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Europe's Biggest Refugee Crisis since World War II; Saving Syria's History; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 31, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: ISIS continues its march of death and destruction against humanity and mystery as a new

explosion rocks the ancient city of Palmyra. From Damascus, we speak to "the saddest antiquities chief in the world."

And half of Syria's people are among those desperately seeking refugee dying by the truckload and the boatload, a black stain on the conscience of

this continent, which won a Nobel Peace Prize, yet sits divided and dithering as people die.

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

More refugees are fleeing to Europe than at any time since World War II, an unacceptable number are dying in gruesome ways, suffocating in that truck

in Austria or drowning in rickety boats off Libya last week.

But as for a solution or even a policy, there is none. Europe remains unable to come up with a coherent plan for the continent, even German

Chancellor Angela Merkel says this crisis is an even bigger test than the economic meltdown in Greece.

Three hundred and 10,000 people have hit these shores this year alone according to the United Nations and that is 40 percent more than during all

of 2014. Two and a half thousand have died trying.

Germany, along with Sweden, is acting generously, taking in 40 percent of the new arrivals while this country, the United Kingdom, is not, taking in

only 4 percent.

Some countries like Hungary are building razor wire fences to try and keep refugees out. Its border with Serbia marks the edge of the E.U. Schengen

zone of passport free travel, making Hungary an attractive destination for refugees.

Ninety thousand refugees have crossed through Serbia this year alone, and joining me now live is the country's interior minister, Nebojsa Stefanovic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Minister Stefanovic, thank you for joining me from Belgrade.

Let's start with the burden on Serbia and on the Balkans.

How are you dealing with being the transit point for all these refugees?

NEBOJSA STEFANOVIC, SERBIAN INTERIOR MINISTER: Well, good evening. And this is really a good question since we have had almost 115,000 refugees

passing through Serbia since the beginning of this year.

And it's difficult economically, especially for a country that's going through economic reforms. Since we are providing some food, shelter and

medical supplies of course, with medical treatment for all the people that are coming to Serbia. So it's hasn't been easy for us. But it's part of

the thing that we have to do because we are trying to show that we are humane and a democratic society.

AMANPOUR: Now of course the E.U. has released about 1.7 million, nearly 2 million euros in humanitarian assistance for you and Macedonia. But you

are aspiring to belong to the E.U.

What would you say to the E.U., to the leaders, to the policymakers, right now about this massive crisis?

STEFANOVIC: Well, we need -- I think the key issue that we need, a comprehensive solution, cannot be a solution for one of several countries.

It has to be a comprehensive solution that deals with the entire E.U., because this is a more E.U. problem than actually a problem of Serbia.

We are a transit country; but we want to be humane and show that this is actually a right approach.

Since I don't believe that any wall can stop these people from reunion with their families or seeking a better life, whether they do it in Germany,

Sweden or any other European country.

We also, Serbia, as a candidate country, we want to show that we are prepared to take our part of the burden and we are prepared to take some of

these people also here. But we also want to show that they are safe passing through Serbia also, that they can get everything that they need

for normal life in any other country.

AMANPOUR: You just said you don't think a wall is the solution. Your neighboring country, Hungary, has built a razor wire fence, the site of

desperate people trying to get through that fence is truly heartwrenching.

And it also doesn't work.

What would you say to your neighbors in Hungary?

STEFANOVIC: Well, we are aware that is a privilege of any country to defend its borders as (INAUDIBLE). But actually as you said it yourself,

it doesn't --

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STEFANOVIC: -- really work. And it's put a question, what is the European idea if our idea is Europe without borders, Europe without razor fences,

without walls and a Europe in which we have freedom to travel, then there is a question, what is actually European goal to do with this?

Of course, that's why I said in the beginning we need a comprehensive solution, which not only Serbia, Macedonia, Hungary or Greece will have its

share of solution but we have an answer where are these people going and what are we going to do with all of them?

And how can we help them to find a better life because they're not coming because they have nothing better to do because -- but they are coming

because of the wars in their own countries.

AMANPOUR: You know, again, as an aspiring E.U. nation, you're listening now to the leader of Europe, Angela Merkel, talk about maybe having to

reassess the whole principle of Schengen and passport free travel around the continent.

How does that strike you?

Is that a solution?

STEFANOVIC: Well, it is a question, what does Europe want? But what we wanted to show is whatever solution is, we have to show that these people,

they came to Europe; they should be treated in the European way, that means humanely.

Our prime minister, Mr. Vucic, also visited refugees several times and we have continued to build our capacities. We have more and more people that

we can settle here. So far, not many of them expressed desire to stay in Serbia, just several hundred. But we are prepared to speak to the European

Union about all solutions and whatever we come up together, as a solution that will be sustainable for years to come -- because this is not a crisis

that will go away in a few weeks -- I think that that would be a good approach.

