normal and 500 metres away, I looked around and thought you have to pick a place, you’ve got to choose somewhere, it’s not safe to stay outside but everywhere seemed dangerous so I just entered a restaurant near me and I hid there for, I think two or three hours.

AMT: You talk about it now it must have been a blur at the time.

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: The weird feeling is that everything seems so sharp. There's some moments where my brain protects me so the images that I forgot, everything else is not so blurry, unfortunately.

AMT: And your friends, did they get away?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: The friend I got out, she told me later she hid in someone's flat and my other friend who didn't answer our call when we were calling her, she got shot and she played dead all the way until the end, until someone from the police said, you can go, it’s safe.

AMT: How is she today?

LBV: She is good.

AMT: Her gunshot wounds have recovered?

LBV: Yes. Perfectly.

AMT: And of course there's more to it than that always, which is why we're talking to you today just about the things that linger. Lydia, stay with us, I want to bring Edwin Orango into the conversation. The one year anniversary of the Garissa University College attack has just passed. Edwin, tell us what you saw and heard that day.

EDWIN ORANGA: On that morning, the second of April, I woke up. I was woken by gunshots. Then we got outside the house and we were gathered around for like 5 or 10 minutes, and we saw three armed men coming towards us. They weren’t prepared to shoot but when they saw us they started to raise their firearms up and they started shooting at us. So, we ran, looking in the process, heard a few good shots in the process, but luckily managed to escape. And a few of us of the crowd that gathered outside, we ran to the fence of the school and we jumped it, and ran to the nearby villages and hid there until darkness.

AMT: So, these were the al-Shabaab gunmen, they were running right at you shooting?

EDWIN ORANGA: In fact, they were not running, they were just walking. They did not expect to find anyone outside at that time because they were coming very steadily, very slowly, but when they saw us, that’s when they started shooting at us.

AMT: And you had to climb a fence to get away from them, you said?

EDWIN ORANGA: Yes, yes. I had to climb a fence, not only me, but the majority of the people who escaped. They had to go through a fence and it was not easy. It was very difficult because many people in the process, maybe they are on their arms, some even lost their fingers in the process.

AMT: In the escape.

EDWIN ORANGA: Yes.

AMT: And remind us how that attack unfolded for those who could not escape, Edwin.

EDWIN ORANGA: There are about, let’s say eight gunmen, eight al-Shabaab. They came through the gate of the school, they had come up to the school. So four of them went to one office and the other ones went to the other office. Inside the office, they cuffed the students who had not escaped and hid in the rooms. They were cuffed and put in one place and were later killed. [long pause]

AMT: Many of those people were your friends?

EDWIN ORANGA: Yes, many of them are my friends.

AMT: Is there anyone in particular you'd like to tell us about.

EDWIN ORANGA: I had a cousin, we were very close.

AMT: They asked them their religion, didn't they?

EDWIN ORANGA: When they gathered the students inside, they did not expect to find Muslims among the rows of students, but when they started[indecipherable] to the students who hid in the rooms, they found some Muslims so that’s when they started now asking if anyone is a Muslim to come out and save himself or herself. So, then they started to ask some students to recite. I don’t know what they were reciting, but to speak in the Islamic way so they were released. Some of them did that and saved their lives.

AMT: The fact that you got away was just a coincidence though. You happened to see them coming.

EDWIN ORANGA: In fact, I happened to coincidental—I think the gunshots that killed the security staff, I think it’s the gunshots I heard, that a small bunch of students heard those gunshots, so we went outside. By the time we were outside is the time they were now coming into the office, so they did not find us in the office, we just escaped before they entered into the office and held the students.

AMT: Edwin, stay with us. I want to bring Dennis Purifoy into this conversation as well. Dennis, the Oklahoma City bombing happened 21 years ago. What happened to you the day that bomb went off?

