Robert Fowler - Former UN Special Representative to Niger HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk. I am Zeinab Badawi. Robert Fowler, a senior

Canadian diplomat, was held hostage for five months by Al Qaeda in

Niger in 2009. At that time, he was the UN special envoy to Niger. He

says that since his capture and release, terror attacks and events

in the region, such as the brief Islamist takeover of northern Mali,

should serve as a wake-up call of a jihadist danger. He believes

militants aim to set up a seven thousand kilometre Islamic

caliphate stretching from Mauritania to Somalia. -- 7,000km.

Is he scaremongering, or does he Robert Fowler, welcome to HARDtalk.

Laiki Bank. You were captured in December, 2008, just outside the

capital of Niger. When did it dawn on you that you had been kidnapped?

A friend of mine, a Canadian diplomat, had been out for at an

afternoon drive and we crossed back across the Niger river and turned

right towards town and he was on the cell phone making dinner

arrangements with the Canadian ambassador. We were going very fast

and a truck passed us, going faster. It slewed in front and forced our

truck to stop. Al were drunk -- our truck driver tried to pass and we

were blocked again and I knew that we were in a world of heard.

driver was very panic? His locals instinct probably make him realise

that something sinister was happening. Exactly. We screeched to

a stop and they leapt out and grab does. You were thrown in the back

of a truck, a very uncomfortable journey. The whole thing took maybe

40 seconds. We did a 180 degree turn on the highway, off the

highway, and 30 minutes later we were hauled out of the truck and

bound and began our great journey northwards. When you emerged at the

end of that journey, you were shaken up, all three of you. I was.

My friend was purged during the grab, I lost my glasses, Lilley was

right across the face with the front of an AK- 47, but we were not

beaten or tortured as such. We found ourselves about 1,100

kilometres north of Timbuktu in the Mali desert. When did you know that

you had been captured by a Al- Qaeda? 12 hours afterwards. Just

before dawn. They stopped, a blanket was thrown on the ground

and my back was damaged so I couldn't lie down. There was a

century making tea in the desert, over a tiny fire. Two handfuls of

tea, two handfuls of Chanel. He looked up at me and asked if I had

figured out who they were yet. I said, with no confidence affair --

no confidence at all, are you the rebel movement? With her mother was

negotiating? The second Tuareg rebellion, a movement called the

Nigerians for social justice. This guy making tea looked up at me and,

in effect, said while Abbey hanging around with amateurs like that? I

told you that I was in the lease. We are Al-Qaeda. That was not one

of my finer moments. He savoured the moment when he said Al-Qaeda?

Absolutely. He anticipated my reaction and I regret to say that

he got it. How did you feel when you heard those two words? Frankly,

I thought that my chances were about 5%, mostly because I would

not contemplate a lower number. So I did not think that the senior

Canadian UN diplomat would do very well as an archive a hostage -- Al-

Qaeda hostage. What went through your mind? I thought of the annual

poll, your colleague who had his head sawn off on television in 2002

in Karachi. And 500,000 people watched it on new tunes. I thought

that my family and my wife would be watching such a video. Described to

us what your captivity was like because you were held for - what -

you were released at the end of April, so you didn't know that?

What was it likely that meagre rations and living in the searing

heat? The filthy water that you were at first reluctant to drink

and all the wild animals, snakes, hyenas? It was basically, our

captivity was in two halves. The first in one place and the second

in 23 different places. I still do not know why that changed. We refer

to them as camps but there were not anything but that word would

suggest to any of your viewers. A camp was simply a place where there

was a bit of shade. A thin acacia tree that would cast a spot of

shade that Luis and diet would then chase around the tree for the day -

- Luis and high. In January and February, the temperatures would go

down into single degrees centigrade days. In the day, they would rise

above 50 degrees. We did not have a thermometer, but... Of extreme heat

during the day and he tried to get what shade you could. Freezing at

night. We could not walk around. Even when we were travelling with

our captors across the desert, they would stop from about 10 m to about

4pm. It was too hot even to have up -- even to travel in a truck.

then there were the snakes in particular, a constant threat.

one camp, we killed six of what I now know is the Sahara desert of

bypass. They were offered these little green scorpions with the

charming name of the desert stalker. You killed one yourself? Yes, yes.

