FRANCE/CHAD: French Secretary of State Rama Yade meets with humanitarian groups after nine French citizens are arrested in Chad as they prepared to fly out 103 children

Rama Yade, French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights, meets with NGOs and international humanitarian organisations to discuss the humanitarian consequences of the "Zoe's Ark" affair. French Secretary of State Rama Yade met with humanitarian groups on Monday (October 29) after nine French citizens were arrested in Chad as they prepared to fly out 103 children. Members of charity group "Zoe's Ark", including its president, are among nine French citizens and eight other Europeans that Chad accuses of trying to smuggle the children to Europe. The group say they were trying to help the children, not abduct them, and they acted legally. The emergency meeting called by Rama Yade was attended by representatives of international organisations such as ICRC, UNHCR PAM, Médecins du monde and UNICEF. Jacques Hintzy, President of UNICEF France said the organisations were working closely with Chadian authorities. "What I can tell you is that the Chadian government and organisations like UNICEF, HCR, CICR are working closely together with the children, so I don't see any negative consequences," said Jacques Hintzy. The conference was also attended by local NGOs such as Action Contre la Faim and Secours Catholique. In previous statements Yade said the planned operation by the charity group "Zoe's Ark" was irresponsible but said France would not abandon its citizens and would offer "maximum consular assistance". The nine French citizens are part of a group of 17 Europeans Chad accuses of trying to abduct the children. Lawyers representing them denounced the Chad President's accusations that the French citizens were abducting the children for paedophilia rings or for organ trafficking. Speaking at a news conference in Marseille, Lawyer Gilles Collart, who is acting for the detained French citizens, said that the accusations were untrue. "What is completely inconceivable, and it's not hard to see this, is that the welcoming families are paedophiles. Nor do they want to do organ trafficking, so what is being said in Chad is exaggerated, overstated," he said. Collard went on to explain that the operation to help orphans in Chad was completely open and not secretive in any way. "Children are suffering, even if you're not smartly dressed, we rescue them." One of the detained French citizens, Marc Garmirian, is a journalist who was covering the story. A news conference was also held in Paris at Capa news agency's office where Garmirian works to call for his liberation. "Marc was working as a journalist on this story. A journalist covering an event should never be mixed up with the event itself and therefore should never be treated as an accomplice on a judiciary and moral level with the event he is covering," said William Bourdon, a lawyer at the news agency who is representing Garmirian. In a video shot by Marc Gamirian before the arrests, members of the NGO are quizzed about the legality of their actions: "You don't care about all the international laws?" asked Garmirian while in an orphanage in Chad's capital Abeche A: "Why, what rules?" Q: "Well the way you are doing things." A: "They are not rules. It is not because others are scared, because others don't act and leave people to die, that they follow rules. Who dictates the rules?" Q: "No but for a start you have already taken children out of their countries." A: "Not at all, we didn't take them out of their country, someone brought them to us. So it's not at all the same thing, it means that we didn't take them out of their country, we didn't transgress Sudanese laws, we didn't break any law." Another member of the NGO who couldn't be identified said that they could not be 100 percent sure that the children were really orphans: "Nothing is for ever sure when one does that kind of thing but it's also a will to do something when we get the impression that for the past three or four years, they have been forgotten about and that in every village, in every corner of Darfur, children die and continue to die because they are completely abandoned. We can't go to Darfur, first because we haven't got the means to, we are not allowed in, but the people who brought them to us couldn't take care of them any longer and they asked us to help them. We solicited them but they asked for our help too. When you see them arrive, they are badly dressed, their health is not catastrophic but just about, very fragile. You can't say this [In reaction to the journalist's question asking whether the children would not be better off in their home towns]. You can't say this." said a member of Zoe's Arch NGO. But some children have said their parents are still alive, and they were lured from their villages on the Chad-Sudan border with offers of sweets and biscuits. The French government has repeatedly condemned the operation and France's ambassador to Chad said on Sunday those involved would have to face Chadian justice. The incident threatens to complicate relations between France and its former colony as a predominantly French European Union force prepares to deploy in eastern Chad, one of Africa's most violent regions, to protect civilians there. France's Foreign Ministry issued a warning about Zoe's Ark in August, saying there was no guarantee the children were helpless orphans and casting doubt on the project's legality. Zoe's Ark spokesman Christophe Letien said the operation was carried out "in full legality". French daily Le Figaro quoted a Chadian journalist who was allowed to see, but not speak to, the detainees as saying they seemed weakened but did not appear to have been mistreated. It quoted the journalist as saying Padacke had met magistrates at the weekend to discuss possible penalties. French Secretary of State for Human Rights Rama Yade told Europe 1 radio on Monday France would offer full assistance to the French nationals even though they had acted irresponsibly.

ITN Source | October 30, 2007

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