:00:19. > :00:22.Welcome to HARDtalk. I am Zeinab Badawi. Robert Fowler, a senior
:00:22. > :00:32.Canadian diplomat, was held hostage for five months by Al Qaeda in
:00:32. > :00:32.
:00:32. > :00:35.Niger in 2009. At that time, he was the UN special envoy to Niger. He
:00:35. > :00:38.says that since his capture and release, terror attacks and events
:00:38. > :00:41.in the region, such as the brief Islamist takeover of northern Mali,
:00:41. > :00:43.should serve as a wake-up call of a jihadist danger. He believes
:00:43. > :00:46.militants aim to set up a seven thousand kilometre Islamic
:00:46. > :00:56.caliphate stretching from Mauritania to Somalia. -- 7,000km.
:00:56. > :01:20.
:01:21. > :01:26.Is he scaremongering, or does he Robert Fowler, welcome to HARDtalk.
:01:26. > :01:32.Laiki Bank. You were captured in December, 2008, just outside the
:01:32. > :01:39.capital of Niger. When did it dawn on you that you had been kidnapped?
:01:39. > :01:42.A friend of mine, a Canadian diplomat, had been out for at an
:01:42. > :01:46.afternoon drive and we crossed back across the Niger river and turned
:01:46. > :01:50.right towards town and he was on the cell phone making dinner
:01:50. > :01:56.arrangements with the Canadian ambassador. We were going very fast
:01:56. > :02:03.and a truck passed us, going faster. It slewed in front and forced our
:02:03. > :02:06.truck to stop. Al were drunk -- our truck driver tried to pass and we
:02:06. > :02:11.were blocked again and I knew that we were in a world of heard.
:02:11. > :02:16.driver was very panic? His locals instinct probably make him realise
:02:16. > :02:20.that something sinister was happening. Exactly. We screeched to
:02:20. > :02:24.a stop and they leapt out and grab does. You were thrown in the back
:02:24. > :02:30.of a truck, a very uncomfortable journey. The whole thing took maybe
:02:30. > :02:33.40 seconds. We did a 180 degree turn on the highway, off the
:02:33. > :02:38.highway, and 30 minutes later we were hauled out of the truck and
:02:38. > :02:43.bound and began our great journey northwards. When you emerged at the
:02:43. > :02:48.end of that journey, you were shaken up, all three of you. I was.
:02:48. > :02:53.My friend was purged during the grab, I lost my glasses, Lilley was
:02:53. > :02:59.right across the face with the front of an AK- 47, but we were not
:02:59. > :03:04.beaten or tortured as such. We found ourselves about 1,100
:03:04. > :03:11.kilometres north of Timbuktu in the Mali desert. When did you know that
:03:11. > :03:21.you had been captured by a Al- Qaeda? 12 hours afterwards. Just
:03:21. > :03:21.
:03:21. > :03:25.before dawn. They stopped, a blanket was thrown on the ground
:03:26. > :03:30.and my back was damaged so I couldn't lie down. There was a
:03:30. > :03:33.century making tea in the desert, over a tiny fire. Two handfuls of
:03:33. > :03:39.tea, two handfuls of Chanel. He looked up at me and asked if I had
:03:39. > :03:47.figured out who they were yet. I said, with no confidence affair --
:03:47. > :03:51.no confidence at all, are you the rebel movement? With her mother was
:03:51. > :03:56.negotiating? The second Tuareg rebellion, a movement called the
:03:56. > :04:01.Nigerians for social justice. This guy making tea looked up at me and,
:04:01. > :04:07.in effect, said while Abbey hanging around with amateurs like that? I
:04:07. > :04:13.told you that I was in the lease. We are Al-Qaeda. That was not one
:04:13. > :04:16.of my finer moments. He savoured the moment when he said Al-Qaeda?
:04:16. > :04:21.Absolutely. He anticipated my reaction and I regret to say that
:04:21. > :04:27.he got it. How did you feel when you heard those two words? Frankly,
:04:27. > :04:31.I thought that my chances were about 5%, mostly because I would
:04:31. > :04:36.not contemplate a lower number. So I did not think that the senior
:04:36. > :04:41.Canadian UN diplomat would do very well as an archive a hostage -- Al-
:04:41. > :04:48.Qaeda hostage. What went through your mind? I thought of the annual
:04:48. > :04:54.poll, your colleague who had his head sawn off on television in 2002
:04:54. > :05:00.in Karachi. And 500,000 people watched it on new tunes. I thought
:05:00. > :05:05.that my family and my wife would be watching such a video. Described to
:05:05. > :05:08.us what your captivity was like because you were held for - what -
:05:08. > :05:12.you were released at the end of April, so you didn't know that?