Not realising how venomous it was? That is correct. They were nasty, I

didn't like it very much. And then there were the two-legged monsters,

our captors. There were 31 of them. The numbers changed a lot. At one

time, there were four. Our principal captor, Moktar Belmoktar,

which shot from time to time. We shall up for two hours for five

days and then shower began and then the steady state was about 30

captors. He communicated mostly in French. Some of them had good

French? Four of them had perfect French, another four had excellent

French and my suspicion that Bob mop -- Moktar Belmoktar's French

was good but less bow to him through an interpreter. He referred

to Moktar Belmoktar, who was known to be a high-level Al-Qaeda

operative. He was behind that gas attack on a jury at the beginning

of the year. What was he like? You describe him in your book as being

quite aloof. -- Algeria. He was respect for a light? He was all

business. -- all polite.He was an Afghan Arab. He fought as a 19-

year-old in at Dagestan where he lost his eye. He has been fighting

in Algeria for 20 years -- Afghan us down. During which 20 --

thousands of people have been killed but not him. He takes credit

for the attack on that gas facility which killed 37 foreigners and 29

of his jihadists. Including Canadians. He was not there. He did

not survive 20 years for -- by being there for such things. He

also perpetrated these relatively recent attacks in Niger. Against

the French facility. And against a north of the city. He's a serious

player. There is no doubt in my mind that he believes in G hard.

That is what it was all about. -- yard. I never heard the murder

Moktar Belmoktar until we got out. I knew him as something else.

say that that was what he was all about. You know that he has this

nickname as Mr Marlborough because he's a big cigarette smuggler. You

tend to talk about these people who captured you as though they were

fairly one-dimensional but do not accept that there is a large

element of criminality, pure criminality, to a large part of

their actions and that they are involved in all kinds of rackets -

cigarettes smuggling in this case and also drug smuggling, human

trafficking? Zeinab Badawi, you're absolutely right. The issue is

whether or not they are hoods or are they Robin hoods? I do not want

to run bents -- romanticise them but are they bandits, flying the

flag of Islamic convenience all rather are they latter-day and it's

like Robert Wood, doing banditry to further the cause? I have no doubt

that it is the second. He is called Mr Mardi Gras and I believe

absolutely that from the arms trade that people trade, cigarette trade,

the drug trade, all the illegal movement across the Sahara or that

they get some. That they take a toll. I have never seen a more

focused, directed group of young men in my life. They were dressed

in rags. They tended their weapons carefully. They did not want any of

the stuff that people want in our society, MP3 players and calls on

sunglasses. They sat in the sun and chanted Cranwich Seurat and waited

to get to paradise. Why are you still hear in that case? It is

wonderful but he survived where other hostages have not but I put

it to you that they may have been an element of money to this. They

had been reports that a ransom was paid for you and your fellow

captive, Lily date. I suddenly.Was a ransom paid? I don't know. Canada

has not told me. By Prime Minister says that Canada paid no ransom and

released no prisoner. That is what Stephen Harper said? That is what

police said. We were both strategic analysts. We had 70 years between

us. We sat around discussing the situation we were in. And the

likelihood of our getting out of it. We kept coming up with wrong

answers so eventually, Luis would get frustrated and said that he got

tired of holding us, then let us go? They may get tired of holding

us but that does not mean that they will let us go. There are other

options and they are unpleasant. He asked how we would get out and he

would say it -- I would say that we had to get enough. He asked how

much that was and I said I didn't know that they did this for

publicity and to feed the cause. And for money. I bring this up

because there was a letter according to the Associated Press

found in a house used by fighters in Mali which has been verified as

being authentic by a rid of a tower, the former head of counter-

terrorism for Africa at the end again and there was an exchange,

the letter was written to Moktar Belmoktar for -- chastising him for

accepting around $1 million for your release and that of Lily date.

Sewer rats and has been paid? De think it matters that a ransom had

been paid for you? -- so a Branson has been paid. It matters

absolutely or else we would not be here to have this discussion.

is the fact. Therefore, if money was not such an overriding

objective for these people who captured you and not just the

ideology as you say, then they would not have released you?

sorry but there certainly was money at issue. Certainly. I have no

reason to disbelieve this letter, none. I said that they had to get

enough. There also press reports that prisoners were released from

Mali to gain our release. So now we have further evidence of money and

prisoners released. The only issue that we are discussing is whether

or not the money was for personal gain or whether it was to nourish

their cause? I do not think that Moktar Belmoktar has a shadow. I

think that he was a -- we were a rate of raising money for the cause,

of getting publicity. He is very It depends on how your readers of

Aug. If you read the book as justifying what they do or rather

you do the book in terms of describing the threat they

represent and trying to get people to get attention to that threat in

order to defeat it. I would argue the second, obviously. When you say,

pay attention to the threat that she described how you have an

encounter with Sam Rowe Huntington, a close eye of civilisation's -

there is merit in his argument. Where I first heard it in New York

in the mid-90s, I did not think it had great merit. I admit that

coming out of this adventure, I think he was an awful lot more

right than he was then. What is your understanding now. You think

the Muslim world or some was lambs are hell-bent on a clash of

civilisations with the West? At I do not believe the Muslim world.