DENNIS PURIFOY: I was at work. I worked in the Murrah Federal Building and it was a normal day, just like any other day and I was sitting at a computer and then the explosion happened. I saw a yellow flash. I don't know if it was a reflection of the explosion, I was sitting with my back to where the bomb went off, or if it was an electrical flash because I got a small electrical burn on my hand, but anyway, I saw the flash and everything went black. I was on the ground floor and of course the lights went out, but also we didn't have any daylight coming in so everything was just totally black. The building was reinforced concrete mostly and the concrete dust was really thick so it's really, really hard to see. I was knocked out of my chair and I thought that at first that there had been an explosion just right where I was and that I couldn't figure out why somebody wasn’t coming to help me, so I was yelling for help and a co-worker finally heard me and came over and pulled me out from under some debris. After that, that co-worker and I were trying to find a way out and as we did so we ran across some other employees that needed some help getting up to a safe place so we helped them up and then I went back through the building as much as I could, what I could still walk through, seeing if anybody was still at their desks that needed help. The bomb happened at 9:02 and it was a little bit after ten, I think by the time I got out of the building. After that, I was just trying to meet up with coworkers and trying to account for who we knew got out of the building and who we didn't know got out of the building.

AMT: You, at one point, you're covered in debris and you get up. Did you not have any injuries?

DENNIS PURIFOY: Very minor. I had a couple of stitches and bumps and bruises and that kind of thing, but very minor injuries.

AMT: But some of those around you were killed, were they not?

DENNIS PURIFOY: Yes, there were some people pretty close to me that were killed. I think one reason that I survived, I was very close to where the bomb went off, I think 100 to 115 feet in a straight line, but there were several rows of cubicles between me and the bomb and of course, I was seated. So, that's why I think I survived.

AMT: You lost 16 colleagues in that bombing.

DENNIS PURIFOY: Yes, we had 16 coworkers and there were 24 social security customers that had that died.

AMT: There was a truck parked outside, right? It was the full of explosives.

DENNIS PURIFOY: Right. It was a rental truck that had some ammonium nitrate jet fuel bomb.

AMT: And of your colleagues, because you lost 16 colleagues, I think the full number of those killed was 168. You know, all three of you, we know the stories from the news but to actually live through something and witness what you all did and to survive, I want to ask you about what that has done to your lives since that point. Lydia, what has life been like for you over the last five months?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: If I'm honest, the first few weeks, it was a bit like being on another planet. Really disconnected to the real world, trying to figure out what happened and still today, but I’m slightly back now and time has been really helpful, but sometimes really hard because we start to have to pretend that everything is okay, but it's not.

AMT: You've gone home to Paris. You were living in London and you had just been visiting when this happened.

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: Yes, I was—it was my holiday, a week off from work, so I used to leave and work in London and I needed time off, and the gig was happening in Paris, and therefore this was good timing. And it happened.

AMT: And now you're home. Tell us what it's like to be home. Does that help you?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: Yes, it’s helping because as I said before, that night, we all thought we would die and part of me died that night. Being in London felt weird because I didn't feel home, so I had to come back to Paris so I could find my marks again.

AMT: You say the first couple of weeks were hard, but just walking through the streets of Paris still, do you think about this when-- Is there a time when you don't think about this?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: More and more every day I'm surprised myself because some days, a few hours, I will just think, wait, I haven't thought about it once and this is when I know I'm starting to get better. Some days are harder than others, like after the attacks in Pakistan, Brussels, Turkey, things keep reminding you that something bad happened to you and I don’t think this is something you forget. With time, people say it gets easier, you really learn to live with it, and it's true. But [sniffs] yeah--I don't know, it's things that humans can do that are quite amazing.

AMT: Dennis, you can speak to that. How has what happened to you evolved in terms of how you process it over time?

DENNIS PURIFOY: Well, time does make a great difference. I certainly hear what Lydia is saying and it reminds me of how I was at that point and it does take a long time to recover from something like that and recovery is not an exact term, either. You make adjustments and nothing ever goes back to the way it was. The society is not the way it was and you're not the same person and you can't get back to the way it was. What you can get to, is to what we call a new normal, a new sense of some kind of normalcy. Yes, I remember even six months or a year after the bombing how it affected me and how emotional I was and it seems like my emotions were raw all the time. But, time does make a great deal of difference and as more time has gone on, I've gotten more perspective on it and it's less emotional for me and certainly, I have reached a new normal.

