Return to Transcripts main page

Amanpour

No Word on Fate of ISIS Hostages; Atoning for the Sins of the Past; Imagine a World

Aired January 29, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

(MUSIC PLAYING)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): The fate of two ISIS hostages remains in the balance tonight as the deadline for a prisoner

exchange passes and we get a unique perspective on behind-the-scenes negotiations.

Also ahead, in the week that we remember 70 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, the grandson of the camp's Nazi commandant making amends for

his family's horrific crime.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

The deadline for a prisoner exchange that ISIS demanded take place at the Turkish border has come and gone. They wanted convicted terrorist

Sajida al-Rishawi to be taken from jail in Jordan to the border by sunset local time or else they said Jordanian pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh would be

executed.

The trouble is, ISIS never met Jordan's condition: proof the pilot is still alive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAMMED AL-MOMANI, JORDANIAN GOVERNMENT SPOKESPERSON: We want to emphasize what we said yesterday, that Jordan is willing to exchange Sajida

al-Rishawi with the Jordanian pilot, Maaz al-Kassasbeh. At this point, we want to emphasize that we have asked for a proof of life from Daish and we

have not received anything as of yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: On this program yesterday, the Jordanian foreign minister told me that the Japanese journalist, Kenji Goto, would also be part of a

prisoner swap. And today his wife spoke out, saying that she fears this is her husband's last chance.

The most recent ISIS demand did not mention releasing the Jordanian pilot, only not to kill him. It only said it would release the Japanese

hostage.

An incredibly complex state of affairs with heavy risks for two governments and heavy consequences for two families. The governments, of

course, are backing the war against ISIS and joining me now is Ambassador James Jeffrey. He was America's top diplomat in Iraq until 2012.

Ambassador Jeffrey, welcome back to the program on a really very, very tense evening.

You have been in this sort of situation before with ISIS' predecessor in Iraq.

What can you imagine may be going on right now?

JAMES JEFFREY, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Thank you, Christiane. It's good to be back.

First of all, there's the human tragedy that we have to keep in the center of everything, as you cited a minute ago. What's going on is an

effort by ISIS to leverage these people that they're holding illegitimately to gain political capital and gain legitimacy. They'll do that in any way

possible by gaining the release, in this case, of Sajida al-Rishawi from the Jordanian Far East. In other cases, they've demanded and received

hostage payments. In any case, it's all about waging war by other means by propaganda so it's a very tricky and a very dangerous situation.

But again, at the center, we have human lives.

AMANPOUR: Before I get to the kind of indirect or other kind of negotiations you got into, what is your view, your perspective on what is,

after all, you know, a pretty tense thing, the Jordanian government, part of the alliance against ISIS, is actually negotiating with terrorists.

JEFFREY: That's true. The United States, as a general rule, doesn't. There are expectations and the U.S. government would dispute this, but the

exchange of then-Private Bergdahl for Taliban prisoners could come close to this.

But by and large, the United States doesn't negotiate directly with terrorists and it doesn't make exchanges of this sort. But we know that

other countries do. We would prefer that they didn't; the United States government would prefer that they didn't. But in fact, given the human

cost, given the tragedy, given the political pressure, it often occurs and we have to live with that and try to deal with the fallout. And there is

fallout, always.

AMANPOUR: Give me, from your perspective, the pressure that the Jordanian government is under to get the pilot back.

JEFFREY: Certainly. His -- he comes from a prominent family. The father of al-Kassasbeh, his father, and tribesmen from the south of Amman

are raising questions not only about what the government should do but also whether that country should still be in the coalition against ISIS. This

is exactly what ISIS is trying to do. It's what the precursor to ISIS, Al Qaeda in Iraq was doing in 2004-2005, when they were taking Italian,

Filipino and other hostages, we were trying to get them back through military means.

But they were trying to leverage those hostages to try to drive up public opposition in those countries to the coalition effort in Iraq then,

just as ISIS is doing this now. This is a political campaign on their part.

AMANPOUR: You don't think it'll work, though, right? I mean, the Jordanian foreign minister told me that they remain committed to this war

and our other Jordanian officials have said that.

JEFFREY: Jordan will remain committed because of Jordan's long-term security interests and relations to us into the Gulf states, all of whom

are opposed to ISIS. Nonetheless, it's quite possible that Jordan will modify somewhat its very open and its very overt military operations and

other activities as a large American presence in the country and they're being very helpful. They'll continue to be helpful, Christiane, but they

will possibly do this in different ways.

