|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
“L’Arche de Zoé” - History L’Arche de Zoé or Zoe's Ark is a humanitarian non-profit organization created to help victims of the 26 December 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia. Originally, and for nearly two years, members of Zoe’s Ark took turns on the North coast of the Sumatra Island, in Indonesia and helped a few hundred children who were victims of one of the biggest natural disasters in history. In 2007, Zoe’s Ark decided to redirect its action and focus on the children victim of the genocide in the Western Sudanese province of Darfur. Zoe’s Ark’s operation conducted in Eastern Chad in October 2007 was aimed at evacuating orphans of the Darfur genocide, perpetrated by the Sudanese government, to France. The objective was firstly to protect the children from the bombs, and this would find ground in international refugee law. There was also a political purpose to the operation which was to engage public opinion - French and international - on the tragedy that was underway in Darfur. At this time, in 2007, the international community did not yet acknowledge that a "genocide" was taking place, and it is only in 2010 that the International Criminal Court finally confirmed an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al Bashir and several of his ministers for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. As in the former Yugoslavia in 1991, in Rwanda in 1994, in Ivory Coast in 2002, and in a number of strongholds of the commonly called "FrançAfrique" or in the Maghreb where the French authorities supported (or sometimes installed) bloodthirsty dictators, evidence indicates that France was involved in the drama that unfolded in Sudan, and more specifically from 1983 in South Sudan and from 2003 in Darfur. The aim of Zoe’s Ark’s evacuation of Sudanese orphans to France was to knowingly create a diplomatic incident between France and Sudan but also to require both the media and the French judiciary look more seriously into the issues at stake, and to shed light on some of the French government’s activities in Africa, or at least those that should at a minimum be qualified as "nauseating". It wanted to be a wake-up call for what seemed to be a resigned and indifferent public opinion, by highlighting some of the seedy and lucrative business that some French citizens undertake with a government that has been committing atrocities with impunity for so many years. Zoe’s Ark’s operation has been carefully prepared, with the assistance of lawyers and legal advisers, and had mobilized substantial resources: 5 emergency doctors, 8 nurses, 10 fire-fighters, 2 logisticians, 3 journalists, 2 coordinators, 5 pilots and 5 crew, more than 200 French, Chadian and Sudanese staff, 3 aircrafts including one Boeing 757, several turnarounds of military aircraft, more than 2 tons of equipment and a budget of almost 660 000 €. In addition, 259 French volunteer homestay families were involved in the operation. This intense planning was essential to identify and group 103 orphans from Darfur (98 of them were orphans of father and mother, 5 were orphans of mother only) and to evacuate them to France on 25 October 2007, more specifically to Reims-Vatry international airport. The 103 children were all Sudanese, mainly belonging to the "Masalit" and "Zagawha" ethnic groups from the province of West Darfur and constituting high-priority targets of what appeared to be the genocide policy in Darfur (the last ethnic group to be specifically targeted were the “Four”). Some of those children were living - or rather were trying to survive - in this Sudanese province, in prey to the war and the mass killings that had been occurring for 9 years. However, the majority of the 103 orphans had already crossed the border into Chad, a few months or years before the October 2007 operation, and were living in the eastern part of Chad, which was also a very dangerous war zone, under full and permanent military control, without any NGO or UN presence, and where the living conditions and life expectancy are not much better than in Sudan. Zoe's Ark’s staff in Chad looked after of these 103 children, nursed them, fed them, housed and pampered them until their smiles returned. Some received urgently needed care from our medical team, as they were suffering from infectious diseases or infections due to their living conditions in a war zone. In relation to the infrastructure that was to be provided for these children after the evacuation and upon their arrival in France, Zoe's Ark had set up a voluntary network of French homestay families to ensure, in consultation with the competent French authorities, than these war victims would be received and taken care of in the best possible manner in a country at peace. The operation had been widely made public in France from April 2007, thus before going to the field. Furthermore, all the relevant French authorities and some representatives of the French parliament had been directly informed of the operation. However, it is only on 23 October 2007 that some senior officials within the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs took cognizance of the imminence of the operation, because of the telephonic denunciation by one of the homestay families. The French authorities panicked at the idea that this operation would cause a diplomatic incident between France and Sudan and that more than 1,000 French expatriates in Sudan, mainly located in the capital Khartoum, could be put in a difficult situation. But, again, one of the objectives of Zoe’s Ark’s operation was to denounce the presence in Sudan of all these major French companies (Total, Areva, Bollore, Bouygues, Bureau Veritas to name but a few) which are doing business, and one should wonder why, in a country accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. We deemed it necessary to inform the French public opinion, in the