Eyewitness Testimony: Carl Wilkens — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01I started to see the militia appearing all around, probably more than fifty of them.
2. 0:06They could walk right between the bushes of the enclosure.
3. 0:08They could walk in whenever they wanted.
4. 0:11And it was after, like I said, two to three hours, that all of a sudden, here comes a
5. 0:16little double-cab Toyota pickup with seven gendarmes in the back, in their little red
6. 0:21berets.
7. 0:22What a welcome sight these guys were.
8. 0:25They pulled in the parking lot, the soldiers jump out of the back of the pickup truck,
9. 0:28and they look around and size up the situation.
10. 0:30The lieutenant who came with them went with me inside the office, and we tried to explain
11. 0:35the situation to him.
12. 0:37And I said, "Is there any way you can spend the night here because these guys — it appears
13. 0:42we have a massacre about to happen."
14. 0:45And he says, "We're just seven.
15. 0:47There's nothing we could do here."
16. 0:48He says, "The best thing is for you to go and talk to my leader."
17. 0:52Now these guys didn't travel with any of their own radios or communication equipment.
18. 0:58And so you got some hard decisions here to make, because — can you trust this man?
19. 1:06Some of the police were involved in the killing.
20. 1:08Some were saving and protecting people.
21. 1:11What do you do?
22. 1:13But it seemed like the only route to do was to trust him.
23. 1:16The young brother said, "No.
24. 1:17Don't go.
25. 1:18They're going to kill us as soon as you leave."
26. 1:19And I said to him, you know — I promised him...
27. 1:32I promised him, "I'll come back."
28. 1:38And so it was with this sick mixture of relief and dread that I got in my car and drove away...