December 12, 1995
Web posted at: 4:45 p.m. EST (2145 GMT)
VILLACOUBLAY, France (CNN) -- Two French air force
pilots held prisoner by Bosnian Serbs for more than 100 days
arrived to an emotional welcome at an air base near Paris
Thursday after their release earlier in the day. Visibly
moved, Capt. Frederic Chiffot and Lt. Jose Souvignet embraced
their loved ones. Moments earlier, they were greeted by
President Jacques Chirac as they emerged from the specially
chartered aircraft that brought them in from Belgrade, the
capital of Serbia and Yugoslavia.
Chiffot and Souvignet, shot down on August 30 during a NATO air raid, looked pale and tired when they were released at a motel on a cliff overlooking the Drina River in Zvornik, a Bosnian Serb-held town close to the Serbian border. From there the two airmen were taken to Belgrade. Souvignet, injured when he was shot down, limped heavily.
"We were very well treated."
-- Lt. Jose Souvignet
"We were very well treated," Souvignet said. "But it wasn't always easy because my leg troubled me." He said he and Chiffot were kept in adjacent rooms. "We could speak sometimes," he said. A spokeswoman for Chirac said the two were in good health. Witnesses said the airmen looked disoriented when they were handed over to the French chief of staff, Gen. Jean Philippe Drouin.
The Mirage 2000 flown by Chiffot and Souvignet was shot down over Pale, a Bosnian Serb stronghold southeast of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. A statement from Chirac expressed "satisfaction with the efforts made by President (Slobodan) Milosevic" of Serbia, and he added "gratitude to (Russian) President Boris Yeltsin for his personal effort all during this painful ordeal."
A Bosnian Serb source said some conditions may have been
attached to the men's release; there was no immediate comment
from the French government. There has been speculation that
one of those conditions is permission for Bosnian Serb leader
Radovan Karadzic to attend the signing of the peace accord,
despite his indictment as a war criminal by the U.N. war
crimes tribunal. The independent Yugoslav newspaper Nasa
Borba, citing unidentified sources, said last week the
pilots were held by Bosnian Serb commander General Ratko
Mladic, who reportedly said he would free them only if the
tribunal dropped war crimes charges against him and Karadzic.
Meanwhile, debate raged in Serb-held suburbs of Sarajevo over a provision in the peace accord that reunites the capital. Serbs held a referendum Tuesday in nine districts to ask voters whether they will accept the rule of their enemies. The Serbs' referendum will not change plans to reunite the Bosnian capital under Croat and Muslim control. Milosevic, who negotiated on behalf of the Bosnian Serbs, ignored their objections at the peace talks in Dayton last month.
Bosnian Serb radio reported a high turnout for the vote, which lasted from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (1800 GMT). The ballot question read: "Do you want Serb Sarajevo to become part of the Bosnian (Moslem-Croat Federation)? Yes or No." Few if any in Grbavica were likely to answer yes. "We don't want to live with Moslems. They started this war and they want to destroy Serbs in this land," one elderly voter said angrily .
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