On 14 December 2008 he was reported missing and was last seen about 45 kilometres (28mi) northwest of the capital Niamey.[3][4] Fowler was, along with several Westerners, eventually freed on 21 April 2009.[5]
Career
Robert Fowler giving a speech at the University of Fraser Valley
In 1978, he was appointed Executive Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for External Affairs, Allan Gotlieb.[9] Starting in May 1980, he worked as Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet (Foreign and Defence Policy) in the Privy Council Office, a position from which he advised Prime Ministers Trudeau, Turner and Mulroney on foreign policy, defence, and development issues.[9] In 1986, Fowler was appointed Assistant Deputy Minister for Policy in the Department of National Defence, and then as Deputy Minister of National Defence in May 1989.[9]
In January 1995, Fowler was appointed Canada's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, a position he retained until August 2000, making him Canada's longest-serving Ambassador and Permanent Representative.[9] While at the UN, he represented Canada on the Security Council in 1999 and 2000 and issued two ground-breaking reports on sanctions-busting in Angola, which cut off UNITA's access to the arms bazaar and led to the end of the civil war which had ravaged Angola for 25 years.[citation needed]
As ambassador and foreign policy adviser, he encouraged sophisticated sanctions regimes to discipline the global diamond markets. In 2000, he was responsible for producing the "Fowler Report", which led ultimately to the establishment of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme.[12] He was also instrumental in bringing the 25-year-old war in Angola to an end.[citation needed]
In a March 2010 meeting of the Liberal Party, Fowler was a guest speaker who took the opportunity to condemn the Liberals, saying, "I believe the Liberal party has, to a significant extent, lost its way, at least in policy terms, and of course I mean, in particular, my area of foreign policy terms, and is in danger of losing its soul...To this observer, it seems that Liberals today don't stand for much in the way of principles...I have the impression that they will endorse anything and everything which might return them to power and nothing which won't, whatever the merits of either. It's all about getting to power, and it shows...I believe Liberals seem prepared to embrace an infinite array of special interests in order to shill for votes rather than forging a broad-based principled alliance founded in deep Liberal traditions, one with a distinct social contract and an independent Canadian character, which would protect, project and defend core Liberal values at home and abroad..." and on the Conservatives, he said, "In a short period of time we've established unique credentials in Africa", Fowler said. "I fear, however, that we are in the process of squandering a hard-won and important asset.". Fowler did briefly praise the Harper government, "I owe a debt to Mr. Harper and I am all too aware that such criticism is a rather churlish way of repaying it....(however) after four consecutive Conservative budgets, it is clear that the current government has failed to live up to its 2006 electionpromise to move Canadian aid performance toward the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) average donor spending levels."[13] Fowler stated that both major parties have been enticed by the allure of political gains within the Jewish community. He said it is a strategy that leads to an unproductive support for Israel and undermines Canada's reputation as a trusted mediator in the Middle East. "The scramble to lock up the Jewish vote in Canada meant selling out our widely admired and long-established reputation for fairness and justice", Fowler said.[14]
During an acceptance speech for an honorary doctorate, on 31 October 2010, from the University of Ottawa, Fowler called out young Canadians for being apathetic and stating that they lose their "bitching rights" and "Your age group's involvement in the political process, at all levels of government, stretches any reasonable definition of apathy.".[15]
Disappearance
On 21 July 2008, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, appointed Fowler to be his Special Envoy to Niger, with the rank of Under-Secretary-General in the Secretariat of the UN.
While acquitting his UN mission, Fowler and his colleague Louis Guay were captured by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) on 14 December 2008, and held hostage in the Sahara Desert for 130 days.
