Justice Denied In Zoe's Ark Case?

Six French aid workers sentenced to eight years' forced labor in Chad for trying to kidnap 103 children left for France on Friday, boarding a plane in handcuffs as security officers looked on.

The members of Zoe's Ark were transported to an airstrip in a prison van before taking off.

On Thursday, France asked Chad to hand over the six, who were convicted and sentenced Wednesday. Repatriation requests are allowed under a 1976 judicial accord between the two countries.

France does not have forced labor for convicts and there are hopes that if the six are returned, the French justice system will commute or reduce their sentences.

I'm not sure under what grounds the six should have their sentences reduced or commuted given that the six were involved in kidnapping more than a hundred Chadian children under false pretenses of bringing Darfurian refugees back to France to be cared for by French families. The six were involved in taking the children, using disguises and trickery to fool Chadian officials into believing that the children were from Darfur, and the trial found them guilty.

There's no reason to believe that the Chadian justice system failed in this instance, unless you think the sentences were too light.

Chad Sentences Zoe's Ark Six To Hard Labor

A Chadian court sentenced six French aid workers to eight years of forced labor Wednesday after finding them guilty of trying to kidnap 103 African children and bring them to Europe.

The sentence was announced on the fourth day of the trial.

The defendants, who work for the French aid group Zoe's Ark, maintain they were driven by compassion to help orphans in Darfur, which borders Chad.

That was quick. After four days at trial, the six were found guilty. Hard labor just doesn't seem sufficient for these six miscreants who claimed that they were just trying to help rescue Darfurian refugees.

These aid workers claimed that they were helping rescue orphans from the Darfur genocide when they were stopped by Chadian authorities in October, but it turned out that many of the children they were taking were actually Chadian children with families. They dressed up the kids in fake bandages to make them look like orphans in need of medical attention.

They took advantage of a human rights catastrophe, took advantage of families in Chad, and then took advantage of families in France who thought that they were going to be helping Darfurian refugees start a new life.

Trial Commences Against Zoe's Ark Members In Chad

Six French aid workers accused of trying to kidnap dozens of African children denied wrongdoing Friday as their trial began, with the head of the group insisting they were doing their best to help young war victims seek asylum in France.

Meanwhile, a journalist who had accompanied the Zoe's Ark mission told French radio the workers had been secretive while in Chad about plans to take the children to France.

The head of French charity Zoe's Ark, Eric Breteau, called the kidnap charges "fantasies" and insisted in court that "we acted in good faith and we only wanted to bring help to these young victims of war and in the end obtain asylum for them in France."

The investigators had thus far uncovered that many of the children who Zoe's Ark claimed were Darfurian refugees were actually taken from homes of Chadians.

New Claims of Kidnapping Alleged Against Zoe's Ark

Chad will investigate reports that 74 Chadian children were flown to France weeks ago without their parents' knowledge, a senior judicial official said Thursday.

The reports come on the heels of Chad's kidnapping charges against six French workers with the group Zoe's Ark who are accused of trying to take 103 other children out of Chad to France. The group said the children were orphans from Sudan's conflict-ridden Darfur region, but the French Foreign Ministry and others have cast doubt on the claims.

The Zoe's Ark affair has infuriated Chadians, but it is not known if the group was involved in the alleged transport of the 74 children whose cases have now come to light, said Masngarel Kagah of the public prosecutor's department.

The Network of Human Rights Associations in Chad wrote to the public prosecutor's department with details about the 74, who were said to have been flown to a military airport outside Paris on Sept. 17, Kagah said. The network gathered the information after several parents reported their children missing, Kagah said.

I'm beginning to sense a pattern here.

What exactly has Zoe's Ark been doing in Chad? It would appear that the "charity" had been taking advantage of the humanitarian nightmare in Darfur and exploiting Chadians at the same time. The families in France who have taken in these children are also being exploited since they're financing these efforts and may not be aware of what is really going on.

Chad Frees Seven In Adoption/Kidnapping Row

Seven Europeans among 17 detained for over a week in an alleged attempt to kidnap 103 African children were released, a lawyer for the group said Sunday, as the French president flew to Chad to discuss the case.

The Europeans — among them nine French citizens — were arrested Oct. 25 when a charity calling itself Zoe's Ark was stopped from flying the children to Europe. The group said the children were from Sudan's Darfur region and that it intended to place them with host families.

French media reports said French President Nicolas Sarkozy would seek the release of three French journalists the group detained and return to Paris with them later Sunday aboard his presidential plane. International journalists' groups have protested their detention.

A lawyer for the journalists and four female flight attendants from Spain said the seven were freed by Chadian judicial authorities. "They are free. It's over. It's the end," said the lawyer, Jean-Bernard Padare.

Zoe's Ark maintains its intentions were purely humanitarian and that it had conducted investigations over several weeks to determine the children it was taking were orphans.

However, France's Foreign Ministry and others have cast doubt on the group's claims that the children were orphans from Sudan's western Darfur region, where fighting since 2003 has forced thousands to flee to Chad and led directly or indirectly to the deaths of more than 200,000 people.

The actions by this "charitable" group led to an international incident that put a French peacekeeping mission along the border region with Darfur in jeopardy and once again put European actions in Africa into the spotlight. Africans are quite sensitive to what Europeans have done in Africa in the past, and Zoe's Ark appears to have engaged in nefarious activities, which included taking children from their homes - not assisting orphans from the Darfur genocide.

The members of Zoe's Ark remain in custody, while the journalists and air crew of the plane were released.

Taking Advantage

You have got to be kidding me.

A French based charity had a whole bunch of its members arrested in Chad - including three journalists - for kidnapping more than 100 kids who they claim were orphans from the Darfur genocide/ethnic cleansing, but which Chad thinks may have been Chadian. Those journalists were not simply bystanders either - they were deeply involved in the whole thing.

Authorities in Chad have charged nine French nationals with kidnapping after they attempted to fly out of Chad with more than 100 children the group claimed were orphans from Sudan.

Members of the French aid group L'Arche de Zoe were detained and handcuffed in Abeche, Chad.

The charges were confirmed by Leonard Vincent, who heads the Africa desk at Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. Three French journalists are among those charged.

In addition, Vincent said, seven crew members of a Spanish charter company were charged with complicity.

The 16 were being held in the eastern Chadian city of Abeche and were expected to be transferred to the capital, N'Djamena, later in the week, Vincent said.

The group was arrested last week as they tried to put 103 children on a plane to France. The "rescue mission" was organized by L'Arche de Zoe (Zoe's Ark), a Paris-based charity which said the children were orphans from the Darfur crisis and were being taken to foster families in France.

The Chadian government disputed that, and a spokeswoman for the UNHCR said that based on preliminary interviews with the children, they "most probably" are from Chad.

The arrested French nationals include six members of Zoe's Ark and three French journalists, Vincent said. Two of the journalists were on assignment for independent media outlets, while the third was on humanitarian leave from her job, he said.

"Her editor gave her a camera because she wanted to cover the operation," Vincent said, "but she was also sympathetic to the association as she wanted to host one of the kids."

Nothing quite like people trying to take advantage of a human rights crisis and getting themselves involved in a human rights mess of their own.