Facebook can make miracle to happen....

Before everything I want to inform my readers that this will be a long post… so to be prepared.
Nowadays many people are on Facebook and use the support different way and different purpose, and somehow, this week , face book is at the origin of what I call a miracle. When I say at the “origin” it is because a start of chain of reaction…
Most of you know that I had an “unusual“ and “interesting” and somehow privileged childhood. It was, like most of the childhood fulfilled with happiness, discovery, experiences and also sometime confusion, misunderstanding, and sadness confronted to some events. It was also fulfilled with friendship, which take for a child a huge part of his inner feelings.
My childhood was privileged… and when I say “my” childhood, I mean also “our” childhood since I include my sister.We grew up in Africa, in Niger, the Capital Niamey, and since my parents were working for the government we were live in the suburb of the Capital called “Le Plateau”… Le plateau was a kind of “green zone”, where was located the Presidential palace, most of (if not all) the embassies, government building, residences of government’s official, United Nation quarters, etc…The country was a democracy with, obviously per definition, a democratically elected President. Working for the government, my parents were naturally friends with many officials, including the President himself, Mr. Hamani DIORI and his wife Aissa, and per consequent we were us the children friends with the President’s children, or at least the one of our ages, and we were also sharing the same classroom. Mr and Mrs DIORI children were Abdoulaye, the oldest, and already an adult for us, Mounkaila who was studying in a Military academy in France, Ramatou, she was also older than us graduated and went to study in Ivory Cost, Moumouni, Moussa and Hadiza… Hadiza was my sister best friend and she was in her classroom, and her brother Moussa was in my classroom.

Remember that you can click on the picture to enlarge them, and on "back" to come back on the blog...

I remember so many official parties at the Presidential palace where adults as well as children were invited, so many also smaller and more intimate parties and invitations where were only one or two family, and I still have older picture of my parents taken during those event, evolving in the highest spheres of the State… It was a time of happiness and surely we enjoyed…specially my Mom

My Mom in the middle Laughing, my Dad behind her stretching his neck, and my older sister on the right

My Mom and Dad


My Mom on the middle, and my Dad behind with some French Officials

My Mom and Dad, with some Foreign officials

I remember also those afternoon when my mother was driving us to The Presidential Palace, or was sending us a chauffeur to do so, so we could play with Hadiza and Moussa. The afternoon children party orchestrated and organized by Mrs Diori, the first Lady, were amazing… so many pastries, cake, juices and soda… It was also for a child, amazing to play and run in such a castle like this one… we had access to almost all the rooms, all the gardens, we were free like children are and never, absolutely never we were reprimanded or told to cut it off by a guard or a secret service… we grew up like this, in all simplicity, naivety, totally detached of negativity and may be of reality…Because sometime, reality is tough to swallow. At no point we could have imagine that it could change, that it could stop… However, this strong and beautiful friendship was abruptly and violently stopped one night of 1974…and I will remember all my life! And when I see Malia and Sasha Obama today, they remind me so much of Hadiza…
It was the night of April 14th to April 15th 1974... Tears are coming to my eyes while I am writing this, since it bring back so many bad memories.
What happened that night? The National Army Forces proceeded a bloody Military coup to overthrow the President Diori… I remember that this particular night, my Dad was preparing himself to go to hunt, had his Land Rover full of guns and ammunitions, and was suppose to go to pick up two or three of his colleagues and friends who were also living in the Plateau area, one of them inside a Military compound. Our house was very close to the Presidential Palace, walking distance, and we were awaken by the noise of the machine guns and explosion… At first, it was stupefaction and confusion… then it was fear! A lot of fear, but certainly far less than our friends must have had… Obviously, my Dad didn’t took is car out of our residence, and stayed home, waiting to know what was going on exactly… phones were down, electricity went down also shortly after the first exchange of fire, and the radio was mute, at least for an hour, then after that it only diffused for hours and hours, the national Anthem…Typical of military coups, the invade first the media and shut them down so communication and information cannot reach the people.
Only around 1pm on the 15th of April, the music stopped and a speaker announced that the President of the Republic of Niger was going to make an announcement.
The President introduced himself…
The President wasn’t anymore Mr Diori, but the Colonel Seyni Kountche, Chief of Staff of the Army Forces, and he clearly just had installed a dictatorship regime… He announced that the “corrupted and liberal” regime of Former President Diori has been overthrown, and that unfortunately, his wife, Former First Lady Aichatou (Aissa) Diori had been killed by legitimate defense during the attempt because she resisted and fought to her death…we were dismayed, distraught, disturbed, sad… I pass on our feeling. No word about the rest of the Family, except that Mr Diori had been thrown in jail… This is the official version we had, and we could barely question it. It was take it or leave it.
The next day, life came back to “normal”, at least on the surface and for most of people, school re-opened, foreign officials working for the government went to introduce their letters of credential to the new President, as it is supposed to be, my Dad kept his job, and basically nothing changed in our life… and further down the road, my Parents were still invited to the Presidential Palace sometime with children, by the new first Family, but no friendship.

