Charity's haven for famine children destroyed by paedophile scourge
Audrey Gillan
Jari Children's Village seems like an idyllic haven for the young, an oasis from the poverty that grinds Ethiopia down. It sits at the foot of Mount Ambassel in a region once so ravaged by famine and civil war that countless thousands died. Surrounded by bougainvillea and jacaranda trees, and full of children who shout "welcome" to a strange face, it is a breathtaking place.
Desperate images of starving orphans of the famine led to the founding of the village in 1974. A Swiss charity, Terre des hommes, Lausanne (Tdh), created the village in a valley given to them by the then emperor, Haile Selassie, and provided the children with a home and an education. The orphans were supposed to live as one big family. They slept in bunks in dormitory huts, ate from big trestle tables and looked up to the adults who worked and lived there, seeing them as their substitute parents.
But in the past five years, the idyll has been shattered. The village became the target for paedophiles, men who knew how easy it would be to abuse their positions of power and trust. They changed the nature of the place for ever, and the village is set to close.
Father figure to 300
It was in July 1994 that David Christie, a British expatriate, came to work for Tdh in Ethiopia as its country representative. With a home and head office in Addis Ababa, he spent most of his time at the children's village eight hours drive away in South Wollo.
He quickly became a well-loved father figure for the 300 or so children. Instead of the hard-working regime which had existed, the children say he allowed them to be children again. He loved them and they adored him - they wanted to be the one holding his hand, the object of his affection. They trusted him, and they trusted all the white men, "farengis", who came to the village.
Christie had previously worked for Acord (Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development) on a project in Uganda for children and families with Aids. His contract had been terminated after four years over his management style.
One of the farengis brought to Jari by Christie was a Canadian teacher, Denys Benjamin, who had spent time in Sri Lanka. He was recommended by Christie's friend Marc Lachance, and came to teach English. Benjamin was in Jari for only a few weeks of February 1995 when it was discovered that he had spent the night with one of the orphans. The incident was reported to Christie who sacked Benjamin and told him to leave the village immediately. The matter was not reported to the police, even though the boy was only 12 and had been found almost naked.
(With hindsight, Lachance may not have been the ideal person to recommend someone to work with children. He founded Circus Ethiopia, the famous troupe of jugglers and acrobats recruited from the city's street children. The circus gained critical acclaim and travelled the world, but it caught the limelight - this time outside of the ring - last October. Fifteen young Ethiopians sought asylum in Australia on the grounds that they were the victims of sexual abuse. They named Lachance as their abuser, a claim he vigorously denied. Ethiopian police were investigating the allegations when Lachance killed himself last May.)
With Benjamin dealt with, Tdh officials must have been relieved. Founded 39 years ago, it is the largest children's charity in Switzerland with an annual budget of 33m Swiss francs (£14m). It is at the centre of an international anti-paedophile campaign and had brought charges against at least two suspected offenders.
But now the charity was to discover another paedophile in its midst. In the first week of 1997, it was forced to dismiss David Christie after he after he too was found to have taken one of the village boys to his bedroom. The staff and children had been having a Christmas party when Christie's lengthy absence was noted. These disappearances had been noted before, and anxious staff visited his room where they found a semi-naked child trying to jump out of the window.
An internal document written by Christie's replacement and obtained by the Guardian says Christie "confessed to sexual abuse" and he "admitted to having a single improper sexual relationship with a project beneficiary". Christie was dismissed and the details of the incident were passed on to the paedophile unit at Scotland Yard.
However, Tdh decided not to tell the Ethiopian authorities. Nor did it tell the children or the Ethiopian workers in the village. Instead it said Christie had left for "budgetary reasons". Again it probably realised the terrible irony of the situation it found itself in. But it now admits it made a grave mistake, and this year when fresh allegations of abuse surfaced it did tell the authorities. A man is now the subject of an investigation.
Alemseged Gebre-Yohannes, deputy commissioner of the Ethiopian police, said his central investigation department is looking into all the allegations. "I think this is a very organised kind of crime. We don't know how many boys have been abused," he said. "We do wish Tdh had not allowed Christie to go, and he was made to face charges here. He could have been a very useful deterrent for this kind of act. He could have got five to 10 years' imprisonment. The next person we catch will be prosecuted."
