Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: It's like coming up for air after fifty years. That's
Speaker 1: the way one man described this moment in Syria. Since
Speaker 1: the fall of President Bashah Alasad, Syrians are celebrating. Some
Speaker 1: have wandered through Assad's deserted palace, Thousands are in the streets.
Speaker 1: Many more are searching the massive network of prisons that
Speaker 1: under pinned Assad's repressive regime. They're looking for loved ones,
Speaker 1: hoping they're still alive and if not, that they might
Speaker 1: finally get closure. Today journalist to Heidi pet on the
Speaker 1: ground in Damascus as the Syrian people reckon with what
Speaker 1: the future holds for their country now that a sard
Speaker 1: is gone. It's Thursday, December nineteenth. Hattie, Hello, it's great
Speaker 1: to have you back on the show.
Speaker 2: It's nice to be back.
Speaker 1: So you're in Damascus right now, and you've been there
Speaker 1: since just after Bashah al Asad fled the country and
Speaker 1: the regime fell. Tell me what it's like to be
Speaker 1: in Syria at this moment of change.
Speaker 2: The energy in Damascus is kind of incredible because it's
Speaker 2: this real mix of elation, relief, but also a real
Speaker 2: sense of grief and anger and all of that is
Speaker 2: kind of mixed together in the streets. There've been a
Speaker 2: number of large demonstrations and gatherings over the last week
Speaker 2: that I've been here. It's only just sinking in for
Speaker 2: many people here that you know, more than fifty years
Speaker 2: of the outside regime is over, and that they can
Speaker 2: finally speak about what happened. You know, for so many
Speaker 2: people talking about their father that was in prison, or
Speaker 2: what happened to them in prison, or you know, the
Speaker 2: bombing of their neighborhoods by their own government. Breathing a
Speaker 2: whisper of that would have got them detained and probably killed.
Speaker 2: And so it's incredible to be somewhere where people are
Speaker 2: just so desperate and happy and relieved to be able
Speaker 2: to talk freely for the first time in decades.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're learning a lot of things that had been hidden,
Speaker 1: particularly about the prison system. There were rumors for a
Speaker 1: long time about the prisons being used by the regime,
Speaker 1: about torture and terror, but we didn't know the extent
Speaker 1: of what was actually happening until now. So tell me
Speaker 1: what's coming to light. What are we learning.
Speaker 2: So one of the first places that people went when
Speaker 2: the regime fell was this prison outside of Damascus called Sednaya.
Speaker 2: There is a huge network of prisons across the country.
Speaker 2: They're in the basements of laundromats, there in every single courtroom,
Speaker 2: police station, underneath the radio and television building. The extent
Speaker 2: and the scale of the security state here is becoming clear,
Speaker 2: but said Naya is one of the largest and most
Speaker 2: infamous of Assad's prisons. When the HDS fighters swept through
Speaker 2: and they unlocked the doors of prisons all around the country,
Speaker 2: this rumor spread that there were secret underground cells. You know.
Speaker 2: There were these incredible scenes of people showing up, jack hammering,
Speaker 2: digging up the floors, and there was this real sense
Speaker 2: of this last expression of hope for families that people
Speaker 2: that they might not have seen in ten years may
Speaker 2: still somehow be alive.
Speaker 3: Okay, she was there. She don't have anybody to ask
Speaker 3: him until now, only she sears on the paper if
Speaker 3: she find anything for him.
Speaker 2: So on Wednesday, when I arrived here in Syria, Said
Speaker 2: Noah was one of the first places I went, and
Speaker 2: families were still showing up. There were people camped outside,
Speaker 2: you know, sleeping in the in the prison grounds.
Speaker 3: She hoped for maybe here, maybe a place she hoped
Speaker 3: she's not one hundred percent is here or where he is.
Speaker 2: And over the course of about a day it became
Speaker 2: clear that there were no underground cells. And a Syrian
Speaker 2: human rights activist who has done a great deal of
Speaker 2: work on this, gave this incredibly tearful, actually interview on
Speaker 2: television where he said he was like, I hate to
Speaker 2: break it to the family, but the more than one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand missing, they're not here. They're probably dead and.
Speaker 1: And are.
Speaker 2: But that hadn't stopped people from showing up, clutching onto
Speaker 2: the last straws of hope that someone's father, their brother,
Speaker 2: their you know, their mother, their son, that there might
Speaker 2: be some scrap of information basically about what happened to them.
Speaker 1: And I mean, some people obviously would be able to
Speaker 1: get that information about their family members and maybe, you know,
Speaker 1: in the best possible scenarios, be reunited. But what about
Speaker 1: those who actually don't find anything in the prisons and
Speaker 1: will never have a body to bury. What does closure
Speaker 1: look like for them?