My Mom and I

At school, we noticed the difference immediately… Hadiza and Moussa didn’t came back, their bench stayed empty, and the children of the new President weren’t in this school.
On the 25th of April, ten days after the coup, Hadiza, 13 year old, escorted by adults came to the school to say good bye to us, to her friends. The last interview was very short, and almost no words were exchanged.. She just repeated what she was told to say: “My friends, I came here today to say good bye because I am leaving, I do not know where I am going and don‘t know when I will come back”… and then she left ! It was 35 year ago, and we never saw her again…
We had so many question… where is she, why, what really happened that night at the Palace, why her Dad is in jail, why can’t she stay here, why they killed her Mom…she was a nice Lady! but all those questions were really never asked because in situation like this, less you ask question better you are… they all stayed unanswered… or answered by rumors and assumptions. There were rumors! Rumors that they were dead, that the military took them and executed them, rumors that they were in Ivory Cost, Switzerland or somewhere else… only rumors. The years passed and we never forgot, my sister and I… we talked often about them, about Hadiza, and we were always ending with the same questions. And always my sister to say “ I wish I could find her back”… again last week… “I wish I could find her back”
Today my sister and I, we are happy… 35 years later we found Hadiza Diori…
How? This is incredible and amazing and like I said at the beginning of this post, it all started on Facebook.
A couple of month ago, I find a group on Facebook called “Le Cours La Fontaine” which is the school were my sister and I went during all those years in Niger. I posted some old classroom picture, including some of my sister’s classes… Then some people on facebook started to tag themselves in those pictures, and per consequent started to get in touch with my sister. One of them was an old Friend of my sister, who’s Dad was a Lawyer in Niamey, and also a Friend of our parents and President Diori… So a week ago I had an inspiration… I said to my sister, did you asked Bernard Olivier if he ever knew what happened to Hadiza, since he is still in Niger and is a lawyer himself now, maybe he would know, after all this time”
So she asked, and his answer was: you will have her email on Monday, since I am in Paris now, but she is back in Niger !
That was a shock!… that was huge….we were stuned! Just like that after all those lost years! So since we are back in touch with her, and we are starting to have the answers to all of our questions… emails are flying between my sister and her…. We are starting to learn. To learn what happen to her and her family, where she went, who she is know, the horror of that night inside her home, the assassination of her Mom… everything! It is sad, it is tragic, it is rough, but it answers the questions we had since all those year, question which haunted the rest of our childhood and our teenage years, the loss of our friendship.
Now my sister have in mind to go to visit, and she says I have to go too, I am sure I won’t have any difficulties to convince William. Our friends are saying that they’ll give us a house to stay, a car and a chauffeur.. Like in the old time! My god !!!.... with my sister we are getting crazy.. She starting to make some plans for next year for her to go.. That amazed me, because since she left Africa, I didn’t thought she was missing it so much! I did and I still do miss Africa terribly… I think it is my mother talking to her!