Apology to the people
After the claims of abuse were revealed in an Addis Ababa newspaper, Tdh felt compelled to apologise to the Ethiopian people. It admitted that it had evidence of abuse of its beneficiaries at the children's village. "We categorically deny that Terre des hommes has ever tried to cover up these incidents," said Paul McCarrick, Tdh's then country representative. "We offer our sincere apologies to our beneficiaries, our staff, the Ethiopian public and government for this tragedy, and we commit ourselves to repairing the damage that has been done and re-evaluating our recruitment procedures."
Christoph Schmocker, spokesman for Tdh, said it was impossible for the charity to know how big the circle of paedophiles was. "Children were abused, it's clear. Children have been touched in a way that they shouldn't," he said. "We have a number that have been abused, but we cannot be sure if this number will change. Sometimes it needs some courage to say 'me too, I was one'."
The Guardian has discovered that it was not just in Jari that children were abused. Christie had ready access to young boys in Addis Ababa, where many children are forced to live on the streets, begging and accepting acts of charity. At least a dozen boys were living at his house in the city. Two of these separately told the Guardian that Christie would often pick up other street boys, who would be taken home for a shower and given five birr, around 40p.
Other men were also involved. Tdh has cited the name of Kim Moreby, an Englishman from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, who it says was involved in the abuse of at least two of its beneficiaries.
The Guardian spoke to Yehalew Alebachew, now 18 but only 15 when he was assaulted by Moreby. His, like that of all the other victims, is a tale of broken trust and promises. Yehalew, who now works in a restaurant in Addis Ababa, went to live in the children's village 14 years ago. For one year of that time he lived with Christie in his house in Addis, a place he said where people came in and out all the time. It was here that he claims to have been abused.
He said: "The one I had a problem with was Kim Moreby. He said he would take me to Kenya after I graduated from the hotel school. He said that after six months he would come back to Ethiopia and he would give me cameras and clothes, shoes and ties. He wrote this down. He gave me dollars and pounds."
Yehalew discussed the sexual assault in detail and then went on: "Afterwards he left and said "goodnight, I'll see you tomorrow morning". In the morning he left for Kenya. I never saw him again. When I told one of the kids, they started calling me a homosexual."
From letters Moreby wrote to Yehalew, it is clear he was infatuated with the boy. "I was so happy to receive your letter, dearest Yehu, and all you said made me very happy. I enclose a very good photo of you and a bad one of me. I look so old! But you are so young and beautiful," he says in one letter.
Sitting in an Addis cafe, Yehalew concluded: "Other kids can learn from what happened to us. The children in Jari don't know what is good and bad, and they think people are good just because they are white. Any white man to come was seen as a good man. I have lost my trust in all of them."
After a drive through South Wollo's drought-ridden countryside, past the children forced to sell charcoal at the side of the road, Jari children's village is a beautiful relief. Children play, practise juggling or walking a tightrope for their Circus Jari performance, make dough in home economics or simply hang out. There is a hotel school here where guests can stay, served by children who one day hope to graduate to working in a bigger and better place in the city. A total of 944 have lived in this village in the years since it was founded.
Many of the children cannot remember how they came to be at the village, except that their parents' death had a hand in it. The children discovered the word paedophile only in March, when they were officially told what had been going on.
'They said they loved us'
One of the children, Berihun Kebede, said: "We feel very sorry because we are the victims and we are unhappy. If David didn't admit it himself, no one would have told on him. They told us they liked us and loved us, and we didn't know it was wrong - Christie was like our father. Everybody liked him and trusted him and loved him. We don't have a mother or a father and we are poor, and they took advantage of us. We feel betrayed. We were very proud to be Tdh children and now we are ashamed. We don't want anyone to think we have been sexually abused."
In an attempt to repair the damage, Tdh has appointed a clinical psychologist, Tizita Gebreu, who returned to Ethiopia two years ago having spent most of her time working with sex abuse victims in Sweden. She has been devastated by what she has learned through talking to the children, and she says the original denials by Tdh has confused the children.
"I had one session with one boy - it was so traumatic for him I had to sit up with him all night, and he kept having blackouts," she said.
From her work with children and staff she has concluded that paedophiles targeted the organisation and that they had a very tight, closed system. "They were almost working a dictatorship here." It was clear, she added, that the children were longing for love and that Christie and others took advantage of their needs.
Shaking her head, she said: "I suspect I will find a lot more victims. It could be more than we think. We will just have to give it time."