Posted on 03/01/2005 5:12:50 PM PST by aculeus
BAGHDAD, March 1 (AFP) - French journalist Florence Aubenas, missing for nearly two months in Iraq, on Tuesday made a desperate plea for help on a video broadcast, saying her health was "very bad."
"I am French. I am a journalist with Liberation. Please help me. My health is very bad. I'm very bad psychologically also," the gaunt and exhausted-looking journalist pleaded in English on the undated video, of which AFP obtained a copy.
The 50-second film showed the veteran reporter for the left-wing daily wearing a pale long-sleeved top, seated on the floor with her knees bent against her chest.
It was the first confirmation that Aubenas was alive since she and her Iraqi translator Hussein Hanun al-Saadi - who is also still missing but was not shown on the tape - were last seen leaving their Baghdad hotel on January 5.
Another foreign reporter in Iraq, Giuliana Sgrena of Italy's Il Manifesto, was kidnapped early February in Baghdad and later appeared in a video begging for her life.
About 170 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq over the past year. More than 30 have been killed and the rest were released or escaped.
No group claimed responsibility for Aubenas' kidnapping in the tape, which was handed in to an international news agency in Baghdad.
The camera zoomed in and out several times, showing Aubenas, who previously covered conflicts in Kosovo, Algeria, Rwanda, and Afghanistan, looking dishevelled with her unwashed hair hanging down over her eyes.
"This is urgent now. Help me!" the 43-year-old hostage said. "I ask especially Mr Didier Julia, the French deputy. Please Mr Julia. Help me! It's urgent. Mr Julia help me!"
Julia, an Arabic-speaking MP in French President Jacques Chirac's ruling UMP party, headed a failed mission to free two other French reporters who were kidnapped in Iraq last August.
When Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaper and Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale were finally handed over to French officials and returned home in December, they said Julia was "beneath contempt" for putting their lives in jeopardy.
French authorities roundly condemned Julia and put his two aides, Philippe Brett and Philippe Evanno, under criminal investigation for working with "a foreign power" - widely reported to possibly be Syria - and risking the lives of the two reporters.
One of Julia's fiercest critics, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, was forced to leave the door open to asking Julia to respond to Aubenas' plea.
"Concerning the MP who was named (in the video), I believe he himself said that he was at the disposal of the French authorities. We are going to make the appropriate decisions after analysing the video," he said.
He revealed that the government had received another "proof of life" of Aubenas last week and that had been shown to her family.
Julia, contacted by AFP, said he was willing to help - but only if the government lifted restrictions on his aides.
"I am in a situation where I am 'paralysed'. It depends on the government, whether it will give me a free hand or not," he told AFP.
Julia said he did not "totally" know the group who might be holding Aubenas "but I have a small idea."
French intelligence experts were Tuesday analysing the video of Aubenas for clues at to when and where it was made.
"All the (ministry of) defence services are studying this video, which raises a lot of questions. Why is it receiving media attention? Why now? Why in this way. And why was Florence Aubenas made to ask for (French MP Didier) Julia's help," said a source close to the DGSE, France foreign intelligence service.
Aubenas's employer, Liberation editor-in-chief Serge July, said he was "shaken" by the video broadcast, but felt that the images should not be shown.
"It's better not to show them because they serve as propaganda for the hostage-takers."
The French-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said it was disturbed by the Aubenas video.
"We found the video of Florence Aubenas and her appeal to be very disturbing," Reporters Without Borders said.
"We would like to concentrate on the fact that she is alive and that the recording contains no explicit threat or ultimatum. But the exhaustion and anxiety on her face is extremely worrying."
"We solemnly call on the kidnappers to release Florence and her assistant, Hussein Hanoun. Over and above the revulsion we feel for such abduction methods, our organisation appeals to the news media of the entire world, especially the Arab world, to help Florence and Hussein, as well as the kidnapped Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena," RSF said.
"The need at this time is for unity and to avoid controversy at all cost," it added".
© AFP
I sincerely hope she makes it out alive. Afterwards, we can argue politics with her till we're all blue in the face.
Why these guys kidnap people from the country that supports them is beyond me.
At least the terrorists were benevolent enough not to make her wear her panties on her head. </sarcasm>
Can you imagine the uproar from the MSM if she was being held by us in Gitmo?
Where's the outrage?
Well said.
How do we know these leftist journalist are not working with the terrorists? Remember the two Italian leftist journalist chicks who immediately praised their "kidnappers" once they were returned to Italy.
So someone in Iraq appears to be targeting Communist females.
Found?
Sickens me that AbuGrahib was a national Media event; 'celebrated' by the Liberal Left . . .
I do not wish harm on this woman, but I believe that exactly this sort of thing needs to happen before the smear of media harlots finally get the message. Until then, these people only put themselves into the situations they find themselves. Frankly, I hope that no lives are risked on behalf of her rescue. Hopefully she will be released unharmed.
Ping
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - More than 2,000 people demonstrated Tuesday at the site of a car bombing south of Baghdad that killed 125 people, chanting "No to terrorism!"
A French journalist abducted nearly two months ago, meanwhile, pleaded for help in a video that surfaced Tuesday, saying she was in failing health.
Florence Aubenas, 43, a veteran war correspondent for the leftist daily Liberation. CUT
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050301/D88IBJF00.html
most likely in their case a standard "Stockholm Syndrome"
Probably because these ignorant fools are actively seeking out these terrorists to help them get their story out. Evidently there is difference of opinion on the method of "getting the story out".
A French journalist in Iraq ought to be suspected of collaboration first and foremost.
Call me picky, but this mindset where everyone who didn't support the Iraq war is a collaborater is starting to get on my nerves. France disagreed very strongly with it and called us names -- so what? I want so much to believe we're more mature than this.
Hostages are grilled pretty thoroughly after rescue anyway, so it's not like she's just going to walk off on her merry froggy way, not for a while. If she was up to something, it will be brought to light.
I'll take "Unclear on the Purpose" for $800, Alex.
We've been seeing a lot of "journalism" from the enemy's perspective, literally, with video shot from the enemy lines, journalists on embed assignments with terrorists, and so on... for the purposes of making this analysis I am totally ignoring the fact that many of these papers have in fact been propaganda outlets for the enemy, and working on what they have actually done.
This is far more substantive than a "mindset" equating dissent with collaboration. I know the difference, thank you. Now please stop ignoring the very real evidence of collaboration in your own analysis.
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