Where Is Austin Tice?: 6. A Meeting in Muscat
episode
I’m Not a Monster Presents… Where is Austin Tice?
42 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 3 hours ago
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What happened to Austin Tice and why did his parents travel to Lebanon?
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Aitoa kansainvälistä markkinatunnelmaa. Punjon nähtävää ja koettavaa koko perheelle. Tällä viikolla
keskiviikosta sunnuntaihin kansainväliset suurmarkkinat Helsingin senaatin torilla. Tervetuloa!
Eurooppa markkina.fi. Tavallinen tiistai tammikuussa Tärborin lomahotellin uimaaltaalla. Etpä samo kimi! Tulehan nyt pois Altaasta! Nyt pitää oikeasti lähteä kotiin.
Varaan lämmin talviloma. Cäärepori. Lomia, joiden etsoisi loppuvan.
Hello. I just want to make you aware that this episode contains some strong language.
It's been three months now since an American freelance journalist went missing in Syria. His name is Austin Tice, he's thirty one years old. Tonight Austin's parents are in Lebanon hoping to learn more about what happened to their son.
By November 2012, it's been two months since anyone has seen Austin publicly. The last sighting was in a staged abduction video that appeared on YouTube. So his parents Deborah and Mark traveled to Beirut. They know Austin is somewhere across the border in Syria. But this is as close as they can get to him.
We're here to appeal for help from people in the region and especially to whomever is holding
our son Austin, that they treat him well, keep him safe, let us contact him and most of all return him to us as soon as possible.
On a small stage, they peer through a sea of microphones placed there by the press. This is the beginning of a media campaign to bring global attention to Austin's case.
our main purpose is to try to make contact With our son and to bring him safely home.
There's an exhaustion in their faces that comes from being parents who can't reach a missing son. And that's a feeling shared by many families. Throughout the civil war, Syrians are disappearing in huge numbers. An Austin. Isn't the only American.
At least eleven American citizens have been jailed, tortured, or killed. James Foley was working for a French news album American hostage, another US reporter, Stephen Sotlop, Syrian American aid worker Leila Shwikani.
And when you spend time around hostage cases, one criticism comes up again and again. America has a hostage problem. Not because it lacks power, it has highly effective intelligence agencies, diplomats, law enforcement, and a military that can seemingly go anywhere. But each part of that system has its own priorities. So they don't always work as one or share information effectively. So opportunities to help people can get lost inside that system. And this is what Deborah Tys has told me she feels happened to Austin's case for the first eighteen months of his abduction.
I bought a really nice Albre.
I love El Bray. In her daughter's kitchen, over many cups of Earl Grey. I asked Deborah about February of 2014, when she decided to go to Syria to look for her son alone. How did you arrange to go to Damascus? Did you just get on a plane or what did you do?
I Made sure. But nobody knew what I was doing and I flew to Beirut. Got in a cab and went to Damascus.
You got in a cab and drove all the way to Damascus?
Yep.
Weren't you scared?
No, no. The only thing I was scared of was that my government would find out and prevent me from going. That was the only thing I was afraid of.
How long did you plan to be there?
I didn't have a plan. I ended up being there three and a half months.
And w and what were you hoping to achieve?
I had no idea. But At least I would be there. I had pictures of him that I gave out, flyers. I met with quite a few people in the Syrian government.
Deborah, who has never been to the region before and doesn't speak Arabic, is now inside the Syrian regime's surveillance state.
This guy told me that he had Austin and he wanted like a a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
For Austin.
And then they showed me a picture that I had.
He showed you a picture h of Austin.
Yeah, but it was the one that McClatchy had printed. Oh,
so he'd taken it off the internet?
Yeah. And then when he shed me the picture and I got really angry, he said, Okay, twenty thousand dollars. And he's menacing me on my chair.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What happened to Austin Tice and why did his parents travel to Lebanon?
0:00–5:33
2
How did Deborah Tice decide to go to Syria alone and what did she encounter there?
5:33–10:27
3
What secret back‑channel talks were held between the United States and the Syrian regime?
10:27–15:41
4
How did Roger Karstens and the U.S. special envoy try to negotiate Austin’s release?
15:41–21:59
5
What were the Syrian officials’ demands – oil, troops and sanctions – in exchange for Austin?
21:59–28:16
6
Why did President Assad refuse to discuss Austin’s fate despite diplomatic pressure?
28:16–34:17
7
What moral and strategic dilemmas did U.S. officials face when trading a single hostage for wider policy goals?
34:17–40:26
8
What can listeners do now to help locate Austin Tice and why is the story still unresolved?
40:26–42:04