A Season in Hell Read online

  A SEASON

  IN HELL

  MY 130 DAYS IN THE SAHARA WITH AL QAEDA

  ROBERT R. FOWLER

  For Mary, whose love, drive, and spirit brought me back

  For my wonderful girls, Linton, Ruth, Antonia, and Justine,

  and their families, who made coming home so important

  For Louis, without whom I would likely not have come through

  For Presidents Touré and Compaoré, their brave negotiators,

  and all those in the Canadian government who worked tirelessly

  and effectively to make it possible

  For all those who can’t go home

  It is an ancient Mariner,

  And he stoppeth one of three.

  “By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,

  Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?

  The Bridegroom’s doors are open’d wide,

  And I am next of kin;

  The guests are met, the feast is set:

  May’st hear the merry din.”

  He holds him with his skinny hand,

  “There was a ship,” quoth he.

  “Hold off! Unhand me, grey-beard loon!”

  Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

  He holds him with his glittering eye—

  The Wedding-Guest stood still,

  And listens like a three years’ child:

  The Mariner hath his will.

  The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:

  He cannot choose but hear;

  And thus spake on that ancient man,

  The bright-eyed Mariner.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Illustrations and Maps

  Preface

  PART ONE: THE DESCENT INTO HELL

  1 The Grab

  2 Central Station

  3 The Board of Directors

  4 TV Camp

  5 Video One

  PART TWO: PRISONERS OF AL QAEDA IN THE SAHARA

  6 Camp Canada

  7 Survival in the Desert

  8 Our AQIM Captors

  9 Us and Them

  PART THREE: THE MIDDLE GAME

  10 Solo, Perduto, Abbandonato in Landa Desolata! Orror!

  11 Blaise Compaoré and His Marvellous Gift

  12 Calling Home

  13 Soumana Disappears—Conversion—and Letters from Home

  PART FOUR: END GAME

  14 Ultimatum

  15 Someone Would Die

  16 Liberation and the Flight to Freedom

  AFTERMATH

  17 Bamako and Ouagadougou, Germany, and Home

  EPILOGUE: Filling in the Blanks

  Appendix A: A Concise History of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

  Appendix B: Managing the AQIM Threat

  Acknowledgements

  Selected Bibliography

  Photo Credits

  Photographic Insert

  About the Author

  praise for A SEASON IN HELL

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Illustrations and Maps

  Our Descent into Hell

  Key Dates and Locations

  15 December 2008: Central Station

  16 December 2008: Board of Directors

  17 December 2008: TV Camp

  19 December 2008 to 14 February 2009: Camp Canada

  10 March 2009: Presumed site of telephone call

  Legend

  our presumed route

  approximate area of confinement

  Countries of the Sahel

  The Sahel (shown in dark grey) is a 7,000-kilometre band of instability that Al Qaeda considers fertile ground for further expansion. It stretches across the widest part of Africa, from Mauritania on the Atlantic to Djibouti on the Indian Ocean. A number of surrounding countries (such as Somalia and Nigeria) have been similarly beset by climate change, desertification, and ethnic or religious confrontation. The dotted areas denote those regions most affected.

  PREFACE

  This is a personal story of a dramatic 130-day period in my life and despite my persistent use of the first person plural, I trust the reader will understand that at no point am I purporting to speak for my friend and fellow hostage, Louis Guay.

  Louis decided not to play a role in producing this account. As I submitted this manuscript, he was still a public servant in the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), and he continued to be governed by the obligations that bound him in that capacity. I must make clear, therefore, that all the reflections and opinions in this memoir, indeed all the recollections, are mine alone. I have sought to limit the extent to which my narrative encroaches on Louis’ privacy and that of his warm and supportive family. I apologize to all the Guays for any transgressions in this regard. They will understand that half of this story is necessarily Louis’ and, therefore, telling it without regular and repeated reference to him, his steadfastness, stalwart support, and fine friendship would simply be impossible.

  This account of extreme camping in the desert in dramatically life-threatening circumstances will describe what it was like and perhaps allow readers to come to their own conclusions regarding the issue that often seems to be on their minds: how would I fare in such circumstances? Most people, I suspect, would do a lot better than they assume.

  This book is not, though, an academic treatise on Al Qaeda or Islamic fundamentalism and their catalytic role in causing what is ever more clearly a clash of civilizations. Nor will it be a primer on how Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) can become better kidnappers. As a result I will refrain from offering detailed comments on what the jihadists did or did not do well, on how they might have done better or, more generally, provide information that could permit them to prosecute their jihad (holy war) more effectively. Some aspects of this narrative may indeed seem to offer such guidance but have been included only where I know that they already possess such understanding. In the same vein, I have sought to avoid writing anything that might cause a future hostage to spend a moment longer in captivity than would otherwise be the case.