:05:12. > :05:15.What was it likely that meagre rations and living in the searing
:05:15. > :05:24.heat? The filthy water that you were at first reluctant to drink
:05:24. > :05:28.and all the wild animals, snakes, hyenas? It was basically, our
:05:28. > :05:33.captivity was in two halves. The first in one place and the second
:05:33. > :05:39.in 23 different places. I still do not know why that changed. We refer
:05:39. > :05:44.to them as camps but there were not anything but that word would
:05:44. > :05:51.suggest to any of your viewers. A camp was simply a place where there
:05:51. > :05:57.was a bit of shade. A thin acacia tree that would cast a spot of
:05:57. > :06:03.shade that Luis and diet would then chase around the tree for the day -
:06:03. > :06:08.- Luis and high. In January and February, the temperatures would go
:06:08. > :06:13.down into single degrees centigrade days. In the day, they would rise
:06:13. > :06:16.above 50 degrees. We did not have a thermometer, but... Of extreme heat
:06:17. > :06:24.during the day and he tried to get what shade you could. Freezing at
:06:24. > :06:29.night. We could not walk around. Even when we were travelling with
:06:29. > :06:35.our captors across the desert, they would stop from about 10 m to about
:06:35. > :06:39.4pm. It was too hot even to have up -- even to travel in a truck.
:06:39. > :06:44.then there were the snakes in particular, a constant threat.
:06:44. > :06:49.one camp, we killed six of what I now know is the Sahara desert of
:06:49. > :06:55.bypass. They were offered these little green scorpions with the
:06:55. > :07:01.charming name of the desert stalker. You killed one yourself? Yes, yes.
:07:01. > :07:05.Not realising how venomous it was? That is correct. They were nasty, I
:07:05. > :07:12.didn't like it very much. And then there were the two-legged monsters,
:07:12. > :07:18.our captors. There were 31 of them. The numbers changed a lot. At one
:07:18. > :07:23.time, there were four. Our principal captor, Moktar Belmoktar,
:07:23. > :07:28.which shot from time to time. We shall up for two hours for five
:07:28. > :07:33.days and then shower began and then the steady state was about 30
:07:33. > :07:37.captors. He communicated mostly in French. Some of them had good
:07:37. > :07:41.French? Four of them had perfect French, another four had excellent
:07:41. > :07:46.French and my suspicion that Bob mop -- Moktar Belmoktar's French
:07:46. > :07:53.was good but less bow to him through an interpreter. He referred
:07:53. > :07:57.to Moktar Belmoktar, who was known to be a high-level Al-Qaeda
:07:57. > :08:03.operative. He was behind that gas attack on a jury at the beginning
:08:03. > :08:11.of the year. What was he like? You describe him in your book as being
:08:11. > :08:18.quite aloof. -- Algeria. He was respect for a light? He was all
:08:18. > :08:22.business. -- all polite.He was an Afghan Arab. He fought as a 19-
:08:22. > :08:28.year-old in at Dagestan where he lost his eye. He has been fighting
:08:28. > :08:32.in Algeria for 20 years -- Afghan us down. During which 20 --
:08:32. > :08:38.thousands of people have been killed but not him. He takes credit
:08:38. > :08:44.for the attack on that gas facility which killed 37 foreigners and 29
:08:44. > :08:51.of his jihadists. Including Canadians. He was not there. He did
:08:51. > :08:58.not survive 20 years for -- by being there for such things. He
:08:58. > :09:06.also perpetrated these relatively recent attacks in Niger. Against
:09:06. > :09:12.the French facility. And against a north of the city. He's a serious
:09:12. > :09:17.player. There is no doubt in my mind that he believes in G hard.
:09:17. > :09:22.That is what it was all about. -- yard. I never heard the murder
:09:22. > :09:27.Moktar Belmoktar until we got out. I knew him as something else.
