Bob Fowler Kidnapped in Niger (Dec 2008-Apr 2009)

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail web site, is an update:
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081216.wfowler1216/BNStory/International/home

Niger rebels claim, then deny, they abducted Canadian

Canadian Press

December 16, 2008 at 12:44 PM EST

NIAMEY — A rebel group that claimed responsibility for kidnapping two Canadian diplomats in Niger quickly recanted its claim Tuesday, with the bizarre contradictory statements fuelling confusion over who has Robert Fowler.

The man described as the rebel group's No. 2 figure declared on its website that the United Nations envoy was among four people seized in a commando operation.

He said that the Front des Forces de Redressement had abducted Mr. Fowler, the UN's special envoy to Niger, in order to send a “strong signal” about Canada's support for the government. The Canadian government said a second diplomat was among those taken.

The resistance group's online statement was contradicted on the very same website Tuesday in an entry published under the name of its leader, Mohamed Awtchiki Kriska.

“No hostage-taking should be attributed to our movement which is fighting against these practices from another era,” the entry said.

“Even if it's true that Canada is an actor in this conflict . . . civilians, diplomats, and other actors under the auspices of the United Nations, are not our targets.”

The entry said it hoped Mr. Fowler would be rapidly returned to Canadian consular authorities or to the UN.

That hope echoed the sentiments expressed earlier in the claim of responsibility, where the website said Fowler was doing well and would soon be transferred in a safe location.

Fowler was the only person mentioned by name on the FFR website. But the Department of Foreign Affairs said one of the other victims was Louis Guay, also a Canadian diplomat.

A spokesman for the UN said the organization was trying to gather solid information about the diplomats' whereabouts, and was trying to sort out the mixed signals coming from the FFR.

“There are some conflicting messages coming out from that group so we're trying to evaluate those messages,” UN spokesman Fahan Haq said in an interview.

A vehicle carrying Fowler was found abandoned — with its lights on — about 50 kilometres northeast of Niamey, Niger's capital, on Sunday night.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who appointed Mr. Fowler as UN special envoy to Niger in July, said his staff was doing all it could to find out what happened.

"We are doing all our best efforts about his whereabouts," he said.

Mr. Fowler, who served as Canada's ambassador to the United Nations from 1995 to 2000, and Mr. Guay were being driven in a UN Development Program vehicle with “UNDP” lettering.

They had been travelling on UN business around Niamey, a former French colonial outpost that is now a river port and trading centre along the Niger River, said Ban's office.

Mr. Fowler, 64, is a former deputy defence minister who later served as Canada's ambassador to the United Nations and to Italy.

He has since worked as a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa's new graduate school of public and international affairs.

The resistance group said the abduction targeted diplomats who support the Niger government led by President Mamadou Tandja, whom it accused of “ethnocide.”

It says the hostages were taken to send a message to Canada, which it claims is providing Niger's government with arms used against local people.

The Tuareg nomads started their rebellion after claiming their desert people were being marginalized by Tandja's regime.

Kriska, the leader of the Tuareg rebel group, told Agence France Presse in a telephone interview that the posting on the group's website in which it took responsibility for kidnapping Mr. Fowler was mistaken.

“The person who posted that information on our website was led into error. This type of action is contrary to the vision and approach of the FFR.”
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Unfortunately I am far away from Ottawa and some usually reliable sources of information about who does what to whom in Africa, but this sort of thing – the right hand not knowing what the left is doing – is, I am told, fairly common.

But I worry that someone wanting to deny being a kidnapper might just dispose of the evidence in the most expeditious manner.

 

[OldSolduer]

“

But I worry that someone wanting to deny being a kidnapper might just dispose of the evidence in the most expeditious manner.

 

[Old Sweat]

There are others plausible explanations. Methinks it's a little early to speculate about anything to do with this matter, including the fate of the captives.

 

[OldSolduer]

I kinda blew that last post. My apologies!!

I meant to add that terrorists and criminals don't  always take the big picture view of things.

 

[Edward Campbell]

There are others plausible explanations. Methinks it's a little early to speculate about anything to do with this matter, including the fate of the captives.