To finish, I would like to share two emails that I made a rough English translation of, since they were originally inFrench, which resume and describe what happen during and after the coup. Realized that my family knew perfectly all the people involved in that massacre, including the adoptive son of Mr an Mrs Diori that we learned later the involvement but without details… only rumors. Some part of the email may sound presumptuous or pretentious, but realize that it is not… it is just naturally written by someone who had this type of life and shared part of it with us and with their friends overall.
Per example, Ramatou write about the car offered to her Mom by Kadhafy, or about her Dad’s plane, it is not to impress, it is just fact related. The matter of fact is that they were very generous people, and that my sister and I as well as my older sister, did flew that plane to France a few time, when my parents were not taking vacation but the President was putting his plane at disposition for us to go. Sometime he was there, flying with his family for an official visit to France, sometime he wasn’t aboard and/or the plane was going for Maintenance in France. We even flew commercial one time with him, as the whole first class of the plane was reserved for him and his suite. It is part of what I called at the beginning of my post a “privileged” life…and for a child growing up it is an amazing ones!

Hadiza wrote:

"After the coup of 1974, we were deported in exile...I ended up in Ivory Cost, hidden in an boarding school, in Yamoussoukro, the native village of the President Houphouët Boigny who, you know was a good friend of Dad. After a couple of years he transferred me in Abidjan, still living hidden, and I went to school to finish my studies. Then when I graduated late because I barely missed two years of school, in 1981, I was 20 years old, Houphouet sent me to Canada where I lived with my brother Moussa that you know.
When he went back in Niger, I went to the USA to live with my other brother Moumouni. I stayed there for few year before going back in Niger, keeping low profile…Now I am working for and responsible of an American non governmental organization called AFRICARE….
…Send me some pictures, I have none, we lost everything in the coup, all our belonging, I have nothing left of the past…"

And the other one I want to share, is much more longer, written by her older sister Ramatou, who’s answering most of the questions of what happened that night, and the following days… It is blunt, direct and tough testimony, but it answers what we wanted to know…

Ramatou Wrote:

"April fifteen 1974, April fifteen 2009: will be thirty five years already! The pain is always so strong. I feel the same pain going back over and remembering the atrocious events that marked us forever, my brothers, my sister, and the remainder of our big family, and changed our life.

The time lessens the injuries, but changes nothing to the terrible memories that periodically assails me: like a very serious injury, it is healed on surface but that continues to make me suffer on every occasion: anniversary, evocation of mom in a discussion in family, photos in a family album…photos that we don’t have anymore since we left everything, and couldn’t retrieve any of our personal belonging out of the palace.
Restarting life at zero…

I am anxious to specify that this, is personal, and engages only me. The facts are related such as I lived them in 1974.

So here is what you wanted to know:

In April 1974 if you remember, I was student in fourth year of medicine to the faculty of medicine and of pharmacy of Abidjan. On the eve of the university’s Easter vacations, as he did it often during the weekends, the President Félix Houphouët Boigny invited me to his residence of Cocody for a lunch in family. You remember that the Ivory Coast President devoted me a special affection due to the notably warm relations that he always maintained with my Dad. These relations had begun in political, to the birth of the RDA and had transformed themselves in sincere friendship.

During the lunch, he asked me if I wished to spend the Easter vacation in Niamey. My response to the one that I called respectful "Tonton" was positive. How could have it be otherwise when were offered to me the beautiful perspective to be going to pass some days with my parents?

All the necessary arrangement were made so that I could leave in the afternoon of April 14th 1974. Traveling alone aboard his presidential jet, I arrived in Niamey without any problem. Mom welcomed me personally, signs of her joy to review me, since sometime she was just sending me a chauffeur with a secret service escort. We went back to the palace on board of her personal Mercedes 600 that the President Kadhafi had just offered her.