In the end, I think we can still count on the Jordanians. But King Abdullah of Jordan is in a tricky situation right now.

AMANPOUR: Now I said negotiate with hostages because that is what the critics say, the Jordanians and actually the American government says,

well, actually it's a prisoner exchange. This happens in times of war.

Israelis have made massive prisoner exchanges with Hamas; Turkey made a massive prisoner exchange with ISIS.

What do you know about actually the kinds of negotiations? How does one negotiate or meet these demands of ISIS who right now seem to be

talking past each other?

JEFFREY: There are usually intermediaries, people who are close to the insurgency. This is what we had in Iraq. There are people who are

doing this now with ISIS. Other groups that are opposed to Syrian government who have contacts with them, news outlets in the Arab world that

ISIS is able to access and these people are obviously in contact with the Jordanian government and the Jordanian government with them.

But again, as you pointed out earlier, if there's no proof that the pilot is still alive, and if ISIS is not willing to release him, then the

Jordanians are -- seemingly are not going to go forward with this exchange.

AMANPOUR: What do think the U.S. government, the Obama administration, thinks or is saying to the Jordanians about this?

JEFFREY: Officially, we're saying and we said this that the United States doesn't support these kinds of negotiations ourselves. But we're

being very careful not to be too critical of the Jordanians and that's the right approach.

Again, King Abdullah of Jordan is in a very tricky position. He doesn't need a whole lot of pressure or criticism from the United States.

He needs time and space to work this thing out. This is a very delicate political situation for him and we need Jordan and this coalition.

AMANPOUR: And in the bigger picture, the wider sense, does this embolden ISIS?

Or is this a desperate lashing out by ISIS, which is suffering casualties or rather setbacks on the battlefield?

JEFFREY: It's both, Christiane. ISIS, as you said, has suffered a series of setback. This isn't a sudden death overtime basketball game.

This is a long military campaign. ISIS has scored victories in the past, seizing Mosul, seizing Fallujah. And this is a minor victory for ISIS,

playing off these two prisoners.

But nonetheless, overall, in the last few months, ISIS has been losing territory. It's staked its claim on Kobani, the Kurdish Syrian town on the

Turkish border and it lost thousands of people there. And it's pulled back now. And we're seeing them pull back in other areas.

So the coalition in a way is on a roll. It's got a long way to go. ISIS is trying to respond to that by doubling down on the support it does

have in some areas of the Arab and Islamic world. And one way to do that is to gain publicity through these hostage stunts.

AMANPOUR: You know so much about Iraq and the region. Look inside Iraq for the moment and tell me whether Iraq is actually on the right path

now. The new prime minister has made all the right noises; he, many say, has made a good start in trying to be more inclusive with the all-important

Sunni tribes, getting them on board.

What do you think the prognosis is for really pushing back ISIS and keeping Iraq whole?

JEFFREY: In relative terms, Christiane, it's better than I've seen in many years because of the nature of Abadi and also everybody in Iraq

learned from the near-death experience with ISIS. It took over a third of the country, most of the Sunni Arab population. That Sunni Arab population

is pushing back. It needs to hear more from the parliament and from the Abadi government. But they're moving in that direction. They're working

on a budget just today. The Kurds have been reintegrated with an oil deal with Baghdad. There are a whole series of positive steps of the sort that

we were trying to facilitate back in 2010-2011. And we weren't all that successful with that government.

With this government, they're doing much better but Iraq is always a dicey place to try to see permanent improvement. But again, it's working

better than it has in the near past.

AMANPOUR: With that, Ambassador James Jeffrey, thank you very much indeed for joining us tonight.

Thank you.

JEFFREY: Thank you, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: And from these atrocities that we've been talking about by ISIS to the monstrous crimes of the Nazis, this week the world remembered

70 years since Auschwitz was liberated and condemned the horrors of the time.

One of the loudest voices belongs to the grandson of the Nazi commandant of Auschwitz. An extraordinary perspective when we come back.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

It is the world's most monstrous Nazi concentration camp where more than a million people violently perished. This week, world leaders

traveled to Poland to commemorate 70 years since Auschwitz was liberated. But which remains the place synonymous with death, genocide and true

horror.