Quire right, Old Sweat, worry too easily turns itself into fear, as we all should know.

 

[Good2Golf]

I think the rebel leader may actually realise that they stepped into it big time, and they're working a graceful, safe return of Mr. Fowler, M. Guay and the two UN staff.

Kind of like a "stupid pseudo-terrorist" take-back...ooops!

 

[dapaterson]

Mr Fowler also has significant Canadian political ties - his sister is married to the anything but apolitical former Governor General Romeo LeBlanc.

Formerly would-be Liberal party leader Dominic LeBlanc was quoted in today's Times Transcript

Beauséjour MP Dominic LeBlanc is confident Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler, who is his step-mother’s brother, will be released safely by rebels in Niger.

Fowler is the brother of Diana Fowler, who married LeBlanc’s father, Romeo LeBlanc.

Dominic LeBlanc said Robert Fowler is a brilliant diplomat and former deputy minister of national defence who has seen these types of kidnappings several times in the past.

“He knows Africa and African politics very well so his experience with these types of political movements will be very valuable at this time,” LeBlanc said yesterday.

“If anyone can help resolve this situation, in this circumstance, it is Robert Fowler.”

The Beauséjour MP also praised the work of Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and others in the department.

“I know he and his department are working hard toward a resolution.”

Foreign affairs officials have also kept the Fowler family wellinformed and updated them regularly on progress being made in the case, LeBlanc said.

 

[Yrys]

Villager recalls seeing vehicle that carried UN envoys, From Thursday's Globe and Mail

NIAMEY/OTTAWA — A Niger villager says he watched the vehicle carrying two Canadian
UN envoys and their driver disembark from a ferry early Sunday evening and head down
the road from which they ultimately vanished.

“I personally saw their car when it was unloaded from the ferry and there were three
people on board,” said Illiassou Abdou, the owner of a small café in Farié, a village close
to the landing area. That was at 6:30 p.m. local time.

By late Wednesday afternoon, Robert Fowler, the UN special envoy to Niger, Louis Guay,
an aide, and their locally based driver had not been heard from in more than three days.

But the United Nations was not yet willing to declare that Mr. Fowler and his companions
had been kidnapped. Nor was his precise role in the impoverished West African nation
made clear.

Rest of article on link

 

[Yrys]

Caught in the crossfire of two historical forces, From Geoffrey Clarfield, Thursday's Globe and Mail

The disappearance of two Canadian diplomats in the predominantly Muslim
West African country of Niger - there is speculation their apparent abduction
is related to a complex conflict involving the Niger government, rebel groups
and international mining companies - is part of a much wider game: the
struggle for political and economic power in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Niger is a nation of high infant-mortality rates. Slavery is still widely practised,
with some sources suggesting that 8 per cent of the population live a life of
bondage. Niger is also a nation plagued by periodic drought. It cannot grow
enough food to feed itself, and it is dependant on donors. It has been democratic
for less than a decade and it has experienced periodic rebellions by its northern
ethnic groups.

The latest round of fighting began last year. This could be the fifth or the 10th
"Tuareg revolt" of the past 100 years, depending on who's counting. Quite simply,
there is a power struggle going on for who controls, and benefits from, Niger's
meagre resources, a struggle that is being directed by the elites of two coalitions
of ethnic groups - one largely African and agricultural that is based in the southern
part of the country, the other largely Berber and nomadic pastoral that is based in
the north. It is a struggle that has been going on for centuries, and it is a conflict
as old as Jacob and Esau.

The southern, smallest and most densely populated part of the country is close to
the Niger River where the Hausa, Djerma-Songhai and Gourmantche peoples
sustain themselves through subsistence agriculture. These people are the dark-
skinned descendants of the great sedentary Sahelian Muslim kingdoms that arose
during the Middle Ages and to whose French-educated elites the former French
colonialists gave the reins of power, when Niger became independent in the 1960s.

The largest groups of northerners are the Tuareg, light-skinned nomadic camel
herders, former slave traders and raiders who were once the masters of the
Saharan gold trade. During colonial times, they were the most resistant to
modernization, education and change. They were, and to some degree remain,
predatory warriors and smugglers who roam the desert caravan routes, taking
what they want by sword or gun.