:09:27. > :09:31.say that that was what he was all about. You know that he has this
:09:31. > :09:36.nickname as Mr Marlborough because he's a big cigarette smuggler. You
:09:36. > :09:38.tend to talk about these people who captured you as though they were
:09:38. > :09:42.fairly one-dimensional but do not accept that there is a large
:09:43. > :09:47.element of criminality, pure criminality, to a large part of
:09:47. > :09:53.their actions and that they are involved in all kinds of rackets -
:09:53. > :09:57.cigarettes smuggling in this case and also drug smuggling, human
:09:57. > :10:01.trafficking? Zeinab Badawi, you're absolutely right. The issue is
:10:01. > :10:08.whether or not they are hoods or are they Robin hoods? I do not want
:10:08. > :10:13.to run bents -- romanticise them but are they bandits, flying the
:10:13. > :10:18.flag of Islamic convenience all rather are they latter-day and it's
:10:19. > :10:23.like Robert Wood, doing banditry to further the cause? I have no doubt
:10:23. > :10:27.that it is the second. He is called Mr Mardi Gras and I believe
:10:27. > :10:32.absolutely that from the arms trade that people trade, cigarette trade,
:10:32. > :10:42.the drug trade, all the illegal movement across the Sahara or that
:10:42. > :10:42.
:10:42. > :10:46.they get some. That they take a toll. I have never seen a more
:10:46. > :10:51.focused, directed group of young men in my life. They were dressed
:10:51. > :10:55.in rags. They tended their weapons carefully. They did not want any of
:10:55. > :11:01.the stuff that people want in our society, MP3 players and calls on
:11:01. > :11:08.sunglasses. They sat in the sun and chanted Cranwich Seurat and waited
:11:08. > :11:11.to get to paradise. Why are you still hear in that case? It is
:11:11. > :11:15.wonderful but he survived where other hostages have not but I put
:11:15. > :11:19.it to you that they may have been an element of money to this. They
:11:19. > :11:26.had been reports that a ransom was paid for you and your fellow
:11:26. > :11:32.captive, Lily date. I suddenly.Was a ransom paid? I don't know. Canada
:11:32. > :11:37.has not told me. By Prime Minister says that Canada paid no ransom and
:11:37. > :11:41.released no prisoner. That is what Stephen Harper said? That is what
:11:42. > :11:47.police said. We were both strategic analysts. We had 70 years between
:11:47. > :11:51.us. We sat around discussing the situation we were in. And the
:11:51. > :11:56.likelihood of our getting out of it. We kept coming up with wrong
:11:56. > :12:01.answers so eventually, Luis would get frustrated and said that he got
:12:01. > :12:06.tired of holding us, then let us go? They may get tired of holding
:12:06. > :12:10.us but that does not mean that they will let us go. There are other
:12:10. > :12:16.options and they are unpleasant. He asked how we would get out and he
:12:16. > :12:19.would say it -- I would say that we had to get enough. He asked how
:12:19. > :12:23.much that was and I said I didn't know that they did this for
:12:23. > :12:26.publicity and to feed the cause. And for money. I bring this up
:12:26. > :12:30.because there was a letter according to the Associated Press
:12:30. > :12:34.found in a house used by fighters in Mali which has been verified as
:12:34. > :12:40.being authentic by a rid of a tower, the former head of counter-
:12:40. > :12:45.terrorism for Africa at the end again and there was an exchange,
:12:45. > :12:50.the letter was written to Moktar Belmoktar for -- chastising him for
:12:51. > :12:56.accepting around $1 million for your release and that of Lily date.
:12:56. > :13:01.Sewer rats and has been paid? De think it matters that a ransom had
:13:01. > :13:05.been paid for you? -- so a Branson has been paid. It matters
:13:06. > :13:09.absolutely or else we would not be here to have this discussion.
:13:09. > :13:12.is the fact. Therefore, if money was not such an overriding
:13:12. > :13:17.objective for these people who captured you and not just the
:13:17. > :13:22.ideology as you say, then they would not have released you?