But my country said to me, time and again, 72 for 73 secs of Islam are

wrong. Only we have the right answer. We believe that jihad is

the six pillar of Islam. We believe that God has favoured it asked. We

know, they would tell me, that God's victory will be theirs. They

do not expect to be around but victory will be achieved. How could

it not? It is God's five. But they do not speak for the vast majority

of Muslims? By the rain definition, they do not. They say 72 for 73 are

wrong. They are speaking for themselves. The Islamic government

of the region are their absolute enemy. Her with the Islamic

governments up of the region, being their enemies, does it not suggest

that the debate is rather one within the Muslim world and should

not be depicted as was ever kind, what ever views they have against

the West. It is actually the debate within the Muslim world. We should

disown and marginalise these militants and not depict it in

those terms? I am afraid it is both. In deep outrider ideology, it is

the new enemy and the Far enemy. I was definitely the FA enemy. It is

certainly our enemy who suffers the most. The vast majority of victims

have been fellow Muslims. But that is an issue of where in the time

continuum. I said 200,000 people have died in Nigeria fighting in

the near enemy. They attack the President's convoy, killing 22 and

wounding 106. They would like to kill the President himself.

President of Algeria. With 9/11, with kidnapping of people like me,

in fact, it could be tied directly to their requiring the Al-Qaeda or

franchise between September 2006 and 2007 when they switch their

focus. It is very much the evil West. They saw me as coming from

some great solemn and Gomorrah. They kept referring to the naked

beaches in Europe. They hated us with a passion. You not think that

in your book, you may be elevating this minority view which uses Islam

for the own convenience and caused to the kind of status where a lot

of people might think that that is what a lot of was Fulham's do

believe in because they are getting so much more publicity than the

mainstream was limes. We're sitting here in the UK. -- Muslims. With

the higher rate, did all Irish people want to kill English people

- the answer is absolutely in not. -- IRA. But there were committed

Irish people who were doing horrible things English people and

trying to destroy the government in Westminster. It is similar. It is a

small minority but when -- they knew exactly what they were doing.

They had a clear sense of purpose. They believed absolutely all three

Islamic religions had that saying about more difficult for a camel to

pass through the eye of a needle than get to paradise. These guys

knew they would get to paradise. said there is no point in

negotiating with them at will. When the president of Nigeria says

when we look at UCCA rump and when they come in Nigeria, as we know

there are links between Boko Haram. There is a bit matrix linking them.

In northern Nigeria, he was the exchange officer. When the unit to

deal with poverty, there is the coincidence between a lack of jobs

and that. That there is some kind of development element there?

a big believer in the development systems and I regret the trend away

from it. Having said that, none of my captors were in this because

their families were starving or because they were unemployed used

or because they were not dentists in some Western country. They were

in this because they believed absolutely that God had called them

to do this and they were on their way to those rivers of milk and

honey. They're objective is seven kilometres -- 7,000 kilometres. Do

you think they will achieve that? Are set me believe that such is the

objective. The colour fat is an in state. They would tell me frankly

is that, take the chaos and anarchy in Somalia and spread it across

that great the swans of the White as part of Africa. Within that

chaos, jihad will forage. That is what they believed. -- flourish. I

got out of the before they took two-thirds of Mali. I think there

is a pretty good start. You think there is clear evidence that the

jihadist threat is growing and spreading in Africa? First of all,

you have a ready answer these, but they all joined up, or the AQ I am,

but they all part of the same thing? Mike and so, from experience

of only 31 people, is absolutely. - - my answer. They share the same

objective. There is grave robbery between warlords. There is rivalry

among them. Is it growing and spreading? I think he is. Who would

have thought they could have taken this enormous area of Mali? They

joined the the militants. If the French had not moved... But they

did not succeed in the end. They were chased out by a combination of

Mali forces, the French and other African Union forces like the

Nigerians. The fact is they did not. Just like the G R a d not succeed

in Algeria. You had the President keeping his... You are right. When

they hijacked a plane in 1993 and were going to fly yet he to the

Eiffel Tower, they stop in Marseilles to get more gas and the

French attacked the plan. That did not attack buildings in the West

before 9/11 but they almost did. They are now taking throughout

Mauritania. They have been attacking Niger. Significant higher

number than the IRA. Finally, have you put your dreadful ordeal behind

you? Yes, I think I had. By now it does not sound like it. I have put

it behind me. I made all kind of resolutions. There would change my

life and become a nice guy. But I still find myself sitting in

traffic and begin at the guy in front of me who does not move

through a Green light. Maybe I enjoy life a little more, or what