So far, the problem is we don't have an approach.

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: Exactly. And, Minister Stefanovic, when we were all covering the war in the Balkans 20 years go, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, we saw the

last massive exodus of refugees around Europe. Now they're talking about reassessing the process of asylum.

Would a country like Serbia agree to be an asylum point, for instance?

STEFANOVIC: Well, we are prepared to talk about all solutions. But this is, as I said, these people are coming from -- mainly from Syria and

they're entering Europe in Greece and Bulgaria. So they're entering European Union, transiting through Macedonia and Serbia and continuing to

European Union.

So this is basically a question to ask as Europe, what do we want to establish here?

What do we want these people to be spread equally or some quota system throughout Europe?

Or should they just going whatever they want or what is our approach and how can we facilitate this? Because it's not easy. It costs Serbia

15,000-20,000 euros per day just to provide for food and medicines and without people who are working in this process.

So it's a really difficult question.

AMANPOUR: Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic, thank you so much for joining us from Belgrade this evening.

STEFANOVIC: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And as I said, Chancellor Merkel is again taking the lead after a game-changing month, becoming the first European leader to ditch the law

that says asylum seekers have to be sent back and processed in their first port of call.

Berlin now faces taking in at least 800,000 refugees possibly by the end of this year. And also raises the specter of the end, as we said, of the

cherished free travel around the Schengen zone.

It has been a game-changing month since this video of the chancellor telling a desperate refugee that she had to go back home went viral. The

girl was obviously allowed to stay in the end.

A few days ago, though, Merkel visited a refugee center that had been torched by neo-Nazis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGELA MERKEL, CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY (through translator): We will apply the full force of the law against those who verbally abuse others, who

attack other people, who set their shelters on fire or who want to use violence. We are against those who call for hate demonstrations. There is

no tolerance for those who question the dignity of other people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So what are the possible solutions to this crisis and are there any new policies on the horizon?

We turn now to Professor Alexander Betts of Oxford University's Refugee Studies Center. And he has said that while Europe is squabbling, people

are dying.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program, Professor Betts.

ALEXANDER BETTS, REFUGEE STUDIES CENTER, OXFORD UNIVERSITY: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: So if Chancellor Merkel says that this is the worst and the biggest test for Europe far outweighing the Greek financial meltdown, why

has there been no series of urgent meetings, no actual coherent laws and plans and policies?

BETTS: It's absolutely scandalous that Europe's not treating this crisis with the urgency it deserves. I think part of the reason is it's over the

summer; lots of people --

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BETTS: -- have been on holiday. But the priorities have been addressing austerity in Greece, addressing the challenges of relationships with Russia

over Ukraine. And this has fallen to the bottom of the pile. Europe is showing itself to be uncaring about the lives of refugees and people are

dying here in Europe as a result of our political choices.

AMANPOUR: Do you agree that the political choices which have so far gotten nowhere in terms of a coherent plan, is the biggest test for Europe?

Is this as big an issue as Merkel says it is?

BETTS: It's a massive challenge. Refugees and displacement will be one of the defining issues of the 21st century. It's a global challenge. And

Europe is being parochial; it's being seen as a regional issue rather than a global challenge. And states are engaging in unilateral policies.

Hungary's trying to build a border fence. The U.K.'s trying to renegotiate Schengen.

What we need is collective action. We need it urgently and we've got to stop infighting and we've got to come up with a big political vision and a

way of strategically negotiating that vision.

AMANPOUR: So what would you advise them?

You studied this. Oxford is leading the charge on studying this very timely issue.

What would you advise them?

Is it about reassessing Schengen?

Is it about reassessing the whole asylum procedure?

BETTS: We need a comprehensive refugee policy for Europe. And it has to be on at least two levels, firstly the global level and secondly a regional

level. Globally, I think Europe's failing to recognize that it needs a policy to engage with the refugee issue on the wider global scale. There

are 300,000 asylum seekers who've arrived in Europe this year. We have 28 member states in Europe. Compare that with 3.5 million refugees in

Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

Europe needs to engage, enhancing protection space where 95 percent of the world's refugees are; in other words, in the regions of origin, in

countries that may have a conflict and crisis.

Secondly, we need a new deal on responsibility sharing within Europe. It's going to be difficult to achieve because countries that are proximate to

refugee flows are in a difficult position, having to take the majority, countries that are further away behind water and territory and deny their

responsibilities.

But it's at those two levels that we've got to engage.

AMANPOUR: But what about -- you just mentioned the figures, just over 300,000 have come over this year alone. You said 28 pretty well off

countries are being asked to take their fair share.

That's a pretty manageable number, isn't it, 300,000? It's not the hordes. It's not an overwhelming number of people.