strongest terms possible, how some French industrial groups and some French public authorities parade in luxury hotels and "expat villas" while trading with alleged “genocidal”, while ordinary Sudanese are being murdered with impunity only a few hundred kilometers away. It appears that this is the reason why, on 23 October 2007, the Quai d'Orsay (the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs) ordered the Chadian authorities to stop Zoe's Ark’s team and to do everything to prevent them from evacuating the 103 Darfur orphans to France. On 24 October 2007, an investigating judge is appointed in Paris, always under the Quai D’Orsay’s request, to charge Zoe’s Ark with "adoption trafficking". In the early morning of 25 October 2007, Zoe's Ark’s team is “fortuitously” arrested by the Chadian police, on their way to the military airport of Abeche, in eastern Chad, as the team was about to evacuate the 103 Darfur orphans. The Chadian authorities, although they have yet to receive the necessary documentation containing the names and identity of the members of Zoe’s Ark and of the 103 children, are able to communicate accurately with the media, almost immediately after the arrest. According to the Chadian authorities, these arrests prevented a "child trafficking operation, for adoption purposes", run by “false French humanitarians" who" stole the children from their Chadian parents”. In France, the media onslaught begins within hours following the arrest of humanitarian workers in Chad, which is reinforced by AFP dispatches, all orchestrated by the Quai d'Orsay... There and then begins "the Zoe's Ark affair", which will trigger a media tsunami in France and around the world and will include its batch of false “scoops" and “revelations” spread by a media in need of sensationalism and much more interested in having high audience ratings than understanding the roots of the story. On 26 December 2007, after a botched investigation and trial conducted in less than 2 months in Chad, six members of Zoe's Ark are sentenced to 8 years of hard labor in N'Djamena. They are repatriated two days later in France and imprisoned to serve an 8 years of prison sentence. Beyond the physical incarceration of its members, the Chadian and French authorities are truly keen on plundering and shredding Zoe's Ark to ensure that it could never resume its activities.
In December 2007, parallel to the trial in Chad and after a meeting between French president Sarkozy and Sudanese president Al Bashir, France offers the enormous sum of US$ 103 million in "bilateral aid" to Sudan, in addition to its regular payments made within the context of “development aid” (click here for the report of the National Assembly in 2009, detailing the “troubling affinities between France and Sudan”). This « mere » fact of providing financial and material assistance to assassins should be enough to pursue the then-minister for "complicity in crimes against humanity and complicity to genocide". In February 2008, two months later, France offers, to the Chadian army this time, 20 armored vehicles. A few days after these "generous gifts", the 103 children, who were until then locked in an orphanage in Abeche, are sent back to Darfur. The six members of the Zoe's Ark are pardoned by the Chadian President, and released on March 31, 2008. Since then, a French judicial investigation, swiftly conducted and solely inculpatory, have led in December 2012 on the criminal trial for 4 of the 30 members of the Zoe's Ark (and a French logistician who did not take part of the operation, in Chad) for: - Attempt to facilitate the entry and illegal stay of foreign minors; - Illegal practice of adoption intermediary; - Fraud on 14 of the 259 families of the Zoe's Ark home stay family’s network; - Fraud on 2 of the 30 members of the Zoe's Ark team. To Eric Breteau and Emilie Lelouch, the December 2012 trial sounded like another parody of justice, after the one that took place in N'Djamena (in December 2007) and Créteil (in January 2008). Therefore they decided not to take part in this trial, with the intention to refuse endorsing a judicial system which, since the beginning of the case, never showed many signs of independence. The other accused participated in the trial. Once again, they faced judges convinced they were guilty even before they could present their own evidence. Once again, they had to endure humiliation and lies from the public, the media and other stakeholders, including the lawyers representing the complainant host families and sometimes the judge The verdict will be delivered on 12 February 2013. Convictions are unfortunately expected by everyone. And after that? How we will carry on? We won’t have much choice but probably to appeal, and then, to appeal further to the French court of cassation and afterwards, to refer the matter to the European Court of human rights. Ten to fifteen years of proceedings at least, which will leave enough time for these 103 children to die and not leave any trace. We will then see whether the European apparatus that pretend to be virtuous, will accept and tolerate that its member States is a direct or indirect accomplice of crimes against humanity and genocide. We will then see if France can remain a "Republic of untouchables" with its procession of politicians and seniors officials who remain above the law. Some grey zones remain in this case, in particular in relation to the involvements and actions of some French politicians, but insofar as the French courts have not been interested by investigating these aspects of the “affair”, it will be very difficult to shed light on past events. We will therefore likely never hear the end of the story. The public opinion is certainly not aware that the French State paid hundreds of millions of euros to “genocidals” in the past few years, thereby strengthening their power of extermination. It is hard to believe that the French people could still endorse this.