AMT: Talk to me a little bit about the sort of that inconsistency too, Dennis. I think that you know, we might think oh you know in the immediate aftermath, yes you have to deal with it, but then it kind of sideswipes you later on too, right?

DENNIS PURIFOY: Yeah, it's not a straight line of recovery, there are lots of ups and downs and it depends on what happens to you and you can get re-traumatized too. I'm sure that the events in Brussels have been traumatic for Lydia because it brings all that stuff back and clear and up front. So, people can be re-traumatized and kind of go through it again and so in that sense, those things are a setback to a person's recovery, but time is a great healer and it's hard to be patient and to see the long view. And some days, in that first year especially, you feel like I'm never going to get there, but you do.

AMT: What sort of things would re-traumatize you, Dennis?

DENNIS PURIFOY: Well, I paid more attention to things in the news. There was a building, I think it was a department store building, in Seoul, South Korea, that collapsed not long after the Murrah bombing with a great loss of life. It was not a terrorist incident; I can’t remember exactly why the building collapsed, but that really brought it back to me for some reason. It was a building collapse that was a big similarity and the anniversary dates, six-month anniversary, one year anniversary, people will be talking about it, it will be all over the news again in France, a year from when that happened, and then personal things like you know, if you lose a loved one, or if you're in a traffic accident or something like that, those kind of things can just trigger it a little bit and kind of bring it all back.

AMT: Well, I do appreciate all of you speaking about this because I do understand that even to talk about it can be a difficult thing, even when you're finished talking with me today, so I appreciate you helping us understand what people go through when the cameras go away and the stories change and you have to stay with it. Edwin Orango, since the attack, your school has been shut down. You guys were relocated to the other side of the country, but what did that mean? Did that help at all or is it still really hard to face what happened?

EDWIN ORANGO: That process, that event was tragic because it took the lives of many. That attack happened on students with very young minds, and the attack came at a time when nobody was expecting. It's really destroyed the minds of the students. And then the issue of finding a university and going to a new place and meeting new people, you don't know the life of the place. It's really hard. I think for most of us, that after the attacks, it was the hardest time, the hardest moment in our lives because it is very difficult to adapt. Somebody could be looking at you and think you are a survivor, and even the way he or she walks up to you, it’s like she is looking at you, it’s not like you are normal. It’s like an angel or something so it is very difficult for us on the whole. Many things, like the university changing the location, you know, it has made it much worse.

AMT: Are there things that make you worry now, Edwin, that you hadn't thought of before because of what happened?

EDWIN ORANGO: There are many things that have changed in my life. When I look at some things, I could say that I have recovered, but I can’t say that I am back to where I was, back to normal because it isn’t. Even when I walk in the streets, I’m cautious, I’m just looking what, if anything, can happen. What if there is something I have to fight now, what would I do? I think I’ll never be the way I was before the events, before the attack.

AMT: Lydia Berkennou Vassallo, is that sentiment-- is that something that rings true with you?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: Yes, it does. It could seem silly, but a big part of us changed that night either because we discovered something we didn't know about us before, things we did to survive, the way we had to think everything. And then it's hard to come back to who you were. Because you yourself, you have first to learn this new you and then you can start getting back on your feet and then maybe think of reconnecting with your friends, family, anyone who weren’t there that night. It's a bit feeling like alien, I think is the word.

AMT: Mm hmm. Did you learn things? What did you learn about yourself that you didn't know, Lydia, after this?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: I didn't see me as some pretty brave enough or good enough and I've done things that night that clearly showed me that I'm better than I thought I was.

AMT: That's remarkable. And what has it changed? Other things you can't do?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: Walking is odd, because it has a lot of energy and efforts. And, unfortunately, for now I want to walk, but it's not possible because my body's asking me to wait to be ready. And people are so-- People who weren’t there might not be patient enough with us, they might not understand. Actually, most of the people don't get why we look so tired or why we are always somewhere else, because our brain is not here. It’s dealing with all those images and is trying to understand what happened. So it's scary, because I realized that society is asking so much of us, despite what happened and that scares me because it's a lot of pressure on our shoulders. We have to deal with what those guys did to us and on top of that we feel like we have a really important job to do, is to show the world that this is what happened. We are we are strong and we go through it and we feel bad because we don't want to let anyone down. So this is why we are pretending that everything is kind of okay now, but actually, not really.

