Belgium seeking answers to horror

WHEN Chinese officials were confronted recently by EU ministers about human rights abuses they went on the offensive: What about Northern Ireland, they asked pointedly. Who are you to preach? What about the abductions and torture of children in Belgium?

The link is shocking and inappropriate. But there is, nonetheless, a more profound question that does deserve an answer.

Indeed, since the dreadful events became known, many ordinary Belgians have asked themselves - whether their state is in essence no more than an accomplice of Marc Dutroux. It failed to protect and vindicate the rights of children and their parents - either through gross negligence or, in part, perhaps, through the protection by its agents of paedophiles.

The question is at the heart of the trauma suffered by Belgium over its paedophile scandals - the shocking failures of officialdom have compounded the depravity of Dutroux, shaking the faith of the public in the whole system of justice.

How could it happen? Today, what has become known as the "Dutroux Commission", established by MPs to answer this question, will publish its 300 page report on the handling of the children's cases. The expectation is that names will be named and wide ranging reforms proposed.

For the families, the whole dreadful saga began several years ago. Loubna Benaissa, whose body was found only two months ago 200 yards from her home, was kidnapped in 1992, others more recently. For the public, however, although they had become used to the pictures of two eight year old missing girls in shop windows, the date of August 13th, 1996, and the discovery of two surviving captives will stay forever etched in the memory.

Dutroux, his wife, Michelle Martin, and two accomplices were arrested. Their interrogation led to the discovery of the bodies of four abused girls and that of another accomplice who had been drugged and buried alive by Dutroux.

A further eight children are still missing in suspicious circumstances and the suspicion of the families, confirmed within days, was that the authorities had not treated the cases with due care and attention.

THIS sense of public outrage was reinforced when the instructing magistrate, Jean Marc Connerotte, who had shown his determination to get at the truth, was dismissed from the inquiry for attending a fund raising spaghetti dinner for the families of the missing.

In October, 300,000 would converge on the streets of Brussels for the "white march" extracting promises from the government of widespread reform.

The case against Dutroux, assembled by 50 investigators, is unlikely to come to trial before the end of the year.

But the parliamentary committee into the handling of the cases has presided over a remarkable series of 280 hours of televised hearings since it started its work in October.

The picture so far is one of systemic failure rather than corruption. The hearings saw police blame the investigating magistrates and vice versa.

This is also a story of incompetence of quite breathtaking proportions, dressed up at the hearings as failures of training and resource shortages.

The most likely targets for the committee's wrath are Rene Michaux, the gendarmerie officer in Charleroi, charged with the main investigation, and the high handed Liege juge d'instruction, Martine Doutrewe.

Mr Michaux stood in the Dutroux cellar in December 1995 during a half hearted search for the missing children and heard the sound of children's voices. He assumed they were in the street, he told the inquiry. Their bodies were found eight months later.

Mr Michaux also appears to have kept no proper records of his investigation, failed to list objects found in a search, and failed to investigate reports of a man in a white Mercedes taking photographs of children in a school playground.

Mrs Doutrewe, the instructing judge who was supposed to oversee the whole inquiry, left for her holidays before visiting the crime scene or appointing an officer to head the inquiry. She also failed to keep written records of the few meetings she held with investigators and approved the critical decision to hive off to other police forces the questioning of key suspects.

THE result was inter police rivalry as the gendarmerie conducted its own quite separate investigation into Dutroux over car thefts with virtually no judicial supervision or contact.

And while Dutroux was being considered a suspect by the gendarmerie as early as December 1995, Mrs Doutrewe also chose to ignore information provided to her at the same time that he was building hides in his home to conceal abducted children...

Sections of the MPs' draft report leaked to the press in recent days suggest it will sharply criticise the arrogance and complacency of many of those involved. But it will also call for a fundamental reform and streamlining of the three overlapping police forces. It is also likely to savage police and investigating magistrates' training methods and the internal procedures for appointing officers to missing child cases.