Free but not innocent

The six members of the French charity, l'Arche de Zoé have been released from prison after they were granted a long-expected pardon by the Chadian president, Idriss Déby, on Monday.

They were convicted last December by a court in N'Djamena, the capital of the former French African colony, of trying to kidnap 103 children two months earlier and fly them to France (see related story "Rough justice" January 29, 2008).

Originally sentenced to eight years hard labour, the aid workers were later transferred to France to under a long-standing agreement between the two countries, to serve out their terms under French law.

The charity has always denied allegations of kidnapping and said it was acting in good faith in attempting to rescue the children; all of whom it claimed were orphans, from the Dafur region of Sudan. It intended to fly them to France where it had organised host families.

But United Nations investigations soon revealed that very few of the children were in fact orphans and most of them came from Chadian villages along the border with Sudan.

The case has been a source of constant polemic for months here in France and the reaction to the pardon and release of the aid workers has been mixed. Critics accuse the members of L'Arche de Zoé of being pseudo humanitarians who were working outside of the accepted and recognised international codes of practice. Their bogus operation is viewed by many as having discredited much of the work of established non-governmental organisations and aid agencies.

In spite of those accusations, the six retain a large network of support in France - a network, which maintained a high level of pressure on the French government to intervene on their behalf and secure the pardon and release once back on French soil. Their lawyers have denounced the trial in Chad as a "parody" of justice and insist the whole story still hasn't been told. In particular they want an investigation into the role of the Chadian authorities and how an apparent blind eye was turned to the charity's activities for as long as it suited.

The reputation of neither government comes away from the whole affair entirely unblemished. The French foreign ministry apparently knew of the charity's activities in Chad but had failed to stop it from breaking international law. Meanwhile the delay in granting the pardon - one month after an attempted rebellion in Chad - is being interpreted as a face-saving move to prevent any association being made between French military assistance and support for Déby's regime.

France is one of Chad's principle allies and has 1,100 troops deployed permanently in the country.

Although some might see it as a happy end to a miserable affair, the story is far from over.

The Chadian government has not dropped its demand for €6 million in compensation for the families of the children. And the wheels of the French justice system still have to finish grinding, with the six facing charges under French law, punishable by a maximum of 10 years imprisonment and fines of €75,000 each.

A Sudanese man, Souleïmane Ibrahim Adam, who acted as an intermediary and was also tried and convicted has not been pardoned and remains in prison in Chad.

Rough justice?

There’s many a story that makes the headlines that leaves just about everyone following it wondering what on earth it’s all about and certainly raising questions about the justice involved.

And such a case has to be the “child trafficking” story and the exploits of the French non-governmental organisation, L'Arche de Zoé (Zoé’s Ark).

It all began last October when authorities in the former French African colony of Chad detained 17 Europeans whom they accused of trying to kidnap 103 children and fly them out of the country. The 17 included six members of L’Arche de Zoé,

When the news first broke the immediate assumption made by much of the French media was that there had been a police swoop on a paedophilia ring. But as the story unfolded and the facts became clearer, it transpired that nothing could have been further from the truth.

The charity claimed the children were all orphans from the Darfur region of Sudan and it had organised host families for them in France to help them escape possible death in a region where more than 200,000 people have already died during a four-year conflict, and millions more have been displaced.

But investigations by local United Nations officials revealed that very few of the children were in fact orphans and most of them came from Chadian villages along the border with Sudan.

And the French foreign ministry also cast doubt on the charity’s insistence that its intentions were purely humanitarian and that it had conducted investigations over several weeks to be certain the children were orphans. The French human rights minister, Rama Yade, even went as far as to say that L’Arche de Zoé had been warned months before that it risked breaking international law.

Chad’s president, Idriss Déby was quick to raise the temperature and flex more than a little muscle, letting fly with accusations of paedophilia and organ harvesting against L’Arche de Zoé, and promising punishment for those involved in what he denounced as “straightforward kidnapping.”

The whole muddled affair threatened to escalate into a major diplomatic nightmare for the French at a time when their president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was trying to push hard for the European Union to deploy a peacekeeping force in Chad and the neighbouring Central African Republic.

So Sarkozy to the rescue with a (quite literally) flying visit to the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, to meet Déby and negotiate the release of seven of the accused – three French journalists and four Spanish flight attendants.

Several days later those negotiations bore more fruit when the three remaining Spanish flight crew and the Belgian pilot were also released, just leaving the six French members of L’Arche de Zoé to face the justice of the Chadian courts.

And what justice! After a trial lasting just four days they were found guilty and each sentenced to eight years of hard labour.

Under a long-standing offenders agreement between Chad and France they were allowed to return home earlier this month, where it had been hoped by their defence lawyers that the French authorities might show some leniency.

But that was in short supply on Monday as a court in Paris upheld the ruling, simply converting the sentences to eight years imprisonment under French law

In essence the members of L’Arche de Zoé were probably only trying to do what they felt was best for children they thought needed their help, in a region where the international community and established, more recognised aid and humanitarian organisations have been struggling to make an impact.

The charity’s sense of urgency and undoubted naivety perhaps only served to compound the feeling in Chad that it was in fact violating an African country’s sovereignty and traditions in spite of the obvious paralysis so far of international diplomacy. Its members operated outside the rules of what was considered to be “proper”.

Rightly or wrongly, the six will now pay the price for “breaking the rules” for the next eight years.

Persiflage