AMT: In other words, people see you, but they can't see what you're thinking and they don't understand.

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: No, even professionals, like doctors, psychiatric services, psychologists, they keep saying, you look fine, everything's going to be okay, you're doing great. Sometimes I'm wondering if they are human being like anyone else, so they don't want to see that this is something. Unfortunately, we're not okay, but no one wants to see it. No one wants to admit it, because it could happen to them. So, I get that they don't want to see that we are in trouble.

AMT: And even things like-- You were working in London, right? You were working in the hospitality industry.

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: Yes.

AMT: Can you be in a crowd? Can you be in a crowded bar now? Is that just too much to ask?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: I could be. I was really trying hard to go back to my job, like anyone, you know. Like, nothing happened, I can do it, it's going to be fine. And then the first week had normal shifts and I was walking at night and I think it was on a Friday night. It was really crowded and it was getting really busy and we were late. We were really behind. And everything was messy and suddenly I felt something weird inside my body and I could hear my brain saying to me, what are you doing? You're not fine. You can’t do it. And the other part was fighting - they were fighting against each other. I can do it. No, you can’t. And this is when I burst of anger, because I understood this—Why they didn’t kill me? It did damage me and walking was definitely something I couldn't do, so I asked to have light shifts and walk only the time—But even then they lost patience. They asked me to smile, stop - not talk about it, because I would scare people and it didn’t feel right. What they were asking me to do was not right.

AMT: You make a really good point too that, I mean, this is this is the effect of a terrorist attack. It terrorizes, it lingers long after.

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: Yeah.

AMT: Yeah.

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: The consequences on the long term is definitely worse than the night itself. I mean, once I escaped I felt okay. I did the biggest, the hardest part was to stay alive and actually day after day there’s more and more things [indecipherable] and it’s going to a long, long way before we can be strong again.

AMT: Do you have any questions first somebody like Dennis? Given that he’s been living with this for more than 20 years and now.

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: I might ask him how did he do to—Because here in France every institution are seeing that they are here to support us and that if we need anything. And when we go in trying to get the help, we actually found that it’s just a big—Like, it’s empty [indecipherable]. And this is when I think I've realized that I can only count on myself to get better.

AMT: Dennis, can you speak to that?

DENNIS PURIFOY: Maybe a little bit. I think it might be-- I don't know if there's any groups in Paris who have organized groups of survivors and groups of families who've lost loved ones, but if there are such organizations, I would encourage Lydia to get involved with those.

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: Yeah.

DENNIS PURIFOY: Because those people are the ones who really understand what she's going through. And also those kinds of organizations can be effective at moving society and government in ways to provide better support for people. I know in my case, my wife encouraged me at one point to get some individual counseling. And I was able to get that and a few sessions were very, very helpful to me. And we also-- Of course, my job, my entire office was impacted and when we came back to work our employer allowed us to have group counseling sessions at the office. So that's one big advantage that I had that Lydia obviously doesn't have, is that I was working for an employer who was not only tried to be sympathetic and empathetic, but was also willing to try and learn about what happens to people after they've been through trauma, how they are different, and what the process is like for them to get back to being as productive as they had been before. So I was very lucky in that regard. And I certainly am sorry that she's had to go through that with her employer. But, again, having a support group is, I think, very essential.

AMT: Edwin, are you getting the support you need?

EDWIN ORANGO: At first, yes, I got the support that I needed, but [indecipherable] everybody just seemed to forget about the event and moved on with their own life.

AMT: And so when you want to talk about it, Edwin, or when you want to – when you struggle with it, where do you turn?

EDWIN ORANGO: I turn to my friends, my [indecipherable] that was attacked with together and we just talk about it and I think that’s all.

AMT: There's a there's a real randomness in these attacks and at the same time they were, you were targets because of where you happened to be that day, but people wanted to make a big statement and make and create carnage because where you were represented something to them. And I'm just wondering how you think about that as you move in your life now. There's just so much to think about - that randomness of being in a certain place versus another place. Dennis.