During colonial times, their elites did not send their sons to France, so they did
not master the "means of administration." Ever since the southerners took control
of the state and the army after independence, they have been at a distinct disadvantage.

Since then, their grazing lands have been restricted, their slave raiding and slaves
have been declared illegal, their elites have not been represented in the government
and, most galling to them, they have not shared in any of the wealth that has emerged
from the uranium mines that supply Niger with 70 per cent of its export earnings and
that are located in the desert wastelands of their traditional grazing lands.

Until recently, French companies had a monopoly on the mining and exportation of
uranium from the deserts of northern Niger. In the past two years, however, the
Niger government has considered allowing other companies to invest, including
Canadian firms that are also involved in the development of gold mines. Through
their periodic rebellions, the Tuareg are trying to tell both the government and
foreign investors that they want a piece of the pie. And since it has been their
historical custom to take what they want, they most likely kidnapped the two
Canadians - Robert Fowler and Louis Guay, both of whom were representing
the United Nations - in the hope that the Canadian government could help
them put pressure on the Niger government and thus gain the pair's release.

UN negotiators have dealt with this kind of situation before, and one sincerely
hopes they will find a way to negotiate the release of Mr. Fowler and Mr. Guay.
Meantime, Canadians should recognize that Niger and the other states of the
Sahel are one extended battleground between northerners and southerners. In
Niger, Mali, Chad and Sudan, one must take great care not to get caught in the
crossfire between these two opposing historical forces.

Geoffrey Clarfield is a Toronto-based anthropologist.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s National Post, is a report indicating that Mr. Fowler may have annoyed or dissed the Niger government or, at least, failed to saddle himself with a government minder:
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http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1088478

Fowler ignored protocol, Niger journalist says
Envoy Still Missing; Did not inform government of trip or take official along

Steven Edwards, Agence France-Presse; Canwest News Service; With files from Marianne White,

Published: Thursday, December 18, 2008

UNITED NATIONS - Missing Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler failed to follow Niger government guidelines for visiting diplomats who want to travel in the country, it was alleged yesterday.

Foreign officials are routinely asked to not only give the Niger foreign affairs ministry an account of where they are going, but take with them a "protocol official," according to prominent Niger journalist Boubacar Diallo.

But Mr. Fowler-- who disappeared on Sunday along with his Canadian aide, Louis Guay, and their Nigerois driver -- set off that day without fulfilling those requirements, Mr. Diallo said he has learned from government officials.

While Mr. Fowler entered Niger on Dec. 11 as the United Nations envoy to the country, all that remained publicly known yesterday was that the UN-marked vehicle carrying the three men had been found abandoned on Sunday 45 kilometres from the capital, Niamey. "The problem for the government is that normally when a diplomat travels in Niger, he must inform the government," Mr. Diallo said in a telephone interview from Niger.

"But it appears Mr. Fowler left without informing the foreign affairs ministry, [or] even the protocol official that they had agreed would accompany him."

Officials have not confirmed Mr. Diallo's information.

The Niger government has said it believes the three men disappeared after visiting Samira Hill Gold Mine, which is part owned by Canada's Etruscan Resources.

But Mr. Diallo, who has worked on human-rights issues as president of the Niger Association of Independent Press Editors, said his efforts to locate anyone that Mr. Fowler may have met at the mine have been fruitless.

The Niger government has repeatedly said it believes Mr. Fowler's trip on Sunday was unconnected with his mandate as UN envoy, which in itself was a largely hush-hush affair.
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I don’t not think it would be out of character for Mr. Fowler to, politely, ignore government efforts to restrict his access to people and places he might have felt necessary to visit.

 

[Edward Campbell]

And here is more, relative to the gold mine visit, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s National Post:
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http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1091367

Missing diplomat did visit gold mine

Steven Edwards, Canwest News Service

Published: Thursday, December 18, 2008

UNITED NATIONS -- Missing Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler and his aide Louis Guay did make it to a gold mine the Niger government says they visited ahead of their disappearance Sunday.

