Biyokulule Online

France Allegedly Paid Ransom for Release of Military Adviser in Somalia
LeMonde.fr
Friday, August 28, 2009

An African Union (AU) peacekeeper from Uganda and a Somali government soldier guard the presidential palace in the capital Mogadishu, August 26, 2009.

Report by Jean-Philippe Remy: “Surprise Release of Frenchman Kidnapped in Somalia”

In Somalia, where piety, politics and the pursuit of personal interests, especially financial, are regarded with equal seriousness, the surprise release, Wednesday 26 August, of one of the French citizens abducted on 14 July with one of his colleagues from a hotel in Mogadishu raises many questions.

Although held by Hizbul Islam, one of the Islamist groups waging a war of insurrection against the fragile local authorities, the man reappeared Wednesday morning at Villa Somalia. This complex, built on a hill above the port, is home to the transitional authorities supported at arms length by the international community. Villa Somalia is dependent on the protection of Ugandan and Burundian troops serving with AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia). The complex lies opposite neighborhoods where the various Somali insurgent groups operate freely. These launch attacks just a few hundred meters from these buildings that are the headquarters of a presidency in a continuous state of siege, peppering them with shots.

One version of this surprise release, distributed by press agencies at the beginning of the morning, was that the hostage made a forced escape, killing three of his jailers before fleeing and arriving by his own means at the Villa Somalia under cover of darkness. The use of force was denied by the spokesman from the French Foreign Ministry.

In Mogadishu no credence was lent to this theory. From the morning already various sources were favoring a Somali-style release, one resulting from lengthy negotiations conducted by various categories of intermediaries and combined with the payment of a ransom. These negotiations require the utmost discretion but are the only way of gaining release when hostages are concealed in the capital. Paris also denies having paid a ransom.

During the day, the freed French hostage, presenting himself as Marc Aubriere, gave his own account of the events on Radio France Internationale and then to other journalists in Mogadishu. He says he escaped by “profiting from the sleep” of his jailers who,”tired due to the Ramadan,” had forgotten to close his cell. He slipped out of his place of detention without being noticed and crossed a part of Mogadishu being “guided by the stars” and arriving at the Somali presidency after walking for five hours.

A number of sources state that the French hostage had been held, and thus freed from, some where between the Gupta and Huruwa neighborhoods. To arrive at the presidential building this would therefore mean crossing neighborhoods emptied of their inhabitants and where the only people you meet, especially at night, are militias of the various Islamist factions. It is particularly difficult to move around without being noticed in Mogadishu, even if concealed in a vehicle. And even if protected. Even in the daytime. Even while not straying far from the government pocket.

One source close to a commander involved in abducting the two agents, a member of the Shabab (Islamist insurgents), told Le Monde a few days ago that “negotiations” were in progress to secure the release of the two men who came to Somalia on a contract to train a team of bodyguards for the Somali president and strongly suspected of being members of the French Secret Service.

The two men were taken from their room at the Sahafi Hotel, their kidnappers being identified as members of the escort squad for the interior minister, a man close to the president of the present transitional federal government, Sheik Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. A few hours later this first team of kidnappers then handed the men over to the Islamist group Hizbul Islam. Marc Aubriere remained with this group. Somali sources say that he was “the most guarded” of the two hostages. His colleague, following tension between Islamist groups, is believed to have been handed over to a leader of the Al-Shabab (Youth) group that had promised to hold a trial to judge the two men and threatened to execute them within three days.

A complex parallel operation could have been attempted to also obtain the release of the second French agent. Wednesday suspicions between the different Shabab groups was such that road blocks had to be stepped up in the zones under their control, which is a large part of the city, where searches of the few vehicles on the roads were organized to search for a Westerner, without it being possible to know if he had really left his place of detention.

(Description of Source: Paris LeMonde.fr in French -- Website of Le Monde, leading center-left daily; URL: http://www.lemonde.fr)