DENNIS PURIFOY: Yeah, that is something that you can never escape from and I eventually reached the point where I understood that I was never going to fully understand why I was there, why I survived, why other people were killed. But I got to the point where I could live with that uncertainly or knowing that I would never fully understand. We as humans, we try to put some kind of structure or logic or understanding on some of these things and sometimes you just can't do that. You can't just put everything in a box and say, well, I fully understand this. And that's one thing that I had to do, was get to a point where, no, I don’t know why I survived and why other people, who were better people than I was, were killed. But I can move forward with that. I can say I'm going to try and honour those people in the way I live and that kind of thing. But as far as understanding it, I just had to get to a point right had to just accept it.

AMT: What do you think of what he's saying, Lydia?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: I do think the same. I still have a lot of questions. I mean, I know why they’re doing that. But I kept thinking, why, how, knowing that I couldn't hide, I was just standing there, they could see me. They were just a few metres behind me. And then I’ve looked at videos, trying to look up photos. Why them, not me? I mean, if they could have, they would have killed everybody in that room and that was their goal. So I was just one of the person who managed to get out and I felt really guilty. But then it’s not my fault. It's nobody's fault, but theirs. And learning to move forward and when I don't feel good I try to have a good sentence. Every morning, if I don't want to get up, I just think of all those people who were unlucky to get out, those who are still in hospital. If you don't do it for yourself, then do it for them. And that's it. I mean, I’ve learned that life is too short to ask yourself so many questions. We don't have time to waste with questions.

AMT: Do you feel anger in there too, Lydia?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: I was angry. And I was angry every time I would see something bad happened. But, again, I've learned to use that anger to do something better, something I hope will help.

AMT: And do you follow the news now? We know that the person believed to be the ringleader in that series of attacks was arrested in Brussels. Do you follow it or do you find that too hard to watch? What would you think when you hear about arrests?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: When I was on my phone when the news came on, I don't know why, I felt happy. It wasn't happiness; it was justice and that finally something good to happened for us. And I try not to look too much because the news today is too hard to follow. I mean, everybody's trying to give their point of view and making big story from something little. What really matters is they got him. And that's it. I don't want to know his age, what clothes he’s wearing, his face - it doesn't matter. I mean, it’s too much.

AMT: Edwin, what do you think about that? Do you want to see justice? What goes through your mind?

EDWIN ORANGO: Many, many things. A lot of things go through in mind. I think justice is one of them. There’s days when I look at the news all I want to hear is, maybe, someone being arrested because of one or two things, not even for the attack, maybe some guns have been recovered somewhere. You know, it’s a process. [indecipherable] There’s a chain of events. Maybe someone somewhere does not do his job, so maybe that causes some guns to be smuggled into an area that leads to maybe to the attack being committed. So, I think it’s not that simple, like, to say maybe justice has happened. Because, you know, it’s a chain of events. You can say that maybe the ringleader or the mastermind of the attack has been arrested - that’s not the end.

AMT: Dennis, one of the men convicted in the Oklahoma bombing, Timothy McVeigh was executed. His co-conspirator Terry Nichols was in prison on multiple life sentences. What role has the issue of justice and the pursuit of justice played in your ability to cope and move forward?

DENNIS PURIFOY: Well, overall, it’s probably, I would say, a small part of it. It was important for our government to catch the guys that did it and to go through all the legal process to make sure that that part of justice was achieved. I did actually kind of feel some kind of relief after McVeigh was executed. Not so much that I was glad that his life was taken but I was concerned that if he had just got a life sentence, that he would still be spewing out his warped views from prison for the rest of his life. So, yeah, it's very helpful, I think, for most people in Oklahoma City that our justice system has prevailed. In the case of Oklahoma City, it was an attack on our government and because our government responded so well in the investigation and the prosecution of the cases in a very, very fair and open in transparent way, nobody can say that McVeigh and Nichols did not get fair trials. I think that was part of the healing for us in Oklahoma City. It’s not just that they caught the guys and they were prosecuted, but the government did a great job of it and it was the government that McVeigh and Nichols were attacking to start with. So that aspect of it, I think, was very helpful to me.

