Olivier Dubois: “I continued to do my job as an inside journalist”

RFI: Olivier Dubois, you have just found your parents, your sisters, your partner… What did you tell them? What do you feel?

Olivier Dubois: Huge happiness! Me, I was guided when I got out of the plane. I had already seen them in the VIP lounge, on landing. I knew they were there. And then there you go, we go out and we are like magnetized, we are like attracted. I meet my mother, I see my father, I greet the president and I continue my way to them and I can finally hug my son, my daughter, my partner, see them again. I’ve been listening to their messages on RFI for 2 years. And then there you go, it’s the end, it’s effective: they’re there, you can touch them, it’s both physical. That’s all.

We think in particular of your two children, of your son who learned to read and who lost a tooth during your absence.

[Rires] Exactly ! Thanks to RFI, I have updates on that, yes. It was strong to see him again.

You look amazingly fit. A few words about your conditions of detention.

So the conditions of detention are prison conditions. You are chained, you are a prisoner, you are considered a disbeliever, an infidel. I was not mistreated, I must say. I was not hit or humiliated. But you are a prisoner, a prisoner in Azawad. Finally, in the Kidal region. Azawad as they say. It’s living outside all the time, whether there’s a sandstorm, in the sun, in the cold or in the rain. It’s getting around on a motorbike and pick-up, it’s eating on the ground, it’s washing and defecating outside. It’s living outside all the time. It’s a discomfort that, after a while, becomes habitual, but it’s a definite discomfort.

During your captivity, that you often changed your place ? Did you meet other hostages ?

During captivity, we often change places for security reasons: we can do two weeks, we can do three weeks… The longest I did was six months in one place.

And then, yes, I ran into a hostage. I shared the captivity of another hostage. It is a South African hostage called Gerco Jacobus van Deventer who was kidnapped in Libya in November 2017 and then sold to the Jnim afterwards. And the two of us went through a little over a year and a half together. We parted, it’s simple, on March 14th. They asked him to take a blanket, a bottle; he got on a motorcycle and I never saw him again. And today I am here. Me, it was two days later, the 16th.

And you know what happened to him, his current situation?

I think he must still be in the Kidal region. I can imagine the conditions he is in because we lived them together. And I want to add that it is time for it to stop. He is in his sixth year. He doesn’t deserve this, he has to come home. He must come home.

How did you manage to hold on, to keep hope alive? ? Did you have stuff, activities, if I may say so ?

Yes, very quickly. In fact, a realization came, I believe at the end of the second or third day. Because it was my second or third day of lying under a mat, with mujahideen who sleep, who drink tea. But you, you do nothing. I said to myself : “ If it lasts a long time like this Olivier and you stay like this, it will impact your mind, it will impact your physique, but it will also above all impact your mind. “. And so, I started to think to myself: You have to make programs for yourself, you have to occupy your days, you have to have victories, satisfactions, things that keep you afloat. »

So, from there, I developed a program that I applied, let’s say, from the beginning to the end of my captivity and which helped me, which helped me enormously.

A program based on physical activities?

So physical activity, but also reading, I asked to read the Koran. I asked voluntarily to know what was inside, to understand them, to understand. This book is important to them. If you understand it, you already understand them a little better. And then to also be able to discuss with them, to exchange. And on that, they were open. I must say that we were able to debate. There has never been a problem with that. We didn’t agree. There could be differences, but not in the violence, not in the aggressiveness. They have their point of view, we have ours. They have their way of seeing which is clear and which comes into antagonism with ours. But we could talk about it.

There was also the kitchen. I could no longer bear to eat what was served to me. So, we asked, with Gerco, at that time to have a pressure cooker and to make our own food, to go cut wood, to build your own shelter, to keep busy, to give ourselves challenges, to reach these challenges to have a kind of satisfaction and try to eat things that make you happy, to be happy, to play sports, to strengthen yourself mentally and physically.

You are a journalist, you have moreover paid the price for your professional commitment. During your detention, did you tell yourself that when you got out, you were going to tell all that ? And do you tell yourself now ?

I told myself that several times inside. I have as much as doing this little continued to do my job as an inside journalist. So it was not easy because there was the language barrier. I was guarded by “mujahideen” who speak Tamasheq for the most part or Arabic. I don’t speak Tamasheq and Arabic. When you want to communicate, and the rare times when they were in agreement and where we could exchange, there were a lot of things. I also spoke a little with the “mujahideen” [francophones, NDLR]. I watched. I would spark debates and then I would try to put it down in writing. So I was inside.

After a while, I said to myself: But stop ! Okay, you got caught for an interview that you might have done, but you’re inside. So open your eyes, listen, discuss, speak, explain to them that you want to understand too “. And I think that was rightly understood. After a while, they understood. They understood that I wanted to understand. So not everything was open of course, few things were open. But little by little, things relaxed a little, exchanges were able to come, explanations. But it’s omerta, the “mujahideen”, especially when you’re a prisoner. You are confused all the time. But I was able to collect information.

And, suddenly, you are going to write?

Ah well yes! [Rires] I do not know when. Not immediately. I have to rough it all out too, but I think, yes.

Before your abduction, you were living in Mali with your family, do you want to go back there ?

So, I don’t know there. Right now, I don’t know at all. I’ve just arrived, I’m coming out of a world that was already Mali, I find myself in France, it’s totally different, I haven’t seen my family for a long time. Reconnecting with them is already the first goal. And then, after, we will talk about all that. It’s complicated, so we have to talk about all that. We have to plan for the future. There are plenty of things to do. So I don’t have a clear answer to give you on that, at least today.

You have already had time to say that you could listen to RFI, that you could hear your family’s messages, even after our antenna was cut off by the transitional authorities. Thank you for your faithful listening…

[Rires] Thank you for your programs, I had my shows!

Can you tell us how you listened to us and what it brought you ?

I was listening to RFI in short wave [ondes courtes, NDLR]. You could get RFI from 4am to, if I’m not mistaken, 10am. It cut off at 10 a.m. Then it’s from noon to 1 p.m. and finally from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.h. Dso it wasbetween the beaches where I listened to RFI. What it gave me was information. Already, I listened to the newspaper Africa, the international newspaper every day. There are programs that I like, that I can quote: Geopolitics of Marie-France ChatinOrient Hebdo by Éric Bataillon, LaurenThis Aloir and its superb starM missionusics of the world, Claudethere siar And VStropical colors. He there are shows that I regretted of not lousesee listen because it would have interested me. Clemency Denavit and its gastronomic showthe science program of carolina Lachowsky. I know your programsI listened to a lot! I had my appointments.

You asked me how I spent my days. Listening to the radio by RFI was important. SO, it was mostly RFI but there also had VOAT Africa, BBC Africa And A little ROI.

… And you listened to the messages of your loved ones.

The 8 [de chaque mois, la journée où RFI donnait la parole à ses proches sur l’antenne, NDLR] was of enormous importance. I made sure I was ready at 4am, I was staring at the radio all the time whether it was broken or not – I’ve had radios in bad shape. I missed in two years very few 8. I got the radio in October 2021. From October 2021 I missed a month or two. I was always able to listen on the 8th of the month for these messages which were essential for me.

► To read also: Release of Olivier Dubois: the journalist back on French soil