  With these caveats, and while it is still reasonably fresh in my mind, I hope the reader will find this an informative account of a very particular though by no means unique experience. Many hostages have endured far longer and tougher trials than our four and a half months as Al Qaeda captives. Indeed, as we lay day after day under the unrelenting Sahara sun I recalled—trepidation quickly becoming naked terror—the long, harsh ordeals of Terry Anderson, Terry Waite, Marc Gonsalves and his colleagues, Ingrid Betancourt, the staff of the American Embassy in Iran, and so very many others. And, of course, I was well aware that many had been killed or died in captivity.

  A couple of months before our capture, Louis and I discussed with Isabelle Roy (then Canada’s Ambassador to Mali) the eight-month long nightmare that Andrea Kloiber and Wolfgang Ebner, two Austrian tourists captured in Tunisia, lived as prisoners of AQIM. They were released just before our abduction by the same jihadi organization in late 2008. As we wondered whether there could be a happy ending to our saga, we were also well aware that other Canadians held hostage in other parts of the world were suffering a similar or worse fate.

  We knew that the BBC’s Alan Johnston had been held for 114 days in Gaza, two years previously, by the Army of Islam, but we did not yet know of the wrenching tale of David Rohde, the New York Times reporter who escaped from the clutches of the Taliban just after our release and made his way to freedom after more than seven months in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas, a story he and his wife tell so compellingly in the
ir book A Rope and a Prayer. Ever-present in my mind, however, was the execution of Daniel Pearl, another brave reporter, held in similar circumstances by Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

  A word on language: the languages spoken by the thirty-one members of the AQIM group that held us were predominantly Arabic and Berber, in what we took to be a variety of dialects, including Tamasheq, the language of the Sahara and of the Tuareg. Neither Louis nor I speak Arabic beyond a few stock phrases and words, and our captors had, for obvious reasons, no interest in having us learn their languages. Thus we spoke with our kidnappers in French. In this account, I have translated almost everything into English, using words and expressions that best convey both the meaning and what I took to be the intent of the speaker.

  With regard to the English spelling of Arabic words, names, and phrases, pragmatism, common usage, and, I hope, consistency have been my guides; thus, Qur’an rather than Quran or Koran; Abou over Abu; Mohammed rather than Muhammad or the many other variations of the spelling of the name of the Prophet. I have used mujahideen, rather than mujahadeen or mujahedin, and Al Qaeda as opposed to al-Qaida or al-Qa’ida. The English spelling is that arbitrary amalgam of British and American we like to believe is Canadian. In this account, I have used the French spelling of place names—Tombouctou, not Timbuktu—in deference to the fact that this story takes place entirely in the former French West Africa. When quoting others, I have used their spelling.

  Time after time as I stewed in the sand, I thought of Samuel Coleridge’s marvellous poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and was surprised by how much I could recall of this epic work. I was also struck by how startlingly those passages seemed to reflect our horrendous situation and speak to my inner turmoil. I took strength from and found succour in those stirring words, written two centuries ago, and in my head I began to sketch this account around them.

  I have never been accused of being taciturn and when the excellent Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) doctors at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre in Germany urged me to share the story rather than keeping it bottled up inside, I had all the encouragement I needed. So, in keeping with my Ancient Mariner–like fixation with telling my tale, this book has already helped to exorcize my remaining Al Qaeda demons.

  The epigraph sets the scene and you, my wedding guests, have generously elected to subject yourselves to the account of this grey-beard loon and thereby helped to leave me free. The stanzas at the opening of each chapter are not always in Coleridge’s sequence but, as I am confident he would understand, have been selected for their relevance to the progression of my tale.

  As will be blindingly obvious, A Season in Hell is not intended to be any kind of scholarly work. The bibliography is simply a list of works I consulted, in some part—often in all too cursory a fashion—and I am indebted to their authors, whether or not I agreed with or was influenced by their analyses, conclusions, or objectives.

  At the moment of our release, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said very clearly that Canada paid no ransom and released no prisoners, and I have no reason to doubt his assertion. It does seem obvious though, at least to me, that Al Qaeda did not release me pour mes beaux yeux bleus. Canada has many wonderful friends in this troubled world, and perhaps some of them were also my friends. They certainly are now. To the extent that such friends may have facilitated our release I cannot be anything but deeply in their debt. Had this not occurred, Louis and I would be dead. It is that simple. The executions by AQIM of Edwin Dyer on 31 May 2009 and Michel Germaneau on 24 July 2010 offer appalling testimony to that reality.

  I agreed to take on the job of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Niger because I am a deep believer in the promise of an effective and engaged United Nations. My ordeal as a captive of Al Qaeda has in no way diminished that belief. Indeed, it has significantly reinforced it.

  In writing this book I received no help or advice from the Canadian government—of which I am no longer an employee—and nothing in it has been vetted or approved by, or in any way represents the views of, that government. Of course I have been debriefed by various organizations, but at no point has anybody told me what really went on from the perspective of any government department or agency or asked me to refrain from discussing any aspect of Louis’ and my ordeal.

