President Idriss Deny has been deeply criticized for arresting the seventeen so-called “humanitarian” 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 “Save Darfur” 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 “international AID and charity.” 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 that Africans need our help, they can’t 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 “anarchy” and “terrorism.”
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 government’s role in it. He has worked in 17 countries in Africa, heavily focused on the Great Lakes region, and he recently worked in Afghanistan.
Good points. The big question is "Is Zoe's Ark involved in child prostitution, pedophilia and slavery?" This needs a big time investigation.
Here's a Wayne Madsen report touching on this:
November 5, 2007 -- Sarkozy's interest in a mysterious French group charged with human trafficking
On October 29, 2007, WMR reported that a mysterious French group known as "Zoe's Ark," and which stands accused of attempting to spirit 103 Chadian children out of Chad to France, is suspected of links to French neocon President Nicolas Sarkozy. WMR's report was: "After Chadian and French authorities accused Zoe's Ark of criminal activity, the group said it had the support of President Sarkozy, his now-estranged wife Cecilia, and the Elysee Palace. Sarkozy's spokesman quickly denied any association with the group."
Yesterday, Sarkozy flew to Ndjamena, the Chadian capital, to intercede on behalf of French, Belgian, and Spanish nationals who had been arrested for suspicions by Chad of involvement in the caper. One of the French journalists who was freed is now reporting that Zoe's Ark is a duplicitous organization.
Sarkozy left Chad with three freed French journalists and four Spanish flight attendants. Six members of Zoe's Ark are still being held in Chad, along with three air crew members. The Spanish charter crew members appear to have been duped by Zoe's Ark into believing the charity was legitimately operating in Chad with official Chadian government sanction using another corporate identity, Children Rescue.
Zoe's Ark has been under French police investigation since July 2007 and the French Foreign Ministry is suspicious of the group's intentions.
However, Sarkozy's interest in Zoe' Ark has stirred a political hornet's nest because of the groups tactics. It has now been learned that the 103 children to be spirited out of Chad were not Darfur war orphans from Sudan but children with families from Chad. Zoe's Ark aid workers even wrapped bandages around some of the children's arms and dabbed the bandages with a liquid that appeared to be dried blood to make it appear that they had been wounded. Other children were lured with biscuits and candy by aid workers.
Some Chadian families revealed the Zoe's Ark workers promised that the children would be taken to school in Chad to learn Arabic, French, English, and their local dialect while other children were told they would be schooled in France and then receive big cars to drive. It has now been revealed that French Army peacekeepers in Chad provided Zoe's Ark with logistics assistance in the African nation.
Sarkozy is allegedly trying to pressure Chad to allow the French Zoe's Ark members to be tried for extortion and attempted kidnapping outside of Chad.
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. WMR has previously reported on the trafficking of orphans from the tsunami in Indonesia and Thailand, some of it for prostitution purposes.
Sarkozy appears to be worried about having French nationals testify in a Chadian witness stand about their connections in France. Libya's Muammar Qaddafi has offered to mediate in the deal but Sarkozy wants to deal directly with Chad President Idriss Deby. The Qaddafi link is noteworthy. Shortly after being sworn in as President, Sarkozy's now-estranged wife Cecilia traveled to Libya to successfully negotiate the freeing of jailed Bulgarian nurses by Libya. French-Libyan relations had remained strained over Libya's alleged bombing from an improvised explosive device (IED) of a French UTA DC-10 en route from Brazzaville via Ndjamena to Paris on September 19, 1989 over Niger after taking off from Ndjamena.
During the presidential election campaign, Sarkozy opined that pedophilia is not properly understood. The comment set off a firestorm in France 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."
by
Mac McKinney (42 articles, 62 quicklinks, 147 diaries, 984 comments)
on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 1:39:07 PM
A great eyes-wide-open piece -- unlike what we are continually forcefed by the biased, white media. You're absolutely right, privileged Westerners have, and more than likely, always will, see Africa as a land of opportunity - for themselves - in which to pillage, exploit and dehumanize as necessary, and for their own gain. As long as we continue to define Africans as "other" and "less than," they will never stand a chance. I hope you find the time to contribute additional articles to OpEdNews. Thank you, Jan
by
Jan Baumgartner (49 articles, 136 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 243 comments)
on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 4:02:05 PM
I don't believe this story. The French President is not a body parts trafficker. Why didn't they do this with Rawanda? Lots of good wasted body parts there wasn't there. And who would take the chance of using Black African body parts when AIDS is on such an increasing rampant level? No one wants AIDS, why take the chance? This story is not true.
by
Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 934 comments)
on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 10:31:54 PM
the Zoe's Ark scandal has done us all a favour. Its helped to create a little more sceptism concerning charities, those do-gooders who can all to often be fronts for spy organisations, or in this case, paedeophiles! Remember that AID is often used by states to control third world governments. Charities may not be what they seem:
Here is one man who is thoroughly P'd off:
Former road racing star Wayne Gardner is “pissed off” at an Australian charity he supported with a $5,000 donation because it's involved with the group of French charity workers who were caught trying to smuggle 103 children out of Africa recently.
