s we waited for the ferry on the southwest side of the Niger River, our driver, Soumana Moukaila, oversaw a gaggle of nearly naked young boys as they competed for a few coins and the privilege 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 various dishes to attract hungry travellers before they crossed the great river. The whole scene was suffused with that wonderful concoction of smells — woodsmoke, 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.
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 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.
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, 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.
At this point, a pickup truck appeared out of nowhere and was quickly overtaking us. Its speed seemed out of place, as we were doing 120 kilometres per hour. As soon as it passed us, it slewed across our front, forcing Soumana to brake. “What the hell!” I exclaimed, woken out of my reverie with some surprise and annoyance, but by then Soumana was swinging out to pass the truck that had just cut us off. As soon as we moved left, so too did the truck, right off our front bumper, again blocking our progress and still slowing hard, forcing Soumana to brake to avoid plowing into it. As we pulled back into the right lane, so did the truck, which now occupied the centre of the road, clearly positioning itself to block the possibility that we might still try to pass to the right or left.
Both vehicles were in emergency stopping mode. Soumana was standing on the brakes, and it was all he could do to control our SUV. Before we came to a complete stop, I saw two African figures in the bed of the truck in front leap into action. One knelt, raising a Kalashnikov assault rifle, or an AK-47, and aimed from about four metres away through the windshield into our driver’s face. The other, one hand on the tailgate, vaulted onto the road with his AK in the other hand. They were shouting. Soumana was frozen. I hadn’t yet looked at Louis, seated in the back to my left.
Soumana’s door had been wrenched open, and hands were dragging him out by the scruff of his neck toward the truck in front. My first instinct was to protect my dearest possession, an expensive camera with a valuable lens. I was placing it gently at my feet in the right rear seat well when Louis’s door on the left was torn open and he too was being hauled out.
Through the windshield, I saw Louis being frogmarched toward the back of the truck in front as Soumana was boosted, none too gently, over the tailgate. I looked out my window to the right, assessing the possibility of escape. There was a wide cleared strip on my side of the highway — a line of scrubby bushes, down a slight slope, perhaps forty metres distant. Could I get the door open and run for and hide in that scrub? Would they shoot — how well? Would they linger long enough to come after me? Could I abandon Louis and Soumana to whatever fate awaited them? How much use could I be to them, anyway?
But before I had even fully exited my side, still undecided, the taller of the AK-waving young men had me by the upper arm. He shoved me toward the truck, shouting, “Dépêchez-vous!” then pushed and lifted me into the arms of his colleague. Once in the truck bed, I saw that he was standing on Louis and Soumana, who were lying prostrate with horrified looks on their faces. I was thrown on top of them.