Early reports suggested the pair vanished before the visit, but Messrs. Fowler and Guay were at the mine in the afternoon and disappeared about two-and-a-half hours later, en route to the Nigerian capital of Niamey, about 100 kilometres to the east.

According to information gathered by one of the Canadian part-owners of the Samira Hill Gold Mine in western Niger, Mr. Fowler had sought permission to visit the mine while in the landlocked African country as a United Nations special envoy, and was told he needed to give only 24 hours' notice of his arrival.

The mine is a Canadian-based venture, operated jointly by Semafo Inc., of Montreal and Etruscan Resources Inc., of Nova Scotia.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon named Mr. Fowler special envoy to the country in near secrecy in July, informing only the Canadian and Nigerois governments -- and bypassing even the UN Security Council, which is customarily informed of such appointments.

The UN says his mandate was "exploratory" in nature -- and came against a backdrop of armed rebellion in much of the north of the country by Tuareg tribesmen, who claim ownership of land in Niger's north containing highly valuable uranium deposits.

The mine lies 90 kilometres west of Niamey, Niger's capital, whereas the Niger government has said the UN-marked vehicle in which the three men travelled was found abandoned Sunday 45 kilometres from the capital.

More precisely, the Niger government has since said the vehicle was abandoned at or near a ferry over the Niger River, which must be crossed to reach Samira.

Nevertheless, the ferry landing is also adjacent to a north-south road gives access to Tuareg-occupied areas in the north.[/size]
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I find this part interesting: ” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon named Mr. Fowler special envoy to the country in near secrecy in July, informing only the Canadian and Nigerois governments -- and bypassing even the UN Security Council, which is customarily informed of such appointments … The UN says his mandate was "exploratory" in nature.”

 

[Yrys]

I don’t not think it would be out of character for Mr. Fowler to, politely,
ignore government efforts to restrict his access to people and places he might have felt necessary to visit.

Wouldn't he be more or less obligated, as a diplomat send there to act between 2 factions,
to ditch a representative of one faction to be able to go talk to the other ?

 

[Edward Campbell]

Wouldn't he be more or less obligated, as a diplomat send there to act between 2 factions,
to ditch a representative of one faction to be able to go talk to the other ?

Given the statement that his mission was "exploratory" in nature I would think he wasn't talking - officially - to either faction. He might have felt that a government minder would cripple any "exploration" he might want to do. Rebels would be highly unlikely to agree to meet with him if he had a government official in tow. Perhaps he was "exploring" for people who might be acceptable to all factions.

 

[Yrys]

Rebels would be highly unlikely to agree to meet with him if he had a government official in tow. Perhaps he was "exploring" for people who might be acceptable to all factions.

I hope that is the case. It would mean that they're alive somewhere in the country,
and will come back when "exploration" will go on pause.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s National Post, is an update on Mr. Fowler’s situation:
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http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=1097455

Clock ticking for missing diplomat

Steven Edwards, Canwest News Service

Published: Friday, December 19, 2008

UNITED NATIONS -- A senior Niger official said Friday the next "hours and days" would be crucial in the search for missing Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler and his aide Louis Guay.

The comment came as United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon phoned Niger President Mamadou Tandja to -- in the words of one UN official -- "express his appreciation" of the efforts Niger authorities were making to find the Canadians and their Niger driver.

Canada has dispatched at least one RCMP specialist to Niger to join a UN investigative team in place to help the Niger probe.

"The inquiry continues to follow its course," Bachir Hadj, spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Niger, said by phone from Niamey, the capital. "The next hours or days will be determinant."

He stressed it remained unknown whether the men had been kidnapped, or disappeared for some other reason.

Their UN-marked vehicle was discovered abandoned Sunday near the ferry crossing about half way along the route to a Canadian-run gold mine they had visited some 90 kilometres west of Niamey.

Officials with lines of communication to the investigation say no one appears to have contacted Niger, UN or Canadian authorities in the land-locked African country to say they are holding the men.

Mr. Tandja faced criticism in the Niger media Friday after failing to refer to what has become known as "the disappearance" in a major address he gave the day before to mark the 50th anniversary of the country's independence from France.

