Following an incident with a Belarusian girl Tania
Kazyra, who decided to stay in the US with
Zapata family this summer the issue of foreign recuperation travel of
Belarusian children still remains open. While the Irish Chernobyl organizations
talk about the ban on recuperation travel for Chernobyl
children to the European countries by the Belarusian authorities, the German
Chernobyl initiatives witness they have not faced such ban yet. There are lots of
complexities however
According to
the latest information that the radio ‘Liberty’ gathered from the
representatives of German Chernobyl initiatives, the renewal of the
recuperation programmes for Belarusian children depends on signing relevant
bilateral agreements at the governmental level. It remains unclear when such
signing will take place. In any case, a draft agreement has been prepared by
the German Foreign Ministry, according to German sources, and it should be
considered however not yet. They say that several paragraphs of the Belarusian
draft raise certain concerns of their German and not only German counterparts due
to the fact that they require certain amendments to the existing legislation.
It relates to state’s interference into affairs of civil organizations. For instance,
a requirement of the Belarusian authorities that only children under 14 years
old should be allowed to go abroad in organized groups and that the number of overall
trips of a child to a particular family should not be greater than three.
Guisto-Bornacinfamily
The only country that still
implements Chernobyl Programmes is Italy. Relevant
bilateral agreements were signed between the governments of Italy and Belarus in this
regard following the incident with Vika Maroz. In September 2006, after
spending her vacations in the Italian family Giusto- Bornacin, this orphan did
not arrive back to the Genoa airport to
take off for home along with a group of Belarusian children. For twenty days
she was kept by the Italians in one of the hospitals in the Alps.
Actually the case of Vika Maroz is
still being widely discussed in Italy. Proceedings
in a Genoa court vs the
family clone Guisto-Gornacin and two priests that helped to hide Vika are
lasting for over a year. The accused are supported by a number of prominent
children’s rights protection organizations of Italy and by
prominent politicians. However the stand of the powerful Italian civil movement
“Chernobyl Children” as it was stated by its representatives is not to mix-up
recuperation and human sentiments. Following the case of Vika Moroz, the recuperation
programmes for Belarusian children in Italy were
suspended. Representatives of the Chernobyl movement
condemned the actions of the family and stood for signing relevant agreements
with the Belarusian authorities that would ensure guarantees of return of Belarusian
children back to their homeland.
In fact, such position was also
supported by the Chernobyl initiatives
from the USA and Northern
Ireland following an incident with another Belarusian
schoolgirl Tania Kazyra, who decided to stay in the US with Zapata
family this summer. Representatives of the Chernobyl movements are calling upon
their governments to find compromises with the Belarusian side in order to continue
implementing such programmes in the future on principle, due to the fact that
they believe that is ‘the only chance for children from the internationally isolated
Belarus to see the rest of the world”.
In the meantime the proceedings in Genoa court with
regard to the case of Vika Moroz were adjourned again and will continue only in
the February 2009. The crucial moment is that the main plaintiff and the
initiator of the proceedings, the Belarusian side, that was firstly accusing
Italians of one of the most serious crimes – kidnapping, refused to take part
in the hearings. As a result the judges are left to deal with the accused only.
The Italian media reports that all seven figurants of the case presented
their arguments already. All: the Italian couple and their parents and two
priests confirmed under the oath that Vika Maroz borderline suicidal just
before her planned trip back home, to the orphanage. Therefore Italians, as
they said themselves, made this tough decision to hide the girl in order to rescue
her.
Some Italian psychologists witnessed while being questioned in the course
of hearings as experts that the deportation back home that followed, affected
the psychological state of the girl. For over two years Vika can not see those
she called ‘mother’ and ‘father’, she misses her Italian family every day.