Speaker 2: So for many of the families, first they went to
Speaker 2: the prisons and they hoped that they would find their
Speaker 2: family members alive, and then news broke that a number
Speaker 2: of bodies from the prisons, mostly from Said Naya, had
Speaker 2: been brought to the main hospital in Damascus. The families
Speaker 2: who had been to the prisons and not found their
Speaker 2: loved ones alive there then came to the hospital, hoping
Speaker 2: at least that they could identify them among the dead
Speaker 2: and that that would be some form of closure, that
Speaker 2: at least they would have a body to bury. But
Speaker 2: there are one hundred thousand missing in Syria and this
Speaker 2: main hospital in Damascus they had thirty five bodies. How
Speaker 2: many families have come through here hoping to identify their
Speaker 2: loved one who's missing.
Speaker 3: No kids, I'm not a.
Speaker 1: Thousands.
Speaker 2: One of the bodies that had been brought to this
Speaker 2: hospital was of a very famous Syrian activist. His name
Speaker 2: was Mazan al Hamada, and he was one of the
Speaker 2: first to speak out about what in Said Naya, the
Speaker 2: torture that he experienced, the torture that he saw and witnessed.
Speaker 2: He returned to Syria in twenty twenty and he immediately
Speaker 2: disappeared back into the detention apparatus until his body was
Speaker 2: found at the military hospital, and so there was a
Speaker 2: funeral for him on Thursday, which became incredibly symbolic. It
Speaker 2: became a funeral for all the missing, all the people
Speaker 2: whose families don't have a body to bury and maybe
Speaker 2: never will. You know, As his coffin was carried through
Speaker 2: the streets of Damascus, there was a huge crowd chanting
Speaker 2: his name and carrying photographs of him. But not just him,
Speaker 2: they were carrying photographs of other missing public figures, so
Speaker 2: other activists and writers, but also their own family members,
Speaker 2: And it became a real moment of collective grief and mourning,
Speaker 2: but also genuinely real happiness and relief. This security apparatus
Speaker 2: and this repression of the Syrian people goes back to
Speaker 2: you know, well before Bashar Alisad. It goes back to
Speaker 2: his father Hafez in more than five decades. And so
Speaker 2: the sense that people have is one person explained it
Speaker 2: to me, is it's like we've been living underground and
Speaker 2: we have finally come up for air.
Speaker 1: After the break the drug operations that funded the Assad regime.
Speaker 1: So hai to, you're in Damascus right now and it's
Speaker 1: been less than two weeks since Bashah Alasad fled and
Speaker 1: now the rebel's over through his government they're picking through
Speaker 1: the remains of the regime. We know that the terrors
Speaker 1: of the prison system are being revealed, but what else
Speaker 1: are we learning about Syria under Bashah Alasad.
Speaker 2: So in recent years, Syria has actually been described as
Speaker 2: a narco state, which you would ordinarily think of as
Speaker 2: places in South and Central America that have relied on,
Speaker 2: you know, the cocaine and now increasingly the fentanyl trade.
Speaker 2: But Syria actually was an enormous producer and exporter of
Speaker 2: a drug called captigon. It's an amphetamine. It's very popular
Speaker 2: across the Middle East. It's sometimes used by fighters to
Speaker 2: sort of keep them awake and focused in battle, but
Speaker 2: it's also used as a party drug. So I went
Speaker 2: to a factory where this drug was being produced just
Speaker 2: outside Damascus, just in the you know, in the hills
Speaker 2: outside Duma. It used to be a potato chip factory.
Speaker 2: It's called Captain Corn and there's this jingle, you know,
Speaker 2: all the kids know this jingle for Captain Corn. And
Speaker 2: it was turned into a drug production facility. And so
Speaker 2: when when I got there, this smell was just incredible
Speaker 2: because the regime had had set fire to the factory
Speaker 2: just before they left. But what was particularly interesting is
Speaker 2: the evidence of how they were transported and secretly exported
Speaker 2: around the Middle East. So in this particular factory, one
Speaker 2: of the main ways was the pills had been disguised
Speaker 2: inside parts for generators. There were also fake fruits filled
Speaker 2: with pills as well. You know, these pills inside Syria
Speaker 2: they're very cheap, but in places like Jordan and Saudi
Speaker 2: Arabia they go for twenty five US dollars a pill.
Speaker 2: And you know, just in this one factory that we
Speaker 2: saw it would be making millions for the regime.
Speaker 1: Right, So, Hadi, what's going to happen to all of
Speaker 1: these factories, to this entire kind of clandestine operation that
Speaker 1: the regime ran now and all of the drugs that
Speaker 1: have been left behind.
