Conflict Claims Over Missing U.N. Envoy To Niger

Confusion surrounded the fate of a missing Canadian U.N. special envoy in Niger on Tuesday after a dissident Tuareg rebel faction in the West African state first said it was holding him and then denied it.

The contradictory statements about U.N. envoy Robert Fowler were posted on the website of the Front of Forces for Rectification (FFR), a faction which split from the main Niger Tuareg-led rebel group MNJ (Niger Justice Movement) in May.

U.N. officials said on Monday the vehicle in which Fowler, his Canadian aide Louis Guay and a local driver were travelling was found abandoned on Sunday evening 30 miles (45 km) northeast of the capital Niamey.

The engine of the U.N. vehicle was still running, they said.

A first posting on Tuesday on the FFR website http://redressement.unblog.fr/, signed by FFR's Commissioner for War, Rhissa Ag Boula, said the group's fighters were holding four people, including Fowler.

"On December 15, 2008, fighters of the Front des Forces de Redressement (FFR) carried out a commando operation in the Tillabery region in which we detained four people including a Canadian diplomat, Mr. Robert Fowler," the posting said.

A subsequent posting hours later by FFR President Mohamed Ag Aoutchiki Kriska denied the group was holding Fowler but acknowledged he could have been abducted.

"Even if identical movements active in the Tillabery region which adhere to the FFR's ideals may have taken the Canadian diplomat, the FFR cannot take responsibility for this act," Kriska said in his statement.

Ag Boula, a well-known Tuareg insurgent leader who participated in a previous rebellion by the desert nomads in the 1990s, was a driving force behind the FFR's split from the MNJ.

Since last year, the MNJ has waged an armed rebellion mostly in Niger's uranium producing north.

A senior government military officer in Niamey described Ag Boula as "an armed bandit" and said his involvement in Fowler's abduction could not be ruled out.

Ag Boula's earlier statement said the abduction was a warning to "all diplomats who collaborate with the ethnic-killing regime of (Niger President) Mamadou Tandja".

It had added Fowler was well and would be taken to a "safe place and handed to other collaborators who would take him in charge". It had set no terms for his release.

The MNJ said in a statement on its own website http://m-n-j.blogspot.com/ it was shocked by the kidnapping and was ready to help the international community find Fowler.

"PRIVATE VISIT"

Since early last year, the MNJ has attacked the Niger army, killing dozens of soldiers, and has also briefly abducted French and Chinese uranium company workers. It says it is fighting for greater autonomy for the northern Agadez region and a greater share of its wealth for local people.

The first FFR website posting promised further actions. "The Niger army cannot ensure security in this zone, any more than it can do in the northern zone," it said.

U.N. officials had said Fowler was based in Canada but was visiting Niger for meetings with officials there.

But Niger's Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Fowler had arrived in the country last week on a private visit and had left Niamey on Sunday morning without informing the Niger authorities.

It said Fowler had visited Samira, a gold-mining locality in the area, before he went missing.

Armed banditry is common in Africa's Sahel region south of the Sahara, an area which is awash with illegal guns after years of sporadic conflicts and is used as a transit point for trans-Saharan smuggling of drugs, arms and migrants.