BETTS: With collective action, it should be manageable. Divide 300,000 by 28, and you get around 10,000 people per country. And yet the problem is

that politicians are failing to take moral courage and political leadership necessary to articulate to their populations and their electorates why we

need burden sharing and responsibility sharing, why we have to do more and who's coming from where and why.

So it should be manageable. But to address it we need a strategy; it's got to be global and it's got to be regional. And that requires leadership

that is sorely lacking.

AMANPOUR: Now tell our audience and tell these European leaders who insist that refugees are just a burden on our populations why you believe they're

not necessarily a burden and that they actually can be a positive for economic development.

Why should refugees be treated as a development issue, as you've said?

BETTS: I think we've done research in Oxford, where we've shown the economic benefits and contributions that refugees can make. They have

skills, talents, aspirations. They're often entrepreneurial. And we see that in regions of origin in countries that host many refugees.

Refugees often create businesses. They create jobs. And we see that here, that ordinary people in exceptional circumstances and what they can

contribute is a response to our policies rather than the inherent value of these people, who are human beings like you or I. In Uganda for instance,

in our research, we've been able to show that in a country where refugees have the right to work and freedom of movement, they create significant

numbers of jobs for host nationals, for the Ugandan population.

And that applies around the world.

AMANPOUR: Should we be concerned that our leaders are simply incapable or unwilling to come up with a coherent solution?

Do you think they will? They're calling for a summit, an emergency summit in two weeks from now. Two weeks is a long time to wait.

BETTS: There are some exceptional forms of leadership emerging in Europe. Germany is exceptional. But too often at the moment we're seeing very

cynical political messages where the signaling is to domestic electorates rather than with the aim of genuinely coming up with solutions.

And I'm very concerned that Europe isn't taking this seriously enough to come up with credible solutions. If it's to do so, it needs to come up

with a plan and it needs that to be a realistic plan that all of Europe can buy into. Someone needs to spell out what's at stake; lives are being

lost. People are dying. We're part of a global challenge and we need to situate Europe in that global world.

That was what Europe was for.

AMANPOUR: Again, let's be serious, a lot of this is about war and strife, where these people are having to flee from. Let's take Syria, where for a

while, the majority of the refugees were coming from and still are, actually.

This isn't going to end if the war in Syria isn't ended and the European and U.S. politicians show no sign at all of doing that.

BETTS: We've got a failure to engage with fragile states. These people --

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BETTS: -- who are coming to Europe are coming from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia. Collectively, the world is bad at addressing state

fragility. We need to engage with the root causes but we also need to support the security and development challenges that exist in the host

countries that neighbor those states.

Most refugees are in those parts of the world and unless we support them and their capacity to protect refugees, we'll see the kind of chaos and

tragedy that we witnessed today in Europe.

AMANPOUR: What about a turning point, tipping point moment? You know, it seems that we've all become so inured to these crises, these devastating

crises -- murder, rape, plunder, pillage, drowning, dying in trucks, whatever's going on, ISIS, Syria and all the rest of it, will what happened

this last week, the drowning off Libya, the suffocation in the trucks in Austria, do you think that will force a change?

Will that be a turning point or not?

BETTS: I think we've seen already far too much tragedy. I think there was a hope earlier in the year, the numbers of people drowning in the

Mediterranean would bring change. Gradually we see civil society mobilizing. There's a push amongst Europe's population to suggest we need

more humane policies that protect refugees.

But equally on the other side, we see anti-immigration sentiment, xenophobia. And we need Europe's politicians to come to the fore, offer

solutions and show leadership, to articulate to their publics why we have to protect refugees, make the ethical case, the legal case, show that

refugees can offer economic and cultural contributions but also articulate that unless we take refugees in Europe, other countries and other regions

of the world -- Lebanon, Jordan, Kenya -- will stop doing so. And without reciprocity, the whole edifice of the global refugee regime is at risk.

AMANPOUR: And those countries you mentioned are saturated right now.

Alexander Betts, thank you very much indeed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And refugees may not be receiving a warm welcome as we've said all across Europe. But in one Northern German town, it is quite the

opposite, as Syrian refugees were greeted with waves and welcome banners before settling in.

This arrival clip was soon posted on social media with the message, "Thank you, Germany."

After a break, we turn to the cultural practice of the horrors that are making those refugees flee. How to save Palmyra -- that's next.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

The flood of refugees into Europe is mostly driven by the world's failure to stop the Syrian war. Both Assad and ISIS' destructive rampage --

murder, systematic rape and pillage and, again, the world sits on its hands.

