Word: chadian
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...French government officials insist that even before the group's arrest by Chadian police on October 25, they cautioned Zoé's Ark against pursuing certain of their more audacious humanitarian projects in Chad, particularly what appeared to be clandestine adoption arrangements with families back in France. Because of that, it came as little surprise to many observers earlier this month when a French investigating magistrate named several members in the group as defendants in his case for "complicity in the illegal residence of foreign minors in France," "illegally exercising the role as intermediary towards adoption" and "fraud." With...
...France is also keen to stress the E.U.'s mission neutrality. "It is a reconstruction mission, a development mission and a humanitarian one," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said, adding that that the aim was solely to protect displaced refugees, not to help Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno. Some Chadian rebels have expressed fears that the E.U. force is meant to help prop up Deby, a longtime ally of Paris, and have even threatened to attack the mission if it interferes with their rumbling insurgency...
...Tasked only with rendering the Chadian punishment compatible with French law, the Créteil court in Paris pointed out in a statement that it wasn't mandated to reexamine the case evidence or the guilty verdict handed down in Chad's capital, N'Djamena. That controversial judgment, issued on December 26, convicted the six Zoé's Ark's workers of attempted kidnapping in their efforts to secretly fly 103 children they claimed were orphans from war-torn Darfur out of eastern Chad to France for urgent care. Later investigations concluded that virtually all the children were in fact...
...members have consistently maintained their innocence, and claimed they'd become scapegoats of the Chadian government's attempts to take advantage of the humanitarian crisis created by the violence in Darfur. But despite a considerable public relations push by supporters to cast the aid workers as victims, French public opinion has failed to warm to their cause. Before and during their trial in Chad, certain members of the group righteously justified their at times extra-legal efforts to tend to the children as legitimate given the urgency of the situation. Since their December 28 return to France under Franco-Chadian...
...generally lies somewhere between those two extremes. Zoé's Ark staff were condemned at first as buffoons who sought to play God by scorning international law. But more recently French public opinion softened as family members mounted an energetic communications offensive arguing the suspects' innocence. Television scenes of Chadian riot police keeping furious crowds from the accused, meanwhile, have also raised some French fears over their safety - a concern Chadians have denounced as neo-colonial. Elsewhere, some onlookers - including French officials working for the return of the six to France - remain troubled by the lack of remorse or real...