In a country where hypocrisy about the politician’s actions are dominating and where public opinion is constantly being manipulated, it took several decades to bring France to acknowledge its collaboration in the Nazi Holocaust. It also took more than fifty years to have a French Republic President eventually recognize the "horrid" French police involvement in the " Vel' d'Hiv roundup”... How many years or how many decades will be necessary to acknowledge (and stop) the horrible and unacceptable practice of some French authorities and French industrial groups in Africa since the end of colonization? How many years will be necessary to have some truly independent investigative judges access all these well-kept "states secrets” in the relevant government departments? How many billions of euros in development aid must “disappear” before someone notices? How many genocides are still needed before we become aware of the seriousness of the situation? In 1995, French president Jacques Chirac stated that the actions of the French State during the World War II had forever damaged the history of France. We can at least say as much regarding the actions of some French nationals in Africa for the past 50 years. How many millions of deaths can be attributed, directly or indirectly, to the snide actions of the “FrançAfrique” over recent decades? Historians have yet to count, but the will come... Zoe’s Ark, like many militant civic organizations, is only a means of putting up resistance against the murderous madness and the human being’s greed. Many more will be needed to change the world, and ensure that everyone’s fundamental rights are respected and protected.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Actualité
03/02/2013 Nouvelle demande adressée à l'ensemble des députés Français pour l'ouverture d'une Commission d'Enquête Parlementaire afin de déterminer le rôle exact du Ministère Français des Affaires Etrangères dans cette affaire.
01/02/2013 Saisine du Procureur auprès de la Cour Pénale Internationale pour signaler les agissements de l'état Français en marge de l'affaire de L'Arche de Zoé, et notamment le versement de 103 millions de dollars au régime génocidaire Soudanais.
31/01/2013 La cour d'appel d'Aix-en-Provence a débouté ce jeudi l'Etat tchadien de sa demande de dommages et intérêts de 6,3 millions € auprès de Philippe Van Winkelberg, un des médecins de l'Arche de Zoé, en estimant que le procès de N’Djamena en décembre 2007 n’avait pas apporté d’élément sur l’état civil des 103 enfants, pas même leur nom, pourtant présentés comme tchadiens par les médias. Voilà une première fissure sérieuse dans la « version officielle » qui avait conduit à la condamnation et à l'emprisonnement de 6 membres de L’Arche de Zoé. Nous attendons désormais le 12 février 2013 pour voir si le tribunal correctionnel de Paris décide de renvoyer des humanitaires en prison sur la base d'une instruction judiciaire tronquée et d'un procès guidé par les intérêts politiques....
12/12/2012 Le procès de L'Arche de Zoé s'est tenu devant le Tribunal Correctionnel de Paris du 3 au 12 décembre 2012. Sans surprise, ce "bal des faux-culs et des amnésiques" n'aura servit qu'à vilipender encore un peu plus L'Arche de Zoé et son président. Un procès tronqué après une instruction purement à charge. La vérité ne sortira donc jamais. Notons quand même que l'état français aura eu besoin de 5 ans pour organiser cette parodie alors que le Tchad n'a eu besoin que de 2 mois ! Le verdict est attendu pour le 12 février 2013.
11/12/2012 Le procureur de la république réclame une peine de 3 ans de prison dont 2 fermes. Des réquisitions ahurissantes qui sont basées sur de la "rhétorique". Un énième déni du droit et un énième effet d'annonce (repris par tous les médias!) qui n'ont pour but que de cacher les mensonges de l'Etat Français et de l'Etat Tchadien dans cette affaire.
03/12/2012 Le procès de L’Arche de Zoé s’est ouvert à Paris, avec comme depuis le début de cette affaire, une forte pression politique et une incroyable manipulation médiatique. Les journalistes sont en effet nombreux à colporter les ragots, les insultes gratuites, les calomnies et les diffamations. Tout est bon pour salir L’Arche de Zoé et son président. En revanche, il n’y a plus un seul journaliste pour rapporter les témoignages à décharge ou les preuves matérielles qui démontrent que certaines parties civiles ont menti à la barre comme depuis le début de l’affaire.
20/11/2012 Un nouveau simulacre de procès devrait se tenir à Paris début décembre 2012 sur quelques après-midi. Mais, cette fois-ci, la mascarade aura lieu en France, il n'y aura pas de coup de fouet ou de coup de crosse pour faire taire les accusés ou les obliger à participer à la parodie. Alors, le scénario sera un peu différent...
15/08/2012 Une nouvelle découverte pour le moins "surprenante" dans cette affaire : tandis que les membres de L'Arche de Zoé étaient condamnés au Tchad en décembre 2007, le président Français a dans le même temps rencontré le président Soudanais et a décidé de lui accorder une "aide bilatérale" de 103 millions de dollars ! Le prix du silence : 1 million de dollars par enfant ? Si seulement la France pouvait déployer autant d'efforts et d'argent à aider les populations en détresse plutôt que de soutenir et de financer les génocidaires...
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