:13:22. > :13:27.sorry but there certainly was money at issue. Certainly. I have no
:13:27. > :13:32.reason to disbelieve this letter, none. I said that they had to get
:13:32. > :13:37.enough. There also press reports that prisoners were released from
:13:37. > :13:40.Mali to gain our release. So now we have further evidence of money and
:13:40. > :13:45.prisoners released. The only issue that we are discussing is whether
:13:45. > :13:51.or not the money was for personal gain or whether it was to nourish
:13:51. > :13:56.their cause? I do not think that Moktar Belmoktar has a shadow. I
:13:56. > :14:06.think that he was a -- we were a rate of raising money for the cause,
:14:06. > :14:14.
:14:14. > :14:19.of getting publicity. He is very It depends on how your readers of
:14:19. > :14:23.Aug. If you read the book as justifying what they do or rather
:14:23. > :14:26.you do the book in terms of describing the threat they
:14:26. > :14:34.represent and trying to get people to get attention to that threat in
:14:34. > :14:41.order to defeat it. I would argue the second, obviously. When you say,
:14:41. > :14:46.pay attention to the threat that she described how you have an
:14:46. > :14:51.encounter with Sam Rowe Huntington, a close eye of civilisation's -
:14:51. > :14:55.there is merit in his argument. Where I first heard it in New York
:14:55. > :15:00.in the mid-90s, I did not think it had great merit. I admit that
:15:00. > :15:06.coming out of this adventure, I think he was an awful lot more
:15:06. > :15:11.right than he was then. What is your understanding now. You think
:15:11. > :15:16.the Muslim world or some was lambs are hell-bent on a clash of
:15:16. > :15:25.civilisations with the West? At I do not believe the Muslim world.
:15:25. > :15:32.But my country said to me, time and again, 72 for 73 secs of Islam are
:15:32. > :15:36.wrong. Only we have the right answer. We believe that jihad is
:15:36. > :15:40.the six pillar of Islam. We believe that God has favoured it asked. We
:15:40. > :15:44.know, they would tell me, that God's victory will be theirs. They
:15:44. > :15:50.do not expect to be around but victory will be achieved. How could
:15:50. > :15:58.it not? It is God's five. But they do not speak for the vast majority
:15:58. > :16:03.of Muslims? By the rain definition, they do not. They say 72 for 73 are
:16:03. > :16:08.wrong. They are speaking for themselves. The Islamic government
:16:08. > :16:12.of the region are their absolute enemy. Her with the Islamic
:16:12. > :16:16.governments up of the region, being their enemies, does it not suggest
:16:16. > :16:23.that the debate is rather one within the Muslim world and should
:16:23. > :16:29.not be depicted as was ever kind, what ever views they have against
:16:29. > :16:32.the West. It is actually the debate within the Muslim world. We should
:16:33. > :16:42.disown and marginalise these militants and not depict it in
:16:42. > :16:48.those terms? I am afraid it is both. In deep outrider ideology, it is
:16:48. > :16:52.the new enemy and the Far enemy. I was definitely the FA enemy. It is
:16:52. > :16:57.certainly our enemy who suffers the most. The vast majority of victims
:16:57. > :17:04.have been fellow Muslims. But that is an issue of where in the time
:17:04. > :17:09.continuum. I said 200,000 people have died in Nigeria fighting in
:17:10. > :17:15.the near enemy. They attack the President's convoy, killing 22 and
:17:15. > :17:23.wounding 106. They would like to kill the President himself.
:17:23. > :17:31.President of Algeria. With 9/11, with kidnapping of people like me,
:17:31. > :17:39.in fact, it could be tied directly to their requiring the Al-Qaeda or
:17:39. > :17:45.franchise between September 2006 and 2007 when they switch their
:17:45. > :17:51.focus. It is very much the evil West. They saw me as coming from
:17:51. > :17:56.some great solemn and Gomorrah. They kept referring to the naked
:17:56. > :18:01.beaches in Europe. They hated us with a passion. You not think that
:18:01. > :18:06.in your book, you may be elevating this minority view which uses Islam
:18:06. > :18:11.for the own convenience and caused to the kind of status where a lot
:18:11. > :18:14.of people might think that that is what a lot of was Fulham's do
:18:14. > :18:24.believe in because they are getting so much more publicity than the
:18:24. > :18:24.
