FRENCH PRESIDENT FREES CHILD TRAFFICKERS ARRESTED IN CHAD
French NGO Charity Used ÒSave DarfurÓ Infrastructure to
Kidnap Children
keith harmon snow
November 14, 2007
The French ÒhumanitarianÓ charity NGO ZoeÕs Ark (LÕArche de
ZoŽ) involved in Chad and Darfur is reported to be under investigation by the
United Nations, France and Chad for trafficking in black children in the widely
under-reported ÒL'Arche de ZoŽ affair.Ó However, the French President
intervened to secure the freedom and evacuate some of the French nationals from
Chad without even a trial.
Chad has erupted in protests involving mostly students in
school uniforms that have been met with tear-gas and anti-riot troops.
Having discovered and criticized the affair, the Chadian
President Idriss DŽby is under attack for alleging ÒpedophiliaÓ and Òorgan
traffickingÓ and for arresting seventeen Europeans intercepted at an airport in
Chad attempting to depart to France with 103 ÒDarfur orphansÓ aged six to ten.
Some of the children were bandaged to suggest injuries that did not exist.
Organ trafficking is the trade in kidneys and other
organs—a rampant global trade—that is driven by elite high-paying
customers in industrialized nations who can afford to pay tens of thousands of
dollars for a life-saving organ. Children and sometimes adults in poor
countries are often trafficked for organ "donations", though most are
unwilling donors who do not survive the "donation."
The ZoeÕs Ark project began fundraising April 28, 2007 to
Òevacuate 10,000 orphans facing certain deathÓ to France and the United States.
Some 300 EuropeanÕs paid 2000 Euros ($3450) each as ÒdonationsÓ toward
logistics costs to receive an orphan. French news reports have said the group
raised and spent 550,000 Euros ($US 802,000) on the operation.
After the airplane was intercepted before its departure to
France the UN High Commission for Refugees determined the children Òwere living
with their families in communitiesÓ—they were neither from Darfur nor
were they orphans—and their health was not a serious concern.
The Zoe's Ark NGO was reportedly provided logistical support
by the French military, and they had made numerous trips to villages on the
Darfur border offering enticements and taking children. Their access to
war-torn regions of the Chad/Darfur border was secured through participation in
the international relief consortium and its security apparatus.
Outraged Chadians on the border with Sudan had already been
questioning the motives of scores of foreign aid groups that work with Darfur
refugees. The few Western press articles that have covered this story have been
very brief, and several complained that a ÒmobÓ of Chadian mothers were
protesting, the unstated suggestion being that they were unruly misfits whose
outrage and concern about affluent whites with security details child
trafficking their children were unfounded.
International NGOs like Human Rights Watch were quick to
jump all over President Idriss Deby, complaining that Chad routinely uses child
soldiers in it's military ranks. The international press overwhelmed the issue
of white Europeans trafficking in black children by flooding the market with
stories about the hypocrisy of President Idriss Deby.
ÒThese people treat us like animals,Ó President Deby said of
the members of the association L'Arche de ZoŽ (ZoŽ's Ark). President DebyÕs
lapse in etiquette in speaking the unspeakable truth caused the attention to be
shifted to Chad and the failures of its president.
The United Nations IRIN Relief Network news service echoed
the widely published criticisms of President Deby. ÒThe statements by President
DŽby and other Chadian officials about L'Arche de ZoŽ's treatment of children
are hypocritical,Ó IRIN reported, Òaccording to many aid workers including Chad
researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), David Buchbinder.Ó
IRIN quoted the Human Rights Watch expert to say: ÒIt's hard
to take them seriously when they talk about children's welfare, when they're
definitely not protecting children the way they should.Ó
The suggestion of hypocrisy would almost never surface in
relation to the nonsensical comments and outright lies that have been uttered
on National television by international white leaders like George Bush, Tony
Blair or Hillary Clinton. The Human Rights Watch ÒexpertÓ exercised the badge
of privilege secured by his power status as a white human rights expert in
Africa and this microcosmic action mirrors the inequitable power dynamic that
Human Rights Watch lords over ÒThird WorldÓ economies crippled by U.S./European
military, economic, political and ideological might.
International complaints about Òchild soldiersÓ are
universally leveled against so-called ÒThird WorldÓ countries by affluent
ÒFirst WorldÓ governments, human rights organizations and think tanks. Meanwhile,
first world citizens—including the human rights agencies who
complain—benefit in countless ways from the projection of U.S. military
power into the places where child soldiers are found in the ranks of military
forces. U.S. and European military forces have the
luxury of using consenting ÒadultsÓ aged eighteen and
over, and these forces are well fed, provided college educations and the
Òadventure of a lifetimeÓ in exchange for terms of duty. However, often child
soldiers join the ranks of militaries in strife-torn areas because it is the
least dangerous place to be and it offers children both a sense of agency and a
sense of real power. Meanwhile, U.S. covert forces and Western proxy armies
align against less powerful ÒrebelÓ forces or national armies, many of which
are involved in self-defense for themselves and their families, and child
soldiers often enlist to protect their own land or country.