It goes without saying that the happiness of the reunion was immense. Arrived to the palace, I did a small “hello” to dad that was absorbed into some golf exercises. This trip also was motivated by a death: a close girlfriend, student in France, had lost her brother in Niamey, and Mom had sent her Dad’s presidential plane so she could come from Paris the next day for the mourning ceremonies in family. Mom was therefore satisfied that I would be alongside this girlfriend to support her in this moment. In the name of our friendship, my mom did not stop returning visiting daily my girlfriend’s family after the death of their soon and drove me there the evenings of my arrival.

Arriving at the palace, I said to mom my surprise of not seeing the battery of weapons that usually outfitted the big openings giving on the principal entrance. At the time of their set up, I remember that I had protested in a certain manner their installation at the level of the private apartments. The matter not being naturally in any of my competence, the presidential guards set them up anyway. Then, I took the habit to see them in place without never appreciating them. Without saying anything anymore to anyone. Mom anyway objected to my remark while saying that, in any case, I did not hardly appreciate the colonel Sani Souna Sido (then assistant of the chief of staff) and that there was nothing surprising that I wasn’t approving any of his decisions. I must specify that for mom, as you certainly know, Sani was more than a man of confidence. This was so to speak a son for her, since he was my parents unofficial adoptive son. Think therefore: he held her checkbooks, had proxy to carry out in his name various bank operations, etc. I always considerate him as an opportunist and he always treated me distantly, certainly knowing that I didn’t like him…

I passed a good part of the night to discuss things and of others with mom, until the vicinity of two o’clock in the morning, in a mood of happy reunions. In their room, my brothers and my sister Hadiza were sleeping since a long time. Only our elder brother, already father of family, lived outside the palace.

Around 10pm, the colonel Sani Souna Sido arrived at the palace. he spoke quietly an instant with mom. My big brother Abdoulaye joined us around 11pm and went back home a short time after. Justifying himself as having an important meeting for April 16th, Dad puts himself to bed and asked Mom to continue our discussion in my bedroom. We were still there around two o'clock in the morning. Noting the advanced hour, Mom proposed me to go to bed . I, in fact, had to go to the airport to welcome my girlfriend, in the morning to the arrival of her flight from Paris.

I just had the time to put my pyjama when the first raddelings noise of the automatic weapons arrived to my ears. You remember maybe that my room was overlooking the principal entrance, I peeked through the window. And there, I was stupefied! I saw the armored tanks moving toward the palace. They probably had forced the gate. I knew later on, that the colonel Sani Souna Sido preparing his coup since a long time, had taken the precaution to place his own men to facilitate the gate opening. The events accelerated very quickly. A huge confusion took over. Awakened by these unusual noises, my brothers and some cousins that lived with us precipitate themselves to the parlor that we had left some time earlier; Dad and Mom also. Mom had not had the time to change herself and was still wearing her dress. Dad took the telephone and noticed that the lines were cut. He stretched to go on the balcony to see by himself what was happening. And there, Mom and me, we prevented him to do it, telling him it was henceforth an evidence: the military officers decided to take him down and that a military coup was obviously in action. In the confusion, I noticed that my youngest sister Hadiza wasn‘t there. I decided then to go to look for her in her bedroom, adjacent to the parlor. I wasn’t back yet to the parlor when I heard the deafening noise of a grenade that just exploded inside our private apartment. It obliged me then to return on my steps and to keep under cover, in their bathroom, my small sister and the cousin that shares her room. Two of our cousins, Sani and Koireyga, nicknamed "Screws on", hit by a hail of bullet or by the grenade‘s squall, died immediately. My young brother Moussa was seriously injured to the left of his abdomen. My brother Moumouni and my cousin Maoudé attempt to pick him up. Moumouni screams: "Mom, mom, Moussa is injured!" She comes out with precipitation of her room without any weapons in hand, when she heard the call of Moumouni. This is then, before she was able to rejoin her children, that the sergent Niandou mows her down with a hail of bullets and transpierced her with his bayonet.