Fowler was reported missing along with Guay, deputy director of the Sudan task force in Ottawa, and their Niger-based driver, Soumana Moukaila, after their car was found on the evening of 14 December 2008 about 45 kilometres (28mi) northwest of Niamey,[2][16] after visiting the Canadian-owned Samira Hill Gold Mine.[17] On 16 December, the Front des Forces de Redressement (FFR) claimed on its website that its members kidnapped Fowler and three others, saying that they targeted diplomats who support the Niger government led by President Mamadou Tandja. However, Seydou Maiga Kaocen, speaking for the organization, stated that the "FFR formally denies any involvement in the abduction of Mr. Robert Fowler, UN envoy to Niger. ... We hope that Mr Fowler and his delegation will be released as soon as possible", he followed.[18]
In 2003, 32 Europeans had been taken hostage in the Sahara in a series of abductions run by El Para, an agent of the Algerian intelligence service, the DRS. In February 2008 two Austrians were captured in Tunisia and taken via Algeria to Mali and freed later that year. All these kidnappings were attributed to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).[20][21]
Release
Moukaila was released in March 2009. Fowler, Guay, and two of the four European tourists kidnapped a month later were released on 21 April 2009, following extensive negotiations. German tourist Marianne Petzold and Swiss Gabriella Greitner were released but Greitner's husband and a Briton were held back. Fowler and Guay arrived in Mali's capital Bamako 22 April to meet Mali's President Amadou Toumani Toure before returning to Canada. Mali, Canada, Germany and Switzerland gave no details on the conditions of the negotiated release. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated that no ransom had been paid, and thanked the governments of Mali and Burkina Faso for negotiating the release.[5][22] One of the two remaining hostages, British tourist Edwin Dyer, was killed by his captors in June 2009. The other tourist, Werner Greiner, was released a month later.[23][24][25]
The governments of Niger and Mali, both involved in a two-year-long insurgency in the desert north, as well as Tuareg rebel groups, came under unusual international pressure over the taking of these seven hostages under mysterious circumstances, even prior to the acknowledged involvement of the AQIM.[26] The original two abduction incidents (two Canadian diplomats, their driver, and four European tourists seized weeks later) were blamed by Niger on rebels, and by the MNJ on the Niger government. Western news sources quoted a variety of observers who believed the hostages were taken by Tuareg smugglers, perhaps associated with rebel groups, who then sold them to the AQIM.[27] In May 2009 Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure agreed, after talks between Mali's defense minister and Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, to a military cooperative agreement to secure the Saharan borders where Tuareg rebels, AQIM militants, as well as smugglers and criminal gangs, operated. Discussions with the governments of Niger and Mauritania were proposed. Under the agreement, states would receive arms from Algeria and engage in joint operations against AQIM and other threats.[28]
Who could it be?
The day after his arrival in Niamey in December 2008, Fowler met with Interior Minister Albadé Abouba.[29] In September 2009 Fowler stated that somebody who knew his itinerary "shopped" him to the militants:[30]
Who could it be? It could be the government of Niger. Could have been an al-Qaeda sympathiser in the UN office in Niger. In the UN office in West Africa. In the secretariat building in New York.
It was clear from the first time I met him in August that he [Mr Tandja] was offended, annoyed and embarrassed by the fact that the secretary general of the UN [Ban Ki-moon] had seen fit to appoint a special envoy for his country.
In 2011, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for his contributions as a public servant, diplomat and representative of Canada". He holds Honorary doctorates from the University of Ottawa and the Queen's University in Kingston.[31]
Publication
In November 2011, Fowler published his biographical account of his kidnapping ordeal in A Season in Hell: My 130 Days in the Sahara with al Qaeda,[32] which was long-listed for Canada's most prestigious literary award, the Charles Taylor prize for non-fiction. It was also recognized as one of four 2013 Award Finalists of British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.[33]
See also
Albadé Abouba (Minister of the Interior of Niger since March 2007)
The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by the French acronym GSPC, was an Algerian islamist terrorist faction in the Algerian Civil War founded in 1998 by Hassan Hattab, a former regional commander of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). After Hattab was ousted from the organization in 2003, the group officially pledged support for al-Qaeda, and in January 2007, the group officially changed its name to the "Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb" (AQIM).
The 2007-2009 Tuareg rebellion was an insurgency that began in February 2007 amongst elements of the Tuareg people living in the Sahara desert regions of northern Mali and Niger. It is one of a series of insurgencies by formerly nomadic Tuareg populations, which had last appeared in the mid-1990s, and date back at least to 1916. Populations dispersed to Algeria and Libya, as well as to the south of Niger and Mali in the 1990s returned only in the late 1990s. Former fighters were to be integrated into national militaries, but the process has been slow and caused increased resentment. Malian Tuaregs had conducted some raids in 2005–2006, which ended in a renewed peace agreement. Fighting in both nations was carried on largely in parallel, but not in concert. While fighting was mostly confined to guerrilla attacks and army counterattacks, large portions of the desert north of each nation were no-go zones for the military and civilians fled to regional capitals like Kidal, Mali and Agadez, Niger. Fighting was largely contained within Mali's Kidal Region and Niger's Agadez Region. Algeria helped negotiate an August 2008 Malian peace deal, which was broken by a rebel faction in December, crushed by the Malian military and wholescale defections of rebels to the government. Niger saw heavy fighting and disruption of uranium production in the mountainous north, before a Libyan backed peace deal, aided by a factional split among the rebels, brought a negotiated ceasefire and amnesty in May 2009.
An Islamist insurgency is taking place in the Maghreb region of North Africa, followed on from the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002. The Algerian militant group Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) allied itself with al-Qaeda to eventually become al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The Algerian and other Maghreb governments fighting the militants have worked with the United States and the United Kingdom since 2007, when Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara began.