The United Nations and other relief organizations initially
denied all knowledge of the ZoeÕs Ark NGO but the NGO was registered as an
international charity with the U.N. Mission in Sudan.
In perfect synchronicity with the ÒSave DarfurÓ chorus, the
ZoeÕs Ark website today (www.archedezoe.fr/accueil.htm) lists 800,000 children
Òin mortal danger today who must be saved now!Ó
Responding to the intense international pressure, French
President Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Chad and personally secured the release of
seven of the seventeen who were arrested. They all flew back to France together
on November 11, 2007.
President Idriss Deny has been deeply criticized for
arresting the seventeen so-called ÒhumanitarianÓ AID workers, which included
three French journalists traveling with the Zoe's Ark members and a
seven-member flight crew all charged with complicity in the alleged crime. Two
of the journalists were supposedly covering the operation and a third was
apparently present for personal reasons, according to the (sometimes impartial)
media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders. A Belgian pilot is also under detention,
but reportedly hasn't been charged with any crime.
The US-based corporate news outlet MSNBC slanted their
feature by reporting that "far more is at stake than the fates of the
accused French nationals" and turning the focus back on the now discredited
but still hysterical ÒSave DarfurÓ campaign.
In fact, what is at stake is the inequitable relationship
between countries in Europe and North America and Africa. This case represents
a clear example of how the victims are treated, how they are punished for being
victims, and how the real perpetrators of crimes in Africa get away with
everything, including murder involving covert operations, private military
companies, and child trafficking under the banners of Òinternational AID and
charity.Ó What is at stake in this story coming to light is profits that serve
powerful western interests and suck Africa dry, always validating the claims by
Western ÒcivilizationÓ that Africans need our help, that they canÕt do it by
themselves.
Chadian mothers note that a if a team of black Chadian NGOs
from some African charity who were sent to help people in the United States
were caught red-handed as these Europeans were, there would be a massive
international inquest, long-drawn out trials in the United States, projected
onto the world stage, with incredible O.J. Simpson trial media fanfare. The
black, African perpetrators would go to prison for the rest of their
lives—guilty or innocent—and the entire country of Chad and all its
people would be targeted as a haven of ÒanarchyÓ and Òterrorism.Ó
There appears to be some serious questions of the actual intentions of the mysterious French NGO and of their links to French President Sarkozy, suggesting that Chadian President Deby's remarks about pedophilia and organ trafficking were not merely offhand comments to whip up some press coverage.
Investigative journalist and Africa intelligence specialist Wayne Madsen reports that French President Sarkozy appears to be worried about having French nationals testify on a Chadian witness stand about their connections in France. During the presidential election campaign, Sarkozy opined that pedophilia is not properly understood. The comment set off a firestorm in France, Madsen reports, and earned Sarkozy a strong rebuke from the Archbishop of Paris. Some critics of the mercurial Sarkozy began referring to him as "Sarko le Pedo."
Madsen notes that the French NGO Zoe's Ark is an enigma. It was started in the aftermath of the tsunami of December 26, 2004 by "French motoring enthusiasts" and set up four camps in Indonesia's Banda Aceh for children displaced by the tsunami. Madsen previously reported on the trafficking of orphans from the tsunami in Indonesia and Thailand, some of it for prostitution purposes.
The web site of the French NGO Zoe's Ark listed herein, which was available yesterday, has now disappeared from the web.
International press has been reported that on October 24 a group of French families were waiting at the airport at Vatry, Marne, France, for the first planeload of children. The plane never arrived. It was stopped as it was preparing to take off from Abeche, near ChadÕs border with Sudan, and the 17 Europeans on board were arrested.
However, the unfolding facts of the story suggest that the above reports that the African children were going into good French "families" homes, in keeping with the story line rescuing the children for a better life, may have been fabricated as well. The entire LÕArche de ZoŽ affair demands that an international investigation needs to be undertaken immediately to determine exactly who was waiting for the 103 children to arrive in France.
keith harmon
snow—www.allthingspass.com—is
an independent human rights investigator and war correspondent that worked with
Survivors Rights International (2005-2006), Genocide Watch (2005-2006) and the
United Nations (2006) to document and expose genocide and crimes against
humanity in Sudan and Ethiopia. In January 2006 he produced a report on
genocide in Ethiopia, co-authored with an international humanitarian law and
genocide expert now working for the Office of the Prosecutor at the
International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia. He released the UN Ethiopia
genocide report without authorization in December 2006 because the United
Nations buried the report and remained silent about the genocide and the
Ethiopian governmentÕs role in it. He has worked in 17 countries in Africa,
heavily focused on the Great Lakes region, and he recently worked in
Afghanistan.