  PART ONE

  THE DESCENT INTO HELL

  CHAPTER 1

  THE GRAB

  Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench’d

  With a woful agony,

  Which forced me to begin my tale;

  And then it left me free.

  As we waited for the ferry our driver, Soumana Moukaila, oversaw a gaggle of nearly naked young boys as they competed for the privilege—and a few coins—of washing his carefully tended white Land Cruiser, which proudly sported a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) logo in pale blue on each front door.

  We were surrounded by makeshift stalls that sold small items: tiny bars of soap, a few razor blades, shoelaces, packets of Kleenex, and thin plastic bags of purportedly potable water. With loud voices and good humour, hawkers proclaimed the virtues of a variety of dishes to attract hungry travellers before they crossed the great river. The whole scene was suffused with that wonderful concoction of smells—wood smoke, sweat, rich earth, spices, animals, and just a hint of latrine—so redolent of the essential Africa, a scent that had become embedded in my soul almost half a century earlier when I first set foot on the continent as a nineteen-year-old teacher.

  Much of the business of this short trip to Niger had, after only a day of meetings in Niamey, been accomplished. The rest was largely ceremony and making nice. I was relaxed and musing about joining my wife, Mary, in Florida for Christmas.

  My colleague, Louis Guay, and I were taking advantage of a quiet Sunday to do a little research into how resource revenues might be used to grease the wheels of a possible peace accord to end the two-year-old Tuareg rebellion in Niger that was further crippling this, the third-poorest country in the world. For such was my mission as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Niger: get the government and the rebels to the negotiating table.

  We had not learned a great deal during our visit to the Canadian-owned gold mine near the border with Burkina Faso. Our visit, on a previous trip, to the vast uranium operation around Arlit, 1,250 kilometres to the north, which the French nuclear energy giant Areva had been exploiting for more than forty years, had been far more instructive. Nevertheless, we left the Samira Hill mine site somewhat later than we had intended, at around four o’clock. Following a pleasant forty-minute drive, we joined the large and relaxed pedestrian crowd and handful of vehicles at the ferry terminal on the southwest side of the Niger River.

  The people around us joked and teased, flirted, laughed, and shouted as children darted through the throng, staring with unabashed curiosity at the two old white guys standing out so incongruously among them. It was a friendly crowd, bursting with life.

  The inhabitants of Niger have not been dealt a generous hand by fate, but all around us they were getting by with energy and enthusiasm—a far cry from the dour doggedness with which we tend to claw through life in the West. Indeed, as I chronicled the bustle, I recalled a letter our youngest daughter, Justine, had written a couple of years previously when she spent a summer mapping the prevalence of hunger among young children in southern Rwanda. She had observed that she spent her days surrounded by nearly starving people who had nothing at all, yet they always smiled as they extended to her a pleasant, courteous greeting. How that contrasted, she ruefully noted, with people back home who so studiously avoided eye contact as they brushed past each other in the street wearing cold, preoccupied expressions.

  The massively overloaded and ancient ferry slowly manoeuvred its way across to our side, crabbing against the strong and tricky current. Once it let down its ramp, there was a good-natured jostling of people, vehicles, and animals vying to get off and on simultaneously. As we set off, Louis, an ardent
sailor, chatted with the captain as I continued to indulge my passion for photography in this target-rich environment. We reached the northeast side as the fierce heat of the day was dissipating. The glorious African evening light had allowed me to take some decent people shots on the ferry, and life seemed very much as it ought to be.

  Leaving the ferry, we climbed the steep escarpment, and Soumana turned right toward the capital, Niamey, and floored it. The surface was excellent: one of the few paved roads in the country. Soumana was a fine driver and proud of what his nearly new Land Cruiser could do. The traffic was light and there were few pedestrians and domestic animals along the sides of the road. We passed half a dozen cars and trucks that had been ahead of us on the ferry. A van surmounted by a large, fence-like rack holding a number of understandably forlorn sheep was leading the pack. I had seen the van on the ferry and taken a picture of the hapless sheep. After zipping by them all, we found the road clear ahead.

  Ten minutes later we crested a hill, and a long empty valley stretched into the far distance. The view was lovely and peaceful. I was looking forward to a pleasant dinner in Niamey with Guy Villeneuve, the head of the Canadian Office, a dependency of the embassy located in faraway Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Louis was on his BlackBerry, arranging the details with Guy. I heard him say, “Okay, we are about thirty-five kilometres from town, so let’s meet at 7:30 at the Gallery Restaurant.”

  I interrupted, a little impatiently, “Louis, we’ll never make it. It’s 6:30 now and we’ve at least thirty minutes before we reach the hotel. It will take us more than half an hour to shower, change, and get to the restaurant.” Waving his wrist, he gently suggested I consult my watch, and sure enough I’d misread the time. It was 5:30, not 6:30. In fact it was 5:35, on 14 December, and we had no need to hurry.