Chadian mob hits out at European Slave traffickers
Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 4:43 pm
http://sudan.net/news/posted/15492.html
Chadian mob hits out at European Slave traffickers
ABECHE, Chad, Oct 31, 2007 (AFP) - Hundreds of Chadian women Wednesday hurled abuse at 16 Europeans charged over a French charity's plan to airlift 103 children it called war orphans from the Darfur border, accusing them of "child trafficking".
Protestors threw stones at foreign journalists in the desert nation's main eastern town of Abeche, yelled slogans accusing the former colonial power of a role in an alleged bid to abduct children to France, and demanded the Europeans face Chadian justice.
"No to the slave trade! No trafficking in children!" they chanted. "We want those responsible to be tried in Abeche!" one woman shouted out.
Nine French nationals -- six members of the charity Zoe's Ark and three journalists -- face a forced labour sentence on charges of kidnapping and extortion, while seven Spanish flight crew are charged with complicity.
In Chad's capital, N'Djamena, a prosecutor on Wednesday charged a Belgian pilot involved in the affair, Jacques Wilmart, of "complicity in abduction" and sent him to the city jail.
The charity says it hoped to save children from Sudan's Darfur region but French officials and UN aid workers say they believe many were from Chad and were not orphans.
Wilmart, 75, made several flights ferrying the children between Adre on the Sudan-Chad border and the eastern town of Abeche. Before his arrest on Sunday, he told AFP the children were "in very bad shape".
The retired pilot from Belgian's former flagship Sabena, also told legal sources while still in police custody that Zoe's Ark had contacted him for a "humanitarian mission" and he had agreed to do it voluntarily.
Would-be foster parents in France had paid several thousand dollars each to receive a child and some have expressed anger at the child trafficking charges, hurt at the outrage and hope that any trial will take place in France.
The government is in the firing line for failing to prevent the operation after it emerged the French army provided the charity members, who include a doctor and volunteer firefighters, with assistance in Chad.
Apart from the 17 Europeans, a Chadian deputy district administrator and a community chief have been arrested and charged with complicity in alleged abductions.
The case ignited tension with Paris, which is about to take the helm of a European peacekeeping force in Chad to protect hundreds of thousands of Darfur refugees and Chadians displaced by rebel insurgency and ethnic strife.
Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, a regional power broker close to Chad's President Idriss Deby Itno, offered to mediate, but the French foreign ministry declined "his willingness to help".
President Nicolas Sarkozy said there was currently "no question" of accepting, since he was in direct contact with Deby.
Sarkozy repeated he "unambiguously" condemned the operation but suggested he would seek to have the members of Zoe's Ark -- which is under investigation in France for illegal adoption -- tried in France.
"I think that by clearly putting the Chadians and the French around the table, since the investigation was first opened in France... well you can imagine what my preference would be," he told reporters in Corsica.
Sarkozy also said he would ask Deby to acknowledge the "presumption of innocence" of the French nationals, "especially the journalists whom I would like to see returned -- those at any rate whom we know did not apparently partipate in the activites of the association."
Deby's cabinet director, Mahamat Hissene, told French RFI radio the location of the trial had yet to be decided "and we have no fixed position on the matter."
A French diplomat said negotiations in hand were "about discussion, not about making demands, which could cause tensions."
Spain is also seeking the release of its nationals, the crew of the aircraft chartered for the operation, who are accused of complicity.
Chadian mob hits out at European Slave traffickers
ABECHE, Chad, Oct 31, 2007 (AFP) - Hundreds of Chadian women Wednesday hurled abuse at 16 Europeans charged over a French charity's plan to airlift 103 children it called war orphans from the Darfur border, accusing them of "child trafficking".
Protestors threw stones at foreign journalists in the desert nation's main eastern town of Abeche, yelled slogans accusing the former colonial power of a role in an alleged bid to abduct children to France, and demanded the Europeans face Chadian justice.
"No to the slave trade! No trafficking in children!" they chanted. "We want those responsible to be tried in Abeche!" one woman shouted out.
Nine French nationals -- six members of the charity Zoe's Ark and three journalists -- face a forced labour sentence on charges of kidnapping and extortion, while seven Spanish flight crew are charged with complicity.
In Chad's capital, N'Djamena, a prosecutor on Wednesday charged a Belgian pilot involved in the affair, Jacques Wilmart, of "complicity in abduction" and sent him to the city jail.
The charity says it hoped to save children from Sudan's Darfur region but French officials and UN aid workers say they believe many were from Chad and were not orphans.
Wilmart, 75, made several flights ferrying the children between Adre on the Sudan-Chad border and the eastern town of Abeche. Before his arrest on Sunday, he told AFP the children were "in very bad shape".
The retired pilot from Belgian's former flagship Sabena, also told legal sources while still in police custody that Zoe's Ark had contacted him for a "humanitarian mission" and he had agreed to do it voluntarily.
Would-be foster parents in France had paid several thousand dollars each to receive a child and some have expressed anger at the child trafficking charges, hurt at the outrage and hope that any trial will take place in France.
The government is in the firing line for failing to prevent the operation after it emerged the French army provided the charity members, who include a doctor and volunteer firefighters, with assistance in Chad.
Apart from the 17 Europeans, a Chadian deputy district administrator and a community chief have been arrested and charged with complicity in alleged abductions.
The case ignited tension with Paris, which is about to take the helm of a European peacekeeping force in Chad to protect hundreds of thousands of Darfur refugees and Chadians displaced by rebel insurgency and ethnic strife.
Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, a regional power broker close to Chad's President Idriss Deby Itno, offered to mediate, but the French foreign ministry declined "his willingness to help".
President Nicolas Sarkozy said there was currently "no question" of accepting, since he was in direct contact with Deby.
Sarkozy repeated he "unambiguously" condemned the operation but suggested he would seek to have the members of Zoe's Ark -- which is under investigation in France for illegal adoption -- tried in France.
"I think that by clearly putting the Chadians and the French around the table, since the investigation was first opened in France... well you can imagine what my preference would be," he told reporters in Corsica.
Sarkozy also said he would ask Deby to acknowledge the "presumption of innocence" of the French nationals, "especially the journalists whom I would like to see returned -- those at any rate whom we know did not apparently partipate in the activites of the association."
Deby's cabinet director, Mahamat Hissene, told French RFI radio the location of the trial had yet to be decided "and we have no fixed position on the matter."
A French diplomat said negotiations in hand were "about discussion, not about making demands, which could cause tensions."
Spain is also seeking the release of its nationals, the crew of the aircraft chartered for the operation, who are accused of complicity.
and die slowly...gaging with sand and sand in their lungs