Ménaka Cercle is an administrative subdivision of Ménaka Region, Mali. Its administrative center is the town of Ménaka. Ménaka Cercle's population as of 2009 was 56,104 people. Ménaka is located in the middle of the Sahara Desert, along Wadi Ezgeuret and an ancient dry river valley of the Iullemmeden Basin. Its highest point, Mount Abourak, is located around 150 km to the north of the town of Ménaka. Most of the small population are nomadic Tuareg tribal populations; minorities include the Wodaabe Fula and sedentary Songhai people. The area is a traditional center of the Kel Dinnik Tuareg confederation, along with the town of Andéramboukane near the Nigerien border.
Ménaka is a town and urban commune in Ménaka Cercle and Ménaka Region in eastern Mali. It is the seat and the largest town in the cercle and region. The town is set amidst the rocky outcrops of the Ader Douchi hills, and is served by Ménaka Airport.
The 2003 Sahara hostage crisis concerns the events surrounding the abduction of 32 European tourists in seven separate groups in the Algerian Desert in 2003. They were released in two groups: one in Algeria and the other from neighbouring Mali, several months later.
Al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is an Islamist militant organization that aims to overthrow the Algerian government and institute an Islamic state. To that end, it is currently engaged in an insurgency campaign in the Maghreb and Sahel regions.
The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa or the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, was a militant Islamist organisation that broke off from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb with the intended goal of spreading jihad across a larger section of West Africa, as well as demanding the expulsion of all French interests that operate in West Africa, which they regard as "colonialist occupiers".
Omar Ould Hamaha was an Islamist militia commander from Northern Mali. During the 2012 Northern Mali conflict he became known alternatively as the spokesman and chief of staff for both Ansar Dine and Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA), militant groups associated with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, also known as Khalid Abu al-Abbas, The One-Eyed, Nelson, and The Uncatchable, was an Algerian leader of the group Al-Murabitoun, former military commander of Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, smuggler and weapons dealer. He was twice convicted and sentenced to death in absentia under separate charges in Algerian courts: in 2007 for terrorism and in 2008 for murder. In 2004, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Algeria for terrorist activities.
Abdelhamid Abou Zeid was an Algerian national and Islamist jihadi militant and smuggler who, in about 2010, became one of the top three military commanders of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a Mali-based militant organization. He competed as the chief rival of Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian national who had become the major commander in AQIM and later head of his own group. Both gained wealth and power by kidnapping and ransoming European nationals. After taking control of Timbuktu in 2012, Abou Zeid established sharia law and destroyed Sufi shrines.
Al-Mourabitoun was an African militant jihadist organization formed by a merger between Ahmed Ould Amer, a.k.a. Ahmed al-Tilemsi's Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa and Mokhtar Belmokhtar's Al-Mulathameen. On 4 December 2015, it joined Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The group sought to implement Sharia law in Mali, Algeria, southwestern Libya, and Niger.
Timbuktu three refers to three abductees, South African Stephen Malcolm McGown, Swede Johan Gustafsson and Dutchman Sjaak Rijke, who were all kidnapped on 25 November 2011. A fourth German victim was shot and killed when he refused to climb into the kidnappers' truck.
On 20 November 2015, Islamist militants took 170 hostages and killed 20 of them in a mass shooting at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. The siege was ended when Malian special forces, backed by U.S. and French personnel, launched an assault on the hotel to recover the surviving hostages. Al-Mourabitoun claimed that it carried out the attack "in cooperation with" al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb; an al Qaeda member confirmed that the two groups cooperated in the attack.
An Islamist insurgency has been ongoing in the Sahel region of West Africa since the 2011 Arab Spring. In particular, the intensive conflict in the three countries of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso has been referred to as the Sahel War.
Hamada Ould Mohamed Kheirou nom de guerre Abu Qum-Qum was a Mauritanian jihadist and the founder of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO/MOJWA).
Abdou Aïssa, nom de guerre Sultan Ould Bady, is a Malian jihadist and drug trafficker. He co-founded the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) with Hamada Ould Mohamed Kheirou and Ahmed al-Tilemsi, and founded Katibat Salahadin, a katiba within MOJWA that later reformed in the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara after Bady defected.
Baba Ould Cheikh is a Lemhar Arab Malian drug trafficker with close ties to jihadist groups.
Between December 31, 2009, and January 1, 2010, clashes broke out between Nigerien forces and unknown gunmen in Tlemsess, Tahoua Region, Niger.
On January 8, 2011, French and Nigerien commandos attempted to retrieve two French nationals taken hostage by AQIM militants in Niamey in Niger, and who were subsequently brought into the desert near Tabankort in Mali. Both hostages were killed during the botched rescue operation, along with three Nigerien soldiers and four kidnappers. The rescue operation's failure sparked controversy in France as it was reported that one of the hostages was killed by French gunfire.
↑ General, Office of the Secretary to the Governor (20 September 2017). "Represent. Serve. Honour. Showcase". The Governor General of Canada. Retrieved 5 December 2023.
↑ Robert R. Fowler (8 November 2011). A Season in Hell: My 130 Days in the Sahara with al Quaeda. HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. ISBN978-1443402040.
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