World

Christian Chesnot, former hostage in Iraq:
'WE HAVE TO CONTINUE COVERING STORIES'

Libération (Paris)
January 8, 2005

http://www.liberation.com/page.php?Article=266772

Christian Chesnot, the former hostage freed Dec. 21, works for Radio France Internationale.

What was your feeling when you heard Florence Aubenas was missing?

Shock, really. After emerging from four nightmare months, I was hoping that we would be the last. The problem now is how to cover Iraq. Before, you could feel you were safe in Baghdad, but that's over. Extremists group have their networks there, they even come into your hotel looking for you.

Should French journalists leave?

We have to continue covering stories in Iraq, that's for sure, but while learning from the dramatic experience we lived through. The longer a journalist stays, the more visible, and therefore vulnerable, he or she is. To stay several weeks increases the risk of being perceived, all the more so in that there are fewer and fewer foreigners in Baghdad. I think we have to think about the arrangements that are best adapted to the situation. AFP [Agence France-Presse] journalists in Baghdad don't leave their office any more, they work with Iraqi free-lancers. I think the best system consists in making stopovers of several days to a week from Amman or Beirut.

Libération has decided to stay in Iraq in the name of the duty to report the news . . .

You have to know that today the price you pay can be your life, kidnapping, or torture. Our captors put it to us in these terms: "Iraq is a war zone, the Americans are sending us spies, and every Westerner is suspect." Once they have you, they verify your identity, then there are two solutions, execution or negotiation. We were lucky, we feel into the hands of politicians, and the mobilization in France made it possible to get them to release us. But the ones who kidnapped us profited in terms of political and media prestige, which could encourage others. They acquired worldwide renown, so we have to be even more careful than before.

Do you think that the risk of being in Iraq is still worth taking?

You can't compare Iraq today to a country at war, there's no front line. You can't talk just about the risks of the profession. For my part, I'm willing to risk being blown up by a car bomb attack, but I don't want to risk being a target.

--
Translated by Mark K. Jensen
Associate Professor of French
Department of Languages and Literatures
Pacific Lutheran University
Tacoma, WA 98447-0003
Phone: 253-535-7219
Home page: http://www.plu.edu/~jensenmk/
E-mail: jensenmk@plu.edu