:18:24. > :18:31.mainstream was limes. We're sitting here in the UK. -- Muslims. With
:18:31. > :18:37.the higher rate, did all Irish people want to kill English people
:18:37. > :18:41.- the answer is absolutely in not. -- IRA. But there were committed
:18:41. > :18:46.Irish people who were doing horrible things English people and
:18:46. > :18:50.trying to destroy the government in Westminster. It is similar. It is a
:18:50. > :18:55.small minority but when -- they knew exactly what they were doing.
:18:55. > :19:00.They had a clear sense of purpose. They believed absolutely all three
:19:00. > :19:03.Islamic religions had that saying about more difficult for a camel to
:19:03. > :19:08.pass through the eye of a needle than get to paradise. These guys
:19:08. > :19:13.knew they would get to paradise. said there is no point in
:19:13. > :19:18.negotiating with them at will. When the president of Nigeria says
:19:18. > :19:28.when we look at UCCA rump and when they come in Nigeria, as we know
:19:28. > :19:34.there are links between Boko Haram. There is a bit matrix linking them.
:19:34. > :19:42.In northern Nigeria, he was the exchange officer. When the unit to
:19:42. > :19:48.deal with poverty, there is the coincidence between a lack of jobs
:19:48. > :19:53.and that. That there is some kind of development element there?
:19:53. > :20:00.a big believer in the development systems and I regret the trend away
:20:00. > :20:04.from it. Having said that, none of my captors were in this because
:20:04. > :20:09.their families were starving or because they were unemployed used
:20:10. > :20:14.or because they were not dentists in some Western country. They were
:20:14. > :20:19.in this because they believed absolutely that God had called them
:20:19. > :20:29.to do this and they were on their way to those rivers of milk and
:20:29. > :20:32.
:20:32. > :20:36.honey. They're objective is seven kilometres -- 7,000 kilometres. Do
:20:36. > :20:43.you think they will achieve that? Are set me believe that such is the
:20:43. > :20:49.objective. The colour fat is an in state. They would tell me frankly
:20:49. > :20:54.is that, take the chaos and anarchy in Somalia and spread it across
:20:54. > :21:00.that great the swans of the White as part of Africa. Within that
:21:00. > :21:07.chaos, jihad will forage. That is what they believed. -- flourish. I
:21:07. > :21:13.got out of the before they took two-thirds of Mali. I think there
:21:13. > :21:18.is a pretty good start. You think there is clear evidence that the
:21:18. > :21:28.jihadist threat is growing and spreading in Africa? First of all,
:21:28. > :21:33.
:21:33. > :21:37.you have a ready answer these, but they all joined up, or the AQ I am,
:21:37. > :21:45.but they all part of the same thing? Mike and so, from experience
:21:45. > :21:55.of only 31 people, is absolutely. - - my answer. They share the same
:21:55. > :21:58.
:21:58. > :22:03.objective. There is grave robbery between warlords. There is rivalry
:22:03. > :22:10.among them. Is it growing and spreading? I think he is. Who would
:22:10. > :22:20.have thought they could have taken this enormous area of Mali? They
:22:20. > :22:21.
:22:21. > :22:27.joined the the militants. If the French had not moved... But they
:22:27. > :22:32.did not succeed in the end. They were chased out by a combination of
:22:32. > :22:39.Mali forces, the French and other African Union forces like the
:22:39. > :22:47.Nigerians. The fact is they did not. Just like the G R a d not succeed
:22:47. > :22:51.in Algeria. You had the President keeping his... You are right. When
:22:51. > :22:55.they hijacked a plane in 1993 and were going to fly yet he to the
:22:55. > :22:59.Eiffel Tower, they stop in Marseilles to get more gas and the
:22:59. > :23:05.French attacked the plan. That did not attack buildings in the West
:23:05. > :23:15.before 9/11 but they almost did. They are now taking throughout
:23:15. > :23:15.
:23:15. > :23:21.Mauritania. They have been attacking Niger. Significant higher
:23:21. > :23:28.number than the IRA. Finally, have you put your dreadful ordeal behind
:23:28. > :23:34.you? Yes, I think I had. By now it does not sound like it. I have put
:23:34. > :23:40.it behind me. I made all kind of resolutions. There would change my
:23:40. > :23:43.life and become a nice guy. But I still find myself sitting in
:23:43. > :23:47.traffic and begin at the guy in front of me who does not move
:23:47. > :23:53.through a Green light. Maybe I enjoy life a little more, or what