Gardner gave the money to Zoe's Ark Foundation, an Australian group, in order to assist their efforts at providing aid to Indonesia after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami disaster.
But the group turns out to be associated with the French charity l'Arche de Zoe, whose “child rescue” operation was foiled when many of the Sudanese war orphans they tried to take to France were discovered to be healthy kids with living parents in the African nation of Chad.
Some of the workers are under arrest and face long prison terms. Gardner, who won the 500 GP World Championship in 1987, was furious when he learned that the French l'Arche de Zoe was an offshoot of the Australian Zoe's Ark.
“I'm not very happy to be associated with it,” he told The Australian newspaper. “In fact, I am quite pissed off.”
by
brian (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 98 comments)
on Thursday, November 15, 2007 at 12:06:33 AM
Sarkozy has said he would prefer to see the detained French tried in France, but Chad's Justice Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke said his country's judiciary was able to handle the case. "There is no risk that the trial will take place anywhere else, it will happen in Chad," he said.'
This title is misleading; Sarkozy only freed the 4 stewardesses of the commercial airplane rented to transport the children from Chad to France, as well as the 3 journalists who were covering this operation. Check the headlines in the French medias below.
These people had nothing to do with the trafficking whatsoever; there was no reason to keep them in jail.
The traffickers are still in jail in Chad. This operation, from what is known so far, seems to have been an adoption scam. Arche de Zoe was led by a charismatic guru type who manipulated some of the volunteers into believing they were rescuing orphans from nearby Darfur.
There is also a political subploy by President Deby, an authoritarian leader with a poor human rights record who needs to boost his waning popularity by stirring up anti-French/white feelings.
ramenant du Tchad trois journalistes français était attendu dimanche soir à Paris après une escale à Madrid ... fr.news.yahoo.com/afp/20071104/tpl-tchad-france-espagne-soudan-enfants-ee974b3_12.html - 30k - En cache - Pages similaires [ Autres résultats, domaine fr.news.yahoo.com ]
Les trois journalistes libérés dimanche à N'Djamena et ramenés en France par Nicolas Sarkozy ont ....Tchad : Sarkozy à N'Djamena, les journalistes. ... tf1.lci.fr/infos/monde/afrique/0,,3611052,00-sarkozy-ramene-sept-inculpes-.html - 193k -
Arche de Zoé : Sarkozy ramène du Tchad les hôtesses et les journalistes inculpés. De notre envoyé spécial à N'Djamena PIERRE PRIER ... www.lefigaro.fr/international/20071105.FIG000000243_arche_de_zoe_sarkozy_ramene_du_tchad_les_hotesses_et_...
by
francine (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 299 comments)
on Thursday, November 15, 2007 at 3:15:34 AM
..according to today's ''LE Monde''. The Chadian justice refuses to release them and they will be tried in Chad, according to the Chadian Minister of Justice.
I reported what was clear: The French president released=freed=fled with some of the Europeans arrested in Chad. That was clear. The suggestions that PILOTS and HOSTESSES and JOURNALISTS who were INVOLVED were actually NOT involved is rejected by this journalist. There are hierarchies of complicity, and these so-called "journalists" need to face a court of law just as the hostesses do. Why would anyone trust the Westren media to give us teh facts? And if you wantt o complain about DEBY -- lets see your complaints about the UNITED STATES in Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor, Somalia...well, ... everywhere. So accusations against Deby from people living comfortably behind (within, from, with) the American military machine of terror are nothing more than white supremacy and European Universalism (see Wallerstein).
