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 “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.
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.
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.
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