Moumouni and Maoudé, only witnesses of the drama, laid Moussa on the bed of the room of our parents. He continued to bleed enormously. Then Moumouni returns towards mom who, laid on the carpet, is loosing her blood and passed away forty-five minutes, later. She remained conscious until the end since she was able to ask my brother Moumouni to give her some new of Sadjo, her mother, of Toumba, her sister, of Abdoulaye and of Hado. Moumouni replied to her that they were all there because she believed us all dead. Then, she asked Moumouni to take a bottle of water in the small refrigerator of their dining room. At last, she asked for him to wash her hands, to rinse her mouth, to pass some water on her face and her arms, and to tell some versets of the Koran. Moumouni understood that she wanted him to give the ablutions. She passed away in the arms of Moumouni.

It is very important to mention that at no moment of this tragic night, mom carried a weapon; in contrast to the rumors broadcast by those that feel obliged by their conscience to justify the injustifiable while prevailing themself of a legitimate so-called defense. It was very well a premeditated and meticulous prepared assassination .

At the irruption of the military officers, dad who was not authorized to change himself, told them: "I am the only political person in charge. Do not do any harm to my family." This is the Lt Cyril Gabriel, intimate friend of my brother Abdoulaye that directed the commando unit who attacked the private apartments. He asked Dad to go downstairs. He knew very well the place himself since he so often visited and stayed with my brother. Sad irony of this, this boy, that had been first refused to the prestigious academy of Military School of Coëtquidan in France, had his final acceptance thanks to the intervention of dad, under the insistence of Abdoulaye.

The sergent Niandou, enforcer of the sinister job, racked doubtless by the remorses, told us later on in front of witnesses, with Abdoulaye, that Sani Souna Sido gave him the order to kill mom and to kill me equally. Always according to his say, the military officers who attacked the private apartment "were drugued by their superior ones." It had to contemplate his work during less than two years, because he was no longer able to survive what he did…he killed himself.

If we come back to the surroundings of 10pm, hour to which Sani Souna Sido came to see mom, he already had given the order to kill her and came to see if his satanic plan was well in place. My arrival from Abidjan by special flight was not foreseen and could have an incidence and could to bother the execution of his plan. How he calmly was able to discuss with mom, knowing that he already had ordered her death? Him only, held the secret of this recipe. Deprived of liberty fifteen months after his coup, he disappeared in enigmatic conditions three years later.

At dawn, the military officers ordered us to go down stairs, arm in hand. While arriving to the level of the door of the dining room of the parents, I notice a body cover with a white sheet. I precipitate myself there and I saw Moussa.

I saw Moussa carried out by two military officers, he was pale, very pale, very weakened. I was horrified, dismayed, but I asked the two military officers where they were taking him; they deigned to reply me while specifying that they were transporting him to the hospital. I wanted to follow them, I received a negative response.

In the small parlor were laying the bodies of our two dead cousins. The military officers ordered us to go down stairs and the nightmare continued. At the stairway bottom was located the body of one of Dad’s body guard, the sergent Badje. More further the body of my uncle, Moussa Kao, the one of an aunt of mom and of others… THIS WAS really a nightmarish vision and we had all the impression of a nightmare and that we were going to awaken, but alas…

We were directed to the Palace’s court yard, then we were escorted by military officers in front of the big Portal of the Palace, there we were aligned as cattle, and the lieutenant Ousseïni gave the order to liquidate us, yes, was his expression: "Liquidate the children". I was occupied to try of calm my sister, the middle daughter that had just learned, as all those that did not know it again, that mom no longer was of this world. And this was the desolation, dismay, the stupefaction. Hadiza the youngest did not stop asking for Mom, Moumouni did not said a word, thus for several days, and until this day he has still after effects of these terrible moments.

Then there was one new order given by Cyril Gabriel: "who told you to kill the children? Drive them to their grandmother." It was a matter of our maternal grandmother that was living with us in the Palace. We arrived to our maternal grandmother that did not knew that her girl was dead, and did learned it only much later. The military officers hitched themselves to pile up the bodies on one another. The military officers asked our grandmother and to her spouse to follow them. They had them climbing on board of a land-rover pick-up.

