Sarkozy slams bid to smuggle kids

Sarkozy slams bid to smuggle kids : "FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday branded as 'illegal and unacceptable' an alleged attempted child kidnapping to France from the Chad-Darfur border involving a French charity."

It is very easy to bash humanitarians. They are at the coal face trying to bring some sense and stability into awful situations and France has been a world leader on this.They are not politicians, they are not lawyers, they are not media. They are human beings doing more than we are doing at the moment. At a time when the French people turned to their foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner , who has a distinguished track record in humanitarian aid and diplomacy, he appears to be on a trip to Asia and the boots are being sunk into the aid workers in Chad. Families were waiting at the airport in Paris to take these children into home stay families. It was on the news. One lady had 5 children and was making room for one of the African children coming in. They were going to be flying on a military plane into a main airport in France. Presumably people knew about this, the papers were in order and it can hardly be called a secret. I was watching it on the French news here! The adverts for homestay families in France were on some pretty solid French sites. So okay, people have changed their mind, but don't use the aid workers as the battle ground. We need people like that. It would appear the plan was to put the children in homestay situations because the situation in Darfur is so difficult and the children are at risk. In Australia we will understand the position of Chad because we have had our own stolen generation conflict and it has hurt and damaged people deeply. Sometimes people do not think very clearly in the long term. It would appear the French people and organisations wanted to provide safety, education and health care for children who are living in circumstances of very serious risk. We have that capacity to do that these days and why not? We can fly people out to help save them and their families. That is our world. On the other hand you do not want to be cutting people off from their cultural richness and roots. You do not want to be stopping people from being who they are. If you read the French news there is plenty of discussion about it and there is both criticism and support of the organisation Zoe's Ark. It is all very well the politicians discussing and deciding ...but what will happen to those children?