From 1940 to 1945, the camp commandant was Rudolf Hoss, who was later hanged there for his crimes. His 49-year-old grandson, Rainer, has

disowned his family and for decades he's devoted his life to supporting survivors of the Holocaust. He, too, was at the remembrance ceremony at

Auschwitz on Tuesday and he joins me now from the Polish city of Krakow to talk about this at a time when right-wing xenophobia is again raising its

ugly head in Germany and elsewhere across Europe.

Rainer Hoss, welcome to the program.

RAINER HOSS, GRANDSON OF THE COMMANDANT OF AUSCHWITZ: Welcome. Thank you (INAUDIBLE) being guest.

AMANPOUR: Tell me what it was like for you and why you needed to go to Auschwitz to commemorate and to remember what happened.

Your grandfather was commandant and in fact he was hanged there for his crimes after the war.

I think it's a kind of respect, to give respect to the survivors, to be there, not to blame them or hurt them again, only to show my respect and

show them there are other possibilities not only hate in the world. And I saw it many times that survivors came to me when they saw or know out of

the newspapers or some of the shows and they would come and want to thank me and want to talk to me and some of them invite me to their home and

said, would be great work we do. So I think it is a time to do it.

AMANPOUR: You have, in fact, been adopted by one elderly survivor, a lady who actually survived Auschwitz and survived your grandfather's

crimes.

Does everybody you meet agree and welcome and accept you?

Or do you find that people still think you are the face of the enemy?

HOSS: That's a good question.

(LAUGHTER)

HOSS: Yes, it depends on, though I met survivors who were clear, like Eva (ph) was or other survivors who get fear when they hear my name. I

think it had nothing to do with me as a -- as the person. It's more the fear of the name, which bring up all the memory of that time. So that the

opposite of all that, what I've done.

AMANPOUR: Tell me what made you do what you do. What is it that launched you on this kind of activism to atone, to try, as you say, you

know, to talk and try to sort of allay the hatred and the fear and to make up for the terrible things done by your family?

HOSS: I think it's easy to explain so to grow up in a family like I grew up with all the ideology stuff and glorifying the grandfather and all

his good work and he behaved soldier, so and I see it right now that in Europe and we saw it on the European election in 2014, that the right-wing

activists gaining more power, more ground so 20 years ago, nobody was seen about it and right now they have 10 percent of the European election seats.

And I see like PEGIDA in Germany, it's a special -- I think you have as well things like that in the States or in England -- they go on marches.

And when you get calls from old people in the age of 90-92, which still live on that -- on the street where they cross by with the marches, and

they call you in the night and are frightening and say we have now the next night of broken glass.

I think it's frightening, definitely. And that's why we are standing up to educate youth while these young people sometimes will lead leaders in

our government maybe or things like that.

And if they not remember the past, what could happen if people ignore for the present. So we have no future.

AMANPOUR: Such an important message. You talk about the night of broken glass, Cristallnacht, as it was known, and what came after that. I

want to put up some images from the photographer, Marc Erwin Babej, that a part of the project that shows Germans of today in the shadow of the Nazi

past, we're going to show a couple of those images because the photographer took pictures of you when you were in one of the camps in -- there you are

there, and there you are also rather remarkably tattooed yourself to elicit, I assume, memories of what happened to the victims.

HOSS: Yes. Mark is a really good friend of mine. He's a German Jew and goes to America in 1986. So we met each other again and he asked to

make some pictures.

Well, he was only one of a handful of people who know about the tattoo. So it's called "never forget," and it's the numbers of three

survivors I work very close with. And I have a Star of David on -- as well on the chest tattooed.

So it shows my honor to these people. Well, they are completely different to the people we think they are, that means they normally -- they

talk to me and they talk to me as a normal human being, not the -- not frightening about my surname. And they help me to establish activities

which are against all these right-wing movements, racism, homophobia, sexism, all that stuff which is probably a problem around the globe, not

only in Europe.

AMANPOUR: Rainer, the late writer and the Auschwitz survivor, Primo Levy, called your grandfather, Rudolf, one of the worst criminals of all

time. And you, at one point came across his memoir, his autobiography.

What did you discover? What did you find?