But news of ISIS bombing the Middle East's most important ancient temples in Palmyra is causing heartache, especially for a man determined to save

the world's heritage. He is Syria's antiquities chief, Maamoun Abdulkarim, and he joined me just earlier as he was awaiting final confirmation of

what's happening to Palmyra's famed Bel Temple.

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AMANPOUR: Mr. Abdulkarim, thank you for joining me from Damascus.

MAAMOUN ABDULKARIM, SYRIA'S DG OF ANTIQUITIES & MUSEUMS: Thank you very much for you also.

AMANPOUR: What is happening today?

What is the status of the temple?

ABDULKARIM: We know that explosion happened, but where, how, what's the size of this explosion, until now, we have any information.

[14:20:00]

ABDULKARIM: It's not clear to give you all information. But we are sure we had some explosion inside of the terminus (ph), inside of the big

temple.

AMANPOUR: How important is this temple that you're looking at right now?

How important is it in the history of Syria and the region?

ABDULKARIM: Yes. It's one of the best and very important temple in the history of Middle East.

And also for the Syria because it's really gigantesque, very big temple and also by architecture, by decoration, its connection between the Oriental

art and classical Greco-Roman art and the state of the conservation of this temple is very excellent.

It's for this temple presented as the magnifique temple in the Middle East.

AMANPOUR: What do you think ISIS is trying to do by destroying this heritage?

We have dramatic pictures, satellite pictures of before and after the destruction of the Baalshamin Temple, which was just earlier this month.

What is ISIS trying to do, as far as you're concerned?

ABDULKARIM: Now for us, Palmyra became a hostage, because Palmyra now under control of these groups. They don't respect the civilization. They

don't respect the heritage as documented as memory of the people, as international heritage also.

What happened is dramatic. I think for the future, perhaps we will have a lot of the more bad image about the destruction of the cultural heritage in

Syria, especially in Palmyra, by these groups.

AMANPOUR: You have described yourself as the saddest antiquities director in the world.

Are you simply helpless in the face of this destruction?

Or are you able to save something?

What have you been able to do?

ABDULKARIM: We preserved more than 300,000 objects from the collection of all the museums.

But really, if the government not here in some area, we contact the local community to help us because we have 2,500 person are working in our

director general's antiquities. They are from the local community.

But I think also we need international community to help us because, this battle, it is not just for the Syrian people; it is also international

battle, it is cultural battle.

AMANPOUR: Now trying to save these antiquities, trying to preserve history is incredibly dangerous work, not just for your volunteers, but ISIS

actually beheaded the former Palmyra director of antiquities. He was 82 years old and they beheaded him in front of a crowd.

What is the message of the killing of Khaled al-Asaad?

ABDULKARIM: I think the message of killing of Khaled al-Asaad was to terrorize the people in Palmyra. It's a message of vengeance because

Khaled al-Asaad refused to accept these groups in Palmyra.

Khaled al-Asaad, he became some -- like a martyr of Palmyra; it was a message of terror, I think.

AMANPOUR: So are you worried about what they might do to the big -- and you've called it the most important temple in the whole of the Middle East,

the Bel temple that we're worried about right now, because the FBI in the United States has already just put out a warning saying that we now have

credible reports that U.S. persons have been offered cultural property that appears to have been removed from Syria and from Iraq recently.

ABDULKARIM: I think we have now in the -- from, I believe, 2015, a resolution from the U.N., condemning all the acts anti-heritage in Syria

and Iraq by destruction, all illicit excavation.

I think we need something voted (ph) from the United States, from Europe, from all the states in the world, how we can to applique this resolution in

the field, if we can have the good relation, we can help the Syrian cultural and Iraqi cultural from mafia, from -- safe from destruction, et

cetera.

AMANPOUR: Mr. Abdulkarim, thank you very much for joining us from Damascus tonight.

ABDULKARIM: Thank you very much for you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And after a break, President Obama restores a national landmark to its Native American forebears on his way to climate talks in the Arctic

Circle.

But imagine a world where another mountainous shift is taking place, the cold war brewing in the melting Arctic ice -- next.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, imagine a world where a mountain by any other name would not be as great. President Barack Obama has announced

that Alaska's Mt. McKinley, named for the president who was assassinated in 1901, will actually return to its original native Alaskan name, Denali,

which translates into "the great one."

It's America's tallest peak and the crown jewel of the Denali National Park. Right now it's providing some much-needed beauty in a region that's

caught up in a developing international storm.

Obama's trip makes him the first sitting U.S. president to travel above the Arctic Circle, just as climate change thaws the Arctic's impenetrable ice.

And China beefs up its presence there and even Russia stakes a claim to the North Pole.

Some foresee an ice Cold War as the subzero tensions warm up, as America tries to outmaneuver its old adversaries, at least Mt. Denali stands

magnificent and proud.

And that's it for our program tonight. Remember you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

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