See :
Darfurism, Uganda and the U.S. War in Africa: The Spectre of Continental Genocide
by
keith harmon snow (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 8 comments)
on Thursday, November 15, 2007 at 5:57:45 AM
I don't know why the comment was hidden, but I was relieved to see it was. Your suggestion about the Rwandese victims of 1994 was horrible. Perhaps it was tongue in cheek, but as someone with loved ones in Rwanda and an adopted family there who suffered horribly during the genocide watching their mother and father and brother killed before their eyes when they were small children, it was hard to take. Rwanda is my place of loving refuge in central Africa these days because of the people I know and love there. I have so many friends there with limbs missing due to the hack of the machete, I can no longer count.
by
Georgianne Nienaber (145 articles, 46 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 338 comments)
on Thursday, November 15, 2007 at 7:31:47 AM
Mr. Dom Jermano's comment was hidden because it was taken to be extremely offensive (and apparently Mr. Jermano is something of a nuisance on this site). As the author of the story that he "doesn't believe is true" and would like to see shoved in the dust bin, I asked to see the comments and then felt strongly that they should be printed. There are several reasons. One, I dislike it when my comments are deleted from other blogs etc. Two, I find the comments very instructive about public opinion in America.
Most importantly, I question whether the writer is being sincere or merely being stupid for the sake of being a nusance. I wouldn't have wasted my time writing teh story if I didn't honestly believe it was an outrageous case of white supremacy, arrogance, privilege -- the whole lot. What makes this kind of white supremacy possible? Uneducated or conditioned or completely propagandized thinking by Americans / Europeans/ Canadians / Israelis / Japanese etc -- dominant classes in the world who benefit by exploiting Africa and are so arrogant and oblivious that they don't even begin to see their own arrogance and obliviousness. Instead they blame the victims or they reduce the facts down to a few silly, uneducated, miseducated, immature ideas about -- as pertains to Africa for example -- AIDS, tribalism and hopelessness.
All of these themes are evident in the comments that were deleted. HIV/AIDS is a discourse, an imagined reality, a disease, a pharmaceutical industry, something that Bill Clinton gives money away for, and something that people are believed to be suffering from all over the world. The trafficking in humans in widespread, the body parts trade all over the place before our very eyes and yet we don't see it because it is run as other covert industries: behind closed doors. KIdneys stolen from children (men. women) are put on ice, then transferred to hospitals, then tested, matched and (usually) inserted into a matching donor. The idea that all Africans have AIDS and that nobody would therefore care about their internal organs is a deeply racialized stereotype used to manipulate and dominate other people.
President Sarkozy is obviously concerned about something coming to light. So what is going on? Why did he make that comment he made about pedophilia? One who doesn't understand the implications of this story might be one who enjoys a studied ignorance dictated by their own interests in pedophilia. I don't know, of course, but that is what crosses my mind.
The reader who complained (above) clearly has a problem sifting through information and as editor Rob Pall notes, merely produced a comment that makes himself look rather uneducated. we can't fault people for the dumbing down that takes place under American education. We can't sweep nasty little problems under the rug. What we need to do is expose the racism and white supremacy, take responsibility for it, all of us, and foster an open and sincere dialog. If someone persists in being a nuisance who is unwilling to learn, or listen , or think, then, well, then we communally (not using the repressive Department of Homeland security etc) tell then to shut up and go away until they can come back and take responsibility for being the adults (they supposedly are).
As for the comments about Rwanda, the United States overthrew the govt of Rwanda in 1994. Any responsibility for death and despair in central Africa needs to be pointed toward Washington.
by
keith harmon snow (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 8 comments)
on Thursday, November 15, 2007 at 8:42:01 PM
The comment does not make me look good? Is that the reason why I write? You think I am a racist for the comment? In fact if they were freaking whities who lived in Africa I would have said the same thing. Who would want body parts from anyone with AIDS.But they are black people, and they do have Aids. Now if that is a racist statement then I think you have a problem not me. Now maybe Aids is a blessing? Yeah it stops the idea we want diseased body organs doesn't it.
Which makes the article quite unbelievable because the author is making us try to believe the President of France would be that ignorant to want body parts from Africa and supported this idea? Call me a nuisance, well at least I don't spread lies with riduculous stories and false articles, published on this site. I think I stand for truth and reason.
As far as the Rawanda massacre is concerned I made no indication that I thought that was a good thing. But it happened, and no one claimed such a ridculous body parts claim as the author did in this story to Rawanda. In fact I still blame the Dutch for that happening, also the US for not helping, and obviously the people who committed the horrendous crime. They all belong to the State of Hate, a place where people do things, acts of violence to other people, lies, and other attributes to their fellow human comrades, for what? Revenge, Power, Resources? Whatever the reason I certainly did not do it, had no power in stopping it, and certainly deserve no blame for making a comment about the incident, in refuting this bogus article. In all respects it puts thinking caps on, about events...no matter how harsh things seem to be.
by
Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 934 comments)
on Thursday, November 22, 2007 at 7:49:40 AM
