Cindy Warmbier Urges U.S. to Keep Pressure on North Korea; Venezuelan Senior Homes Provide Shelter for the Most Vulnerable; Venezuela's Juan Guaido Calls for Weekend Protests at Military Bases
HOWELL: Welcome back to our viewers here in the United States and around the world, you're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm George Howell with the headlines we're following for you at this hour.</s>HOWELL: The mother of American Otto Warmbier is slamming North Korea as a, quote, "cancer on the Earth" and has launched an emotional appeal for more pressure to be put on Kim Jong-un and his regime. Cindy Warmbier's 22-year-old son died shortly after being brought back to the United States from that country in a coma. That's where he'd been held for 17 months. Our Brian Todd has this report.</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When Otto Warmbier was brought home from a North Korean labor camp --</s>TODD (voice-over): -- in a coma, his mother says he looked like a monster.</s>CINDY WARMBIER, MOTHER OF OTTO WARMBIER: The look in his eyes, which I didn't know he was blind at the time, was absolute horror. Horror. Like he'd seen the devil. And he had. He was with the devil.</s>TODD (voice-over): Cindy Warmbier says if she had known North Korea would demand the U.S. agree to pay $2 million for the release of her son, she would have sprung into action.</s>WARMBIER: If I had to, I would have raised the money and I wish they would have asked for the money from day one because it was all about hostage taking. But instead, they had a much bigger use for Otto.</s>TODD (voice-over): President Trump says that money was never paid, although U.S. officials did sign a bill in order to have Warmbier released. He died six days after his return in 2017. Cindy Warmbier spoke during a panel in Washington today about North Korean kidnappings. Just a mile away, former North Korean soldiers were on Capitol Hill, detailing what they called the brutality of Kim Jong-un's regime. Former members of Kim's vaunted million-man army, often seen in lockstep on the parade route, said, behind the scenes, those choreographed routines were a facade, hiding rampant abuse and starvation.</s>JO YOUNG-HWA, FORMER SOLDIER IN NORTH KOREA (through translator): I was really hungry all the time. I was starving. My height is short because of the malnutrition I experienced in the military. From the first day, we were forced to go to villages and steal food from civilians.</s>TODD (voice-over): Some soldiers were even more desperate. Former North Korean artillery officer Kang Ri-hyuk told us of one young soldier in his unit. During a training exercise, he says, the soldier was so hungry, he ate a frog alive.</s>KANG RI-HYUK, FORMER SOLDIER IN NORTH KOREA (through translator): He didn't know that this frog was poisonous. He became unconscious and he died within a couple of hours.</s>TODD (voice-over): These accounts come a year and a half after a young North Korean staff sergeant made this dramatic dash across his country's border with South Korea, surveillance video showing him being pursued and shot several times by his North Korean comrades. He was rescued and almost died of his wounds. In the hospital, he too was treated for severe malnutrition. For female North Korean soldiers, mistreatment of a different kind. Choi Yu-jin is a former nurse in the people's army. She says a female colleague of hers was forced to have an affair with a superior officer. The woman became pregnant, Choi says, and almost died when she suffered a miscarriage.</s>CHOI YU-JIN, FORMER ARMY NURSE IN NORTH KOREA (through translator): She said, when they asked her to have an affair with him, there was no way she could refuse. She had to do it in order to get party membership, so she could have a better life. The only thing she could sacrifice was her body.</s>TODD (voice-over): These horrific stories come as President Trump remains determined to pursue his personal diplomacy with Kim Jong-un. Diplomacy which Otto Warmbier's mother calls a charade.</s>WARMBIER: How can you have diplomacy with someone that never tells the truth? He lies, he lies, he lies all for himself.</s>TODD: President Trump has said Kim Jong-un told him he never knew about Otto Warmbier's condition while Warmbier was in his regime's custody. And Trump said he believes Kim. We reached out North Korea's mission at the U.N. for their response to the accounts from those soldiers of starvation and abuse. They didn't get back to us. But Kim Jong-un has previously said publicly that his soldiers should be spared no amount of nutrition so that they could feel the, quote, "loving care of his regime" -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.</s>HOWELL: The U.S. president is urging his top advisers to approach the crisis in Venezuela with more caution and he's expressing frustration with those who are hinting at military intervention. This comes after the U.S.-backed national assembly leader failed to topple the country's embattled president this week. But Juan Guaido remains determined. He's called for more protests to win military support, telling supporters they are close to victory. Listen.</s>JUAN GUAIDO, INTERIM PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA (through translator): We are willing to talk to all the civil and military officials, with all, no matter where they come from, who are willing to cooperate with the cessation of usurpation, the government of transition and the free elections, because that is the mandate that I have by the constitution.</s>HOWELL: In the meantime, members of the Lima Group, of mainly Latin American countries, again showed their support for Guaido. They revised a resolution calling for a return to democracy in Venezuela. The economic crisis in Venezuela is hitting almost everyone but especially hitting the elderly hard. It's forced many of them to take refuge in senior citizen homes because many of their families can't afford to keep them to help them. Our Michael Holmes has this story.</s>MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Dominoes in the courtyard of the Mother Teresa Senior Home in Caracas. There's not much else to do here. If life for Venezuelans is tough -- and undeniably it is -- it's even worse --</s>HOLMES (voice-over): -- for the elderly. This is not a good country in which to grow old.