Certain among us had noticed a body cover by a white sheet that was put at the back of a land-rover. Later we learned that it was mom. The car transporting the grandparents the drove to the military airport of Niamey. My grandmother related us which follows: "There was a strong odor of alcohol and a certain agitation. Under the shed she saw a body cover by a white sheet; one asked them to embark on board of an airplane. The body was equally embarked and put in the central alley." This is during the flight that my grandmother learned that her girl was dead and that this was her body that was laying in the central alley of the airplane when the plane shacked, the sheet budged and she saw the hair then the face, the feet of her daughter…Imagine her pain at this precise moment, Allahou Akbar. She could have die of a heart attack.

Once the airplane arrived at Doutchi, the military officers refused to leave their stretcher and the body of mom was put even to the ground, then was deposited on the floor of a car which came to look for them to bring them to Togone where mom was prepared according to the rites of the Islam by my grandmother for her last journey. My grandmother gave me the clothes that mom was wearing that night. They are always in my possession with their proofs, bullet impacts (five), the impact of the bayonet, the blood…

During a long time, I could not look at them without having the tears to the eyes. My father learned the news of my mother death by the radio, this was a horrible and terrible shock for him, alone in his cell; he lost 40 pounds, for proof the cover of the “Jeune Afrique” magazine with the interview realized by Siradou Diallo.

But still at the Palace this Monday April fifteen 1974. We, the children, were escorted out of the Palace and to Abdoulaye’s house, our elder brother, we were, for the girls, in pajamas and barefoot, it was no question to leave us to take shoes and again even less to allow us to dress up ourselves; we told him the sad reality, he almost collapsed. Moussa was at the hospital of Niamey; the poor one was in a room with burned people; when I saw him I could not contain my pain, my indignation. The French surgeon, made me known that he was going to proceed a laparotomy because Moussa was still complaining about the abdomen. I discussed with him of the uselessness of this intervention. I understand that for the military junta, Moussa was a “bothering” witness, while he was unaware of the death and the circumstances of the assassination of mom. The witnesses were Moumouni and Maoudé. We lived horrible moments, to the limit of the bearable one. In regards to me, I tried to be strong to console Hadiza that did not stop crying and to claim her mother. For Moumouni that was in condition to shock. For Moussa that fought alone on his hospital bed. For Mounkaïla that found himself alone in France where it followed military studies. For Abdoulaye that found itself confronted to a role of head of family, for everyone, the parents, the friends, the family who flowed at his place as early as the announcement of the news. For dad all alone in a cell.

When I felt that I weakened, then I confined myself in the bathroom and I left free course to my tears, then after resuming courage I relied on God our creator and my faith in him enormously helped me. The days that we lived until I can take off again to Abidjan with Moussa, Moumouni and Hadiza, to the assignement of house arrest for Abdoulaye to his job dismissal, the mutation of my uncle Boubacar (customs) to Agadez, to the visits restriction of the parents, friends; humiliations and the vexations are not the object of revenges. I wanted as I specified it at first, to let you know what really happened and to lift up the drapes on the assassination of my dear and regretted mother Hadja Aïssa Diori (May God have her in his holy mercy). If there was not intention to murder, why once after crossing all the barriers and to have arrived to the private apartments: use Grenades, fire at my mother until she sags herself, use the bayonet, to have left her to empty herself of her blood for forty-five minutes?

I do not claim justice but I accuse and my fingers are pointed heading for those that actively ordered, premeditated this coward assassination. We know who ordered the assassination, we know who executed it, we know who claimed the presidency after the coup… but who could be the evil brain, principal author of this crime of the most hateful one and why? 35 years later I still don’t know

Could it be a matter of a man, of a group of men or of a foreign person? I hope that, now, to the Niger as elsewhere, the truth - since this is of that that it is a matter - can burst to the light.

Hado Ramatou DIORI HAMANI."

Mrs. Aissa Diori