HOSS: Oh, there are a lot of things I researched now in more than 30 years in my family. Though I cannot agree that he was a -- yes, he was a -

- he was a monster. He was a brutal guy. But on the other hand, he was a normal guy. So it is like a twin, get in in the evening, took out his

uniform, hugged his kids, play around with them. And he was a beloved father.

He creates -- and I was with my -- with my pop (ph) was there today, and the whole week. And they saw very close where we inside the villa how

close the chimney is, the crematoria is, and he creates a garden around it and my grandma called itself a paradise.

So and everything changes in the morning when he leaves the house and went to the camp. So it is not easy to take a hand on and to think about

what happens right now. But he was -- he was a killer. He was a mass murderer. And he was a perfection guy. So he was not only about like

falling all the by order, it was a creation, a passion. So he would be the best in his job and he creates the ovens; the creates the crematoria. And

he was in Hungary or I was last year in Hungary to meet survivors and was speaking about the speaker of march of the living.

And it was horrible for me to go there, to see how people suffered in that time and they explained me how it was. So we came there. He made all

the time schedule for the Reichsbahn, the train station. People lose their name, get a number, go to the cattle wagon. He organized everything.

How many people in the wagon, how many wagons are to go into Auschwitz in which time they have to pass Auschwitz so that everything works very

well and they can exterminate 12,000-15,000 people a day.

AMANPOUR: It is even -- I don't think anybody ever gets used to hearing this and the details that you are saying right now about your own

grandfather. It is really very difficult to listen to.

What have your own parents done? Have they disowned you? Do they agree that you should be renouncing this family history?

HOSS: My grandmother all the time agreed with all that stuff. She said the Jewish and the Allies, they took all -- they took my paradise

away. But she forgot to tell that she was the lady and my grandfather who come to occupy Poland, saw the villa and occupied the villa from the

owners.

So they not built anything or buy anything there. It was only stolen from people they had fear and they got the chance to move on if they go

friendly out of the house or they have to go over the wall. So that means in a time schedule of four to six or eight weeks, they end on the gas

chamber. So they get killed.

That is the problem.

AMANPOUR: And what does your mother and father say about your work today?

HOSS: I have no contact with my -- to the whole Hoss family. I only have contact to my mom. Well, she is not in any stuff with the family.

And he was the only one who take care to protect the little bit us from the ideology. So my grandmother was like a dictator; when she put her foot in

a room, everything was quiet there. So she was a -- yes. She was the head of the family. And she as well, my father and the rest of my aunts and

uncles, they never really go away from the ideology of the Nazis. And that took place in my family as well. It was the only way to -- while my father

give any interaction, we have to obey. If we come in and we cry, well, something happened outside with friends, the -- we got slapped, not for the

stuff we have done, only for that that we are crying.

And he is, until today, he is a right-wing voter and believes in the ideology.

AMANPOUR: Rainer Hoss, thank you very much for joining me tonight.

And after a break, history of another kind, prehistory, a London icon and an object of curiosity for millions of school children, to remove or

not to remove Dippy. Find out who's resting their weary bones after a break.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, imagine a world with one less beloved icon. It is about to happen in London and the world of natural history,

not to mention millions of children, are bidding an emotional farewell to their favorite dinosaur, 150 million years after he became extinct.

Dippy, the diplodocus, has roamed Britain's Natural History Museum for more than 100 years. And since 1979, he's been taking pride of place in

the great entrance hall, inspiring generations of children who gaze up at him in awe. But it's goodbye, Dippy, as the museum turned its gaze towards

the now and the even more massive real skeleton of a blue whale will hang in the grand entrance.

While evoking danger and anticipation, as it'll be tilted down as if diving into the sea of visitors. Now as you might imagine, children and

their carers have mixed view on dismissing Dippy. Many are outraged while others point out that, hey, Dippy wasn't even real, rather a plaster cast

of all those bones. And the museum's new catch of the day comes with an important message for our times. The blue whale is a rare species that's

been hunted almost to extinction and remains very endangered. The museum hopes that its new placement will encourage future visitors, young and old,

to put conservation center stage.

Apparently, it takes a long time to assemble and disassemble a mountain of bones, but this will all take place in 2017, whereupon Dippy

will be relegated back to his kinder contemporaries in the dinosaur exhibit, where children and adults alike can continue to look up to him for

generations to come.

And that's it for our program tonight. Remember you can always watch online. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

END