</s>BAUDILIO VEGA, MOTHER TERESA SENIOR HOME (through translator): If we didn't have this place, how many of these people would be on the streets or dead? Thank God, here they are alive. It's not five-star but at least they survive.</s>HOLMES (voice-over): Baudilio Vega and his volunteer staff do their best to feed and house nearly 80 people here, the oldest 84-year-old Carmen Cecilia. It's a heartbreaking fact that, here in Venezuela, many of the elderly are simply given up by their families, not unwanted; far from it. But victims of the brutal choice by the family: do you feed the children or do you feed the grandparents?</s>VEGA (through translator): There are many people here who are sad. If their hearts are sad it's because they've given everything in their life and their families, for one reason or another, sent them here.</s>HOLMES (voice-over): Everything here is donated and donations are drying up. Pensions, if you get one, almost worthless in this crumbling economy at $7 a month. There's no basking in retirement golden years in Venezuela. "I had a lot of expectations of a nice retirement because I had a good job and income," Ochoa (ph) tells me. "What do you think about the government and what it does?" I ask him. Nada, nothing, nothing. he says. Life is spartan, austere, but it is life. Alternatives unthinkable or unavoidable. The stories here are so similar, the pain and disappointment so individual. We meet Victoria Madriz, 74 years old. She has family in Caracas. But there was simply no room or money to support her.</s>VICTORIA MADRIZ, SENIOR HOME RESIDENT (through translator): There were a lot of people in the house, my brother's children and their children. It was too much.</s>HOLMES (voice-over): A familiar refrain: families who couldn't cope or who simply left. An estimated 3 million Venezuelans have fled their country and its wretched economy in recent years. Many didn't take their parents or grandparents. They couldn't afford to. Baudilio Vega says he won't let these people down even if, he says, his government has. What he wants is change, help.</s>VEGA (voice-over): I urge Venezuela, let the humanitarian aid in. We need the food and the medicine. Instead of buying weapons, we need medicines and food.</s>HOLMES (voice-over): The residents of the Mother Teresa home say in the meantime they'll survive. They have to.</s>BRIGIDA ZULAY, SENIOR HOME RESIDENT (through translator): All of us, we have hope.</s>HOLMES (voice-over): -- Michael Holmes, CNN, Caracas, Venezuela.</s>HOWELL: Let's bring in Kevin Middlebrook, Kevin is a professor of Latin American politics at University College London, joining us this hour in London. Good to have you with us.</s>KEVIN MIDDLEBROOK, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: Good morning.</s>HOWELL: I just wanted to get your thoughts on that piece we just played from Michael Holmes, discussing, explaining the situation for those who are more vulnerable in that country, given the economic situation.</s>MIDDLEBROOK: It's a terribly difficult economic and social situation. The economy is in complete meltdown. The annual rate of inflation will be in the low millions now. They're talking about a further drop of about 25 percent in gross domestic product this year, which is a 50 percent drop over about three years; 3 million people have emigrated, essentially for economic and hardship reasons. So it is a terrible situation for millions of people. There's a great demand for humanitarian assistance, which the Red Cross and other countries are now trying to meet but it's really an extremely dire situation.</s>HOWELL: For those people, you described a dire situation. Juan Guaido is counting on seeing many people, many of his supporters, to fill the streets to protest. But that didn't materialize as he wanted. Instead, we saw many images of Nicolas Maduro, surrounded by hundreds who support him in the military. Where does that leave the opposition leader in what is clearly a tug- of-war for leverage?</s>MIDDLEBROOK: Well, this is a very fluid and highly divided situation. One of the problems that Guaido faces is precisely because the economic situation is so terrible, his calls for a general strike, in which businesses shut down, et cetera, is really a very difficult decision for people to make. They're afraid, if they close their business, the government will take them over as a political act and that they will wind up all the worse for it. And, of course, the other dimension to this is the military calculus made by the armed forces, whether they continue to back Maduro or defect toward Guaido. This past week has seen some very dramatic developments in that regard. As for now, as for the last three months, the senior military command seems to be behind Maduro. I must say, in part, one of the reasons they seem to continue to back Maduro is precisely that the Trump administration continues to talk about the use of military force, which would unify the Venezuelan armed forces.</s>HOWELL: It is interesting to point out Mr. Trump's position on the possibility of military intervention, Mr. Trump saying that options are on the table. Where does that put the United States, given that Russia is also active, involved in what's happening in Venezuela?</s>MIDDLEBROOK: Well, Russia is no position logistically to block some form of U.S. military action. It might be able to take some anti-U.S. response elsewhere in the world. I suppose Putin could even tell Trump there will never be a Trump Tower hotel in Moscow if the U.S. uses military force in Venezuela or something like that. But clearly, I think the problem for the U.S. would be mainly on the Latin American and Venezuelan sides. Many Latin American countries, not all but many Latin American countries have backed this effort originally in the name of defending democracy in Latin America. But when the Trump administration talks about the Monroe Doctrine, the use of military force, undercutting the trek of tyranny in socialist countries in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, it makes Latin American countries much more uneasy about this. And I think it would be almost impossible for any of them to endorse some form of military action.</s>HOWELL: Kevin Middlebrook giving us some perspective on what's happening in Venezuela. Kevin, thank you.</s>MIDDLEBROOK: My pleasure.</s>HOWELL: Tropical depression Fani is weakening as it moves across Bangladesh but it could still bring heavy rains and mudslides. We're tracking the story -- ahead.