News reports in Niger have referred to Mr. Fowler as "Mr. Africa" and said he is a "friend" of the country.

Mr. Ban quietly appointed Mr. Fowler in July as UN Special Envoy to Niger amid intensification of the rebellion of Tuareg tribesmen over land containing rich uranium deposits. The retired Canadian official has considerable experience with African conflict: As the longest serving Canadian ambassador to the UN in the late 1990s, he fronted what for a time was a Canadian-led effort to end the conflict-diamond trade in Angola.

A day after he arrived in Niger Dec. 11, he met with Interior Minister Albade Abouba and Justice Minister Dagra Mamadou even though officially Niger has never called the UN to intervene in the Tuareg uprising.

Canwest News Service
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One would have thought (hoped) that someone would have demanded something if Mr. Fowler is indeed being held for some kind of ransom.

 

[Old Sweat]

Speaking as a person with no real base of knowledge of the situation other than that which has been published, it still seems to me that the silence indicates that Fowler et al were not taken by a group with ransom as a motive. It also seems to me that this group would have nothing to gain by identifying itself immediately if its motives are political. Organizations such as FARC have been known to remain quiet for a considerable length of time after having taken hostages. To take the discussion any further would be to speculate.

 

[dapaterson]

That we haven't heard of any requests does not mean that there have not been any.

 

[Kirkhill]

Bourque weaves another couple of threads into this tapestry:

Much ado about nothing, the Ontario government is about to award a $40 billion dollar nuclear reactor contract. It will be nothing less than the single largest government contract ever awarded in Canada. Period. Primary bidders include Canada's own CANDU and France's AREVA. According to one of the articles above, "Areva has been extracting uranium for over 40 years from Touareg territories in Niger. Its intense activity pollutes their lands and waters irreversably". (Related protests occured in front of Areva HQ in Paris saturday.) Curiously, the McGuinty government pulled the Cone of Silence down on any public discourse pertaining to this project months ago for reasons that remain unknown, despite a poll earlier this year showing 76% of respondents wanting an open and transparent process. In unrelated matters, Benoit Lasalle, CEO of Semafo in Montreal, runs the only non-Areva mine in Niger, the exact same mine where Canadian diplomats Robert Fowler and Louis Guay showed up unannounced and were last seen alive last week. One unsubstantiated rumour that has reached us, by the way, suggests that the two latter-day StanleyLivingstonian dips "may be released in a couple days ... it could be they were being taught a lesson as they were pissing off the President of Niger" for reasons that as of yet remain unclear.

Bourque isn't always the best of sources but if true it puts another slant on the disappearance.

Other names associated with Niger uranium - Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame, George Bush and Saddam Hussein, Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (of Conrad Black and Rod Blagojevich fame),


And:

Italy blames France for Niger uranium claim

By Bruce Johnston in Brussels and Kim Willsher in Paris
Last Updated: 5:48PM BST 18 Sep 2004

A row has broken out between France and Italy over whose intelligence service is to blame for the Niger uranium controversy, which led to Britain and America claiming wrongly that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy material for nuclear bombs.

Italian diplomats say that France was behind forged documents which at first appeared to prove that Iraq was seeking "yellow-cake" uranium in Niger - evidence used by Britain and America to promote the case for last year's Gulf war.

They say that France's intelligence services used an Italian-born middle-man to circulate a mixture of genuine and bogus documents to "trap" the two leading proponents of war with Saddam into making unsupportable claims.

They have passed to The Sunday Telegraph a photograph which they claim shows the Italian go-between, sometimes known as "Giacomo" - who cannot be identified for legal reasons - meeting a senior French intelligence officer based in Brussels. "The French hoped that the bulk of the documents would be exposed as false, since many of them obviously were," an Italian official said.

"Their aim was to make the allies look ridiculous in order to undermine their case for war."...

  Telegraph 2004


An awful lot of murk in that part of the world.....

 

[OldSolduer]

I' "UN investigative team"

I wonder what comprises that team.

 

[garb811]

The UN has a Personal Security department, I'd expect some of them, plus a few political wonks.  Quality varies...