Speaker 2: Well at the moment, and this is the huge challenge
Speaker 2: for Syria, and you know for the new government of Syria,
Speaker 2: is that the advanced by HTS and the other associated
Speaker 2: rebel groups happened so quickly. You know, soldiers from the
Speaker 2: regime just melted away. I mean on the drive in
Speaker 2: from Beirut to Damascus, there was no border control. You know,
Speaker 2: I have no Syrian stamp in my passport because there
Speaker 2: was nobody at the border and by the side of
Speaker 2: the road there is just discarded army uniforms where people
Speaker 2: soldiers had clearly taken them off, changed into civilian clothes
Speaker 2: and fled. So what's happened is that either local fighters
Speaker 2: from groups like Josha Islam or other rebel groups, or
Speaker 2: fighters from HTS are now taking up you know, these
Speaker 2: kind of physicians and beginning to guard these facilities and
Speaker 2: make some attempt to secure them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it sounds like HTS itself was taken by
Speaker 1: surprise at how quick their success was. So what have
Speaker 1: they been doing for the last sort of week or so?
Speaker 1: How are they preparing to govern?
Speaker 2: One of the first big challenges actually will be the
Speaker 2: economy here. Syria has been under sanctions for an incredibly
Speaker 2: long time in an attempt to, you know, to put
Speaker 2: pressure on the regime. It's now being governed by HTS,
Speaker 2: who there's still a prescribed terrorist organization, you know, the UK,
Speaker 2: the EU, and the US all still designate it as
Speaker 2: a terrorist organization. What's interesting is that the UK and
Speaker 2: the US have publicly said in the last few days
Speaker 2: that they have had meetings with HDS, which you would
Speaker 2: ordinarily not with a terrorist organization. You know that they
Speaker 2: have also said it's too early to start talking about
Speaker 2: lifting sanctions. There's been a very concerted effort by HDS
Speaker 2: and particularly by its leader Jilani to reassure the international
Speaker 2: community that yes, HDS had its roots in al Qaeda,
Speaker 2: but they split from them a very long time ago,
Speaker 2: that they intend to form a sort of civil government.
Speaker 2: But it's not just the international community that is waiting
Speaker 2: to see what will happen here. There is a sense
Speaker 2: of trepidation, you know, from some minorities, from Alohites, from Christians,
Speaker 2: waiting to see whether these assurances that they've received from
Speaker 2: HTS will be born out. But time will tell over
Speaker 2: the next couple of months really about exactly how they govern.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a country kind of holding its breath,
Speaker 1: waiting to see if this change will bring stability and
Speaker 1: a chance to put the trauma of the Assad regime
Speaker 1: behind it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean, you know, that's one of the
Speaker 2: things that one of the people that I met at
Speaker 2: Musen's funeral, Muhmood, is you know, one of these old
Speaker 2: political activists and writers who you know, they've been around
Speaker 2: the block, they've experienced the false promise of Bashah the Sun.
Speaker 2: You know, when he first came to power, he said
Speaker 2: that he was going to make changes, he was going
Speaker 2: to open things up. That turned out to be a lie.
Speaker 2: He turned out to be more brutal than his father.
Speaker 2: Mahmood said to me, well, you know, we're incredibly happy
Speaker 2: right now, and we deserve as well time to be happy.
Speaker 2: There is this pushback, in fact, by some Serians, of
Speaker 2: this kind of finger wagging by the international community of like, oh,
Speaker 2: this may not actually be the good news story we
Speaker 2: think it is. And we have to remember that, you know,
Speaker 2: these rebels, their roots and al Qaeda and everything. And
Speaker 2: there is a bit of a sense from some Syrians
Speaker 2: of like, can we just have five minutes to celebrate
Speaker 2: the fact that a five decade regime that imprisoned, you know,
Speaker 2: tortured forcibly, disappeared, murdered and buried in mass graves our
Speaker 2: friends and family members. Can we just have five minutes please,
Speaker 2: to celebrate the fact that that has ended. But Mahmoud,
Speaker 2: he was very keen to impress upon me that the
Speaker 2: thing you have to understand is that we are only
Speaker 2: half the way there, and the next twelve months will
Speaker 2: be critical.
Speaker 1: Hattie, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has unveiled
Speaker 1: his mid year budget update, showing Australia as expected to
Speaker 1: slip deeper into deficit over the next four years due
Speaker 1: to growing spending and falling tax The expected deficit for
Speaker 1: the current financial year twenty twenty four to twenty five
Speaker 1: is twenty six point nine billion, which is set to
Speaker 1: widen to thirty one point seven billion by the financial
Speaker 1: year twenty twenty seven twenty eight and New York prosecutors
Speaker 1: say Luigi Mangioni, the man accused of shooting United Health
Speaker 1: Group CEO Brian Thompson, has been charged with murder. Mangioni
Speaker 1: was indicted on eleven counts, including first degree murder and
Speaker 1: murder as a crime of terrorism. The indictment accusing Mangioni
Speaker 1: of murdering Thompson with the intent to influence the policy
Speaker 1: of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion. Mangioni
Speaker 1: is being held on gun charges in Pennsylvania, where he
Speaker 1: was arrested last week. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.