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By Charles.S.Perera

We in the developing countries are ready to accept the Westerners as honest, trustworthy, kind, and have noble intentions. Therefore, are prone to accept any of them debarking as INGOs or humanitarians, with open arms, accommodating them in the most suitable places, giving them the best of hospitality, and paying them great respect to the extent of being servile. But, are they really what they pretend to be ?

When Tsunami struck Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and South India, the people in the West were moved by the disaster and with immense sympathy and generosity towards the suffering of those people who were the victims of tsunami, contributed what ever they could afford , and very soon huge sums of money were collected.

Neither the governments of the West nor the different Associations- that received these generous contributions, wanted to transfer the Funds to the respective governments of the countries affected by the disaster for fear that the contributions will be misused, and the victims of tsunami will not benefit from them. Hence, the money was given to iNGOs, to go to the affected areas and disburse the Funds as it seemed suitable, which resulted in the debarkation of innumerable numbers of iNGOs, in Sri Lanka.

Some of them instead of looking after the disbursement of the loads of money with which they had come, started interfering into the government administration and got involved in matters which were not their concern. Some of them get involved with the issue of violation of human rights by the government and sponsored local Human Rights Groups using the moneys at their disposal, while others took sides with the separatist terrorists trying to portray them as rebels and freedom fighters against a government of a hawkish President.

The question of the further utility of iNGOs should be looked into seriously by the government, and stop further arrival of iNGOs. Those who are not doing the services for which they have come should be sent away.

There is today in France a raging scandal around a group of persons who went to Tchad calling them selves humanitarians who have come to rescue the children orphaned by the war in Darfour. They were in fact a set of crooks preparing to kidnap orphaned children from villages in the boarder of Sudan for adoption by families in France. The scandal, l the facts of which were collected from different media is as follows.

A group of French persons debarked in Tchad, and asked the permission of the government to open a Children's Centre for a period of two years to receive abandoned or orphaned children from the Darfour Province of Sudan. The government without any doubt of the noble intention of the generous French persons who they thought were from a NGO accept their proposal, and received them with the usual accolade. The Centre was taken charge of by Emilie Lelouch a Circus Artist and Eric Breteau , a voluntary fireman the President of an association called, Association l'arche de Zoé .

The Association l'arche de Zoé, however harboured other intentions, they had a list of 260 French families who had paid thousands of Euros to receive children from Darfour for adoption, for humanitarian reasons. Tchad has laws against adoption of children from Muslim families. But the Associan l'arche de Zoé did not mention any thing about adoption, and their stated object was to accept children as homeless refugee and take them to safety from the danger of exposing them to the continuing conflict in Darfour.

But their secret intention was to take the children away to France, and they had to collect documents certifying that the children were of Darfour and orphans, for the purpose of evacuating them to France. The collection of children was not difficult as they were to be sheltered in the Children's Centre, and the children were presented by the Village Chiefs. The children were taken from the families without informing them that they were to be flown to France.

Eric Breteau, the President of the Association and Emilie Lelouch, had brought along with them as a part of the working group, a nurse, a retired employee of the French Air Force, a Provincial Doctor, a retired soldier of the French Foreign Legion and a retired Belgian Pilot. They collected 103 children. As the children were to be evacuated as children orphaned in the conflict in Darfour, they prepared them for the voyage by putting on false bandages, to show they were wounded.

They also had obtained the service of a Spanish Pilot, a co-pilot, a steward and 3 Airhostesses. When the children were to be evacuated, the High Commissioner of Refugees, the UNICEF and the Committee of the International Red Cross informed that 90 of the 103 children were from the frontier villages of Sudan and had at least one close relative.

In the mean time French authorities, having been informed of the affair, informed the Government of Tchad, that the Association l'Arche de Zoé is acting on their own to rescue the children from Darfour to be handed over to French families for adoption, and the Government had no hand in it.

The Government authorities of Tchad says that they did not, for an instance doubted the bona fide of the French persons setting up the Children's Centre to shelter the Orphaned Children, and that they took them to be from a NGO. They were furious when they were informed that the Association was to take away the Children to France. The Government authorities of Tchad, arrested the 6 Members of the Association , three journalists who accompanied them and the seven members of the plane crew.

Later the President of France intervened to get the three journalists who were not aware of the swindle, and the three Spanish Air hostesses released. Emilie Lelouch, Eric Berteau and the his assistants and three members of the plane crew, have been detained in prison in Tchad, and legal proceedings will be filed against them by the Government of Tchad.

Eric Berteau is supposed have said that he does not mind going to the prison for the good cause of saving the children from the hell in Darfour, and that he would like other humanitarian organisations to do the same as it would be a service for the humanity.

The whole episode still remains shrouded in mystery and whether there are other parties involved in the scandal are under investigation.

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