CHAD: Spain Defends Pilots in Child Abduction Row

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Oct 30 2007 (IPS) - Authorities and civil society organisations in Spain have roundly condemned an apparent case of trafficking of children from Chad. But they defend the innocence of the seven Spanish crew members of a plane chartered by the French charity L’Arche de Zoe (Zoe’s Ark) to remove 103 children from the country in north-central Africa.

Prosecutor Amat Daoud from the city of Abeche in eastern Chad ordered the arrest and prosecution last week of nine members of the French non-governmental organisation on charges of child abduction. The seven Spanish crew members were also arrested, as accessories.

On Tuesday, the prosecutor called for 20 years of forced labour for the 16 European detainees.

The arrests took place when the aid workers were loading 103 children between the ages of three and 10 on a plane that was heading to France. Officials in Chad have alleged that the children were to be sold to families in France, or may even have been sold to child sex abuse rings or used for their organs.

The seven Spanish nationals work for Girjet, a Barcelona-based charter company, which was hired by the French charity.

Spanish Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Bernardino León told IPS that the government “differs” with the measure taken by the Chadian state and has arranged to provide diplomatic assistance to the flight crew and to assign them defence lawyers.

“Of course we condemn trafficking of children, whether in Chad or anywhere else in the world,” he added. “But one thing is trafficking and another is that a company was hired for a charter flight. The logical thing would be for customs officials in the airports to verify who is embarked on these or other flights, and how that occurs.”

The Spanish government is urging the authorities in Chad to keep in mind the presumption of innocence and is calling for a fair trial with all due legal guarantees.

Spain’s Foreign Ministry sent its consul in Cameroon, Vicente Mas, to Chad to become familiar with the case and take any necessary action.

León said that a doctor and a chaplain who had access to the two Spanish pilots and five cabin staff reported that they were in good health.

Girjet executive Antonio Cajal told the press that his company has no ties to Zoe’s Ark and that this was the first time it was hired by the NGO, which told them it was a humanitarian mission involving the transfer of children with medical problems to France for treatment that they would not otherwise receive in Chad.

According to Cajal, his company did not even have direct contact with the NGO, because the charter flight was arranged through a broker. He also said the flight had previously received permission from authorities in Chad as well as France.

But reports from Chad indicate that some of the children were taken to the plane with bandages on their faces even though they had no wounds or injuries. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees delegate in Chad Annette Rehrl was one of the sources who made that allegation.

The president of Zoe’s Ark, Eric Breteau, a volunteer firefighter from France who founded the amateur charity in the wake of the December 2004 Asian tsunami, initially said the aim was to evacuate 10,000 orphans from the civil war-torn region of Darfur in western Sudan and place them with foster families in France.

But he later said the group was carrying out a medical evacuation rather than an adoption campaign.

French families willing to provide the children with a home reportedly paid several thousand dollars up front to take the children in.

But U.N. and Chadian officials say many of the children were actually from Chad, not Sudan, and were not even orphans.

One boy, Osman, said his parents had gone to work in the countryside, and that several Chadian adults showed up at his village along the border with Sudan and offered the children candy if they would go with them, with the promise that they would later be returned to their homes.

They were first taken to the town of Adre and later to Abeche, where they spent more than a month and were well-fed, although they were not allowed to leave until they were finally taken to the airport.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called his counterpart in Chad, Idriss Deby, to tell him that the adoption campaign of Zoe’s Ark was “illegal and unacceptable.”

The Spanish air crew has been held virtually incommunicado, receiving only visits by the doctor and the chaplain.

Cajal maintains that they have been “kidnapped, held incommunicado, threatened continually by the security forces and stripped of their belongings and personal effects.”

There seems to be little doubt that the transfer of the children by Zoe’s Ark was illegal. French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights Rama Yade described the incident as a “clandestine operation.”

Yade said that months ago, the government had warned the French charity that it was facing the risk of breaking the law, and that it was under investigation in France.

French Justice Minister Rachida Dati said “The Chadian justice system is sovereign.”

U.N. agencies have expressed indignation over the actions of Zoe’s Ark. UNICEF, the children’s agency, said the operation was illegal and contravened national and international standards.

The children are currently being cared for at an orphanage in Abeche with support from UNICEF while investigators try to determine where the children are from.

Well-established NGOs have criticised the actions of Zoe’s Ark, which they said could discredit the activities of aid agencies that have put a great deal of effort in establishing relations of trust.

However, the role of the Spanish air crew is being defended. On Tuesday, Spanish Minister of Justice Mariano Fernández Bermejo reported that “every possible effort is being made to convince officials in Chad that the Spanish nationals had nothing to do with the attempt to remove the children from the country,” because they had merely been contracted by the French NGO and were not even informed of the identity, ages or conditions of the passengers.