Christian Chesnot spoke with Democracy Now! about his four months in captivity with insurgents in Iraq. He met up with host Amy Goodman at a conference in Italy being held to look into the case of French journo Florence Aubenas, who is in her fifth month of captivity in Iraq.

An excerpt:

CHRISTIAN CHESNOT: They bring us in a little farm, not far from the place of the kidnapping, which take place in a countryside in a very remote area, and after we are brought to a place like a farm, you know, with different barracks, and we discovered after, this is a place where all the kidnapped people were taken to be interrogated and maybe to be executed. And so we are there and we -- the first day we recorded a tape and rapidly we discovered the Islamic army in Iraq. They call – they said we are Sunni [inaudible]. We are the resistance and we are fighting against the American forces, against the spy, against the collaborators. So we want to check your identity if you are real journalist, if you are not spy, so it will take some time, and after, if you are okay, we can release you. But unfortunately for us there was division among this group. And on the two, three, first day, we could have been released, but their chief was very radical, and he said that we have two French guy, journalists speaking Arabic, so maybe we can use them to gain something politically or, you know, on the media side. This is why, after all, it take a long time, four months, and because we were -- we couldn't understand why we were taken hostage for so long, because France was against war, France don't occupy Iraq. We don't have soldiers, we don't have, you know, companies working there, so there was long negotiation with the French authorities for our release.

AMY GOODMAN: And you made videotape, about 10 of them. Did they talk to you since you did speak Arabic about your being French and the difference that that made for them?

CHRISTIAN CHESNOT: Yes, and especially at the beginning, the first word I said to them, I am French journalist working for Radio France, Le Figaro, because it was, of course, you know, important, because if you are on the wrong side, you are executed. And I told them, you know, if I was an American journalist or British journalist, did you, you know, treat us like you have done until now? And they say, no. The journalists who represent your country. So are you French, even if you are journalist, you are representing your country. If you're American, British, you are representing your country. It means Blair and Bush policy, and so you are occupying the country. So we played this card, the French card, because we know we have some sympathy there in Iraq and also I asked them at one moment because we have some discussion with them, I said, because at this time they had I think two American officer and one British soldier, and I said but why don't you swap these two guy or three guys against, for instance, 1,000 prisoner of Abu Ghraib. You make a swap and you are winning, you know? And they say, no, no, the people in Abu Ghraib, the prisoner, they can wait. If we execute one guy, American, we cut his throat and we make a video, we'll have the maximum of impact in New York or London. So they are using, you know, they are playing on the fear. They have – they are not crazy. They have a strategy, a strategy of fear, which is very cruel. But they are not – they can be very pragmatic. They can negotiate people. They negotiate, for instance, the release of the Iranian Consul, which is also a very difficult task, because the Iranian are Shia, and the group was Sunni. So, they can be very pragmatic. But they can be also very cruel. We have a poor colleague, Enzo Baldoni, an Italian one, and he has been executed because they said he’s a spy. So it’s a very horrible game.

AMY GOODMAN: Al Jazeera immediately reported that you were kidnapped. What role did they play?

CHRISTIAN CHESNOT: It was not just Al Jazeera, because the most important thing when you are taken hostage is the first day, the first two, three days, because your life is in danger, so you need a very strong mobilization abroad, especially in the media, not only Al Jazeera, but also in France and in Europe, to say Christian and Georges, they are journalists, they are working for Radio France, for Le Figaro, because it's a kind of insurance, because now the journalists in Iraq are seen by the resistance or the terrorist group as a spy. So if rapidly you are not seen as a journalist, your life could be threatened. So this way it was very important. And in the case of Al Jazeera, it was the first time that Al Jazeera take officially a position on this issue of kidnapping, saying we ask, we demand to the hijacker the release of Christian Chesnot, Georges Malbrunot, and their driver Mohammed Al Jundi, because it is unfair, it's against the Islam. It's against all the human value.

AMY GOODMAN: And you feel that made a big difference?

CHRISTIAN CHESNOT: In our case I think it was a big difference and after we make a kind of investigation, because wrote a book with Georges about all this affair, and I know that some people around the hijacker appreciate, for instance, the role of Michel Barnier, the French Foreign Minister going to explain the French position in Al Jazeera and the role of the pressure also for other Islamic group, from Hamas, Hezbollah, was very important in our case.