AMT: What do each of you want us to know? Again, there are stories in the news far too often of terror attacks and we see pictures and we hear stories and then they disappear. What do you want us to know the next time one of those stories comes up? What should we be thinking about? Who wants to start?

DENNIS PURIFOY: Well, I will. This is Dennis. This is a hard thing for people to think about, but when 140 were killed in Kenya and scores of people were killed in Paris and 168 people were killed in Oklahoma City, what I want people to realize is it's not just a mass murder, that is technically correct, but it's killing individual people and that means that, like in the case of Oklahoma City, there are 168 families that have been affected. And the ripples they go off from all those people, all their extended families and their friends -how that many people have been affected. And another thing is most people, unless they know really about post-traumatic stress and what trauma does to people, they don't really know how to fix people, short term or long term. Most people have some kind of general idea of post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic stress disorder, but they don't really understand it and the problem is a lot of people think they do. And so that's an issue that comes up, I think.

AMT: Edwin, what do you want us to think about?

EDWIN ORANGO: After that talk, I think maybe when people see the news or watch the news I think they just get an outside picture. They don’t really know what’s really happened. So, many people end up playing the blame game. They blame everybody. First, maybe they blame al-Shabaab, then they blame the police officers. Then after that they blame the Muslims. So, I think, me personally, being there when the attack happened, I think actually, I have no one to blame. I just don’t blame anybody. So, somebody comes on the news and starts blaming, maybe, the Muslims- the Muslim authority, or starts blaming, maybe, the police – they’ve not done their job – I think it’s not fair to any of them, because really don’t know what’s happened. And it cannot be explained as easy as it looks, so my point is just the blame game. Yeah.

AMT: Yeah, okay. I hear what you’re saying. Lydia, what do you want us to think about?

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: I want people to remember that those people who do it are not doing it because they’re Muslims or white or black or because they believe that-- I mean, I want people to remember this is other human beings. This is a human killing another human and when people see to news, because the see it on TV and because it didn't happen to him, they think it's fiction, they believe in conspiracy and they look away. And I think if we want these problem to at least not—I mean, it won't stop as long as someone is trying to impose his law on everyone, but if we want it to happen less often, people, once they see it on the news, I don't want them to look at it and think, again? I want them to think, what can we do to help and change and bring something that might stop other people joining that stupid cause? Because before holding a gun and shoot at people, they were people like you, me, anyone and every one of us needs to bring something, even as tiny as it could be, it might seem small and if everyone was giving a little all together, I think, it can become something really—I think it could change the problem.

AMT: Well, thank you, all of you for talking about this. We'll leave it on that note. I think it's really important to hear your voices. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us about what you've each have gone through and what you continue to go through. Thank you very much.

DENNIS PURIFOY: Thank you.

LYDIA BERKENNOU VASSALLO: You’re welcome. Thank you.

AMT: That is Edwin Orango. He's a student. He survived the al-Shabaab attack a year ago on Garissa University College, which killed 148 people. We reached him in reached him in Eldoret, Kenya. Lydia Berkennou Vassallo was at the Bataclan theatre last November the night ISIS-linked terrorists carried out multiple attacks on Paris and killed 130. We reached her in Paris. And Dennis Purifoy is a survivor of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing in which a Michigan-based far right extremist group blew up a federal building killing 168. He joined us from Oklahoma City. They have shared some photos with us, which we have posted on our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent. While you're there let us know what you think of that conversation as you listened to them talking about what they live with long after the news moves on when there is a terror attack. You can also tweet us. We are @thecurrentCBC. And find us on Facebook. That's our program for today. Now, we have been talking about the attack at the Bataclan theatre in Paris last November. When the American rock band Eagles of Death Metal was on the stage - and you just heard Lydia talking about being right up at the barrier, right at that stage. In February, the band returned to Paris to resume its tour with a triumphant show at the city's Olympia theatre. So we're going to leave you a with a little bit of Eagles of Death Metal today. This is their cover of the Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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[Music: Brown Sugar performed by Eagles of Death Metal]

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Apr. 11, 2016 Episode Transcript

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