CAVADA AND GIBAULT CONFUSE ROMANIAN ORPHANS WITH GOODS

From Adevarul -- November 10, 2006

CAVADA AND GIBAULT CONFUSE ROMANIAN ORPHANS WITH GOODS

by Dana Filipescu

Several europarliamentarians are desperately trying to re-ignite the international scandal regarding the situation of orphaned children in Romania and the scandal regarding the re-opening of international adoptions. Yesterday in Brussels, Europarliamentarians Jean Marie Cavada and Claire Gibault held a long public conference which included the European press. The announced theme of the conference was "A European Policy Regarding Adoption". Instead, they concentrated on the issue of re-opening international adoptions of Romanian children. The organizers of the conference believed that the moratorium which stopped international adoptions and which was imposed upon Romania by the European Parliament, is "foolish stupidity". These two Europarliamentarians had invited Franco Frattini, the vice-president of the European Commission, to speak. He spoke about the progress made by Romania with regard to the situation of abandoned children and also about the possibility of some recommendations on the part of the European Union concerning adoptions within EU territory. Theodora Bertzi said, "Romania was backed into a corner," and was presented as being in a situation which was painful and sad regarding the orphan children from Romania and this was used as a reason for re-opening international adoptions. A film was presented by ITN, which showed some old footage of the Ungureni orphanage which was, in fact, closed in 2001. Another tactic which was absolutely unusual, was that the two Romanian officials present at the conference, Theodora Bertzi and Bogdan Panait, were not allowed to be on the platform. They were allowed to give their point of view at 5:00 with the closing of the conference coming at 5:50 p.m. The French Europarliamentarian Cavada, was very tense and repeatedly made some extremely grave accusations toward the Romanian authorities. He believes that they lie and give false reports as well as threatened journalists with lawsuits if they make even the smallest reference to international adoptions in a favorable light.

In addition to this, another completely unusual action for a conference of Europarliamentarians was to ask Roelie Post to leave the conference room because she "had become aggressive toward a little girl from a Romania orphanage". Roelie Post is a permanent functionary who has worked at the European Commission for 23 years and who for the last eight years has dealt with files concerning orphaned children from Romania. She maintains that she was merely trying to speak to the little girl who was crying. She said that she had to notify the Belgian police and the security forces of the European Commission about the intimidation and harassment that she received from representatives of the international adoptions lobbies. Theodora Bertzi declared, "I believe that they want to re-open adoptions from Romania because the corruption involved in this system is only dormant and has not been completely eradicated. I believe that it is injurious to compare international adoptions with the free movement of people, services and goods. We have lost track of tens of thousands of adopted children. To date, the number is approximately 30,000 children from 1990 - 2001."

This is one of the comments to this article:

Comment by George Enescu

"Bertzi is Delirious"

Isn't it in fact Bertzi who is always speaking about the export of children as goods? And now all of a sudden it's an injurious expression? It is plain that she got made because the truth was told. And especially since the Romanian press abounds with horrible stories about the treatment of children in Romania. But why is she so upset that they lost track of 30,000 children who were adopted abroad? Doesn't Mrs. Bertzi know that when a child is adopted in another county he receives the citizenship of that country? What does Mrs. Bertzi really want? Does she want Romania to spy on these children in their adoptive families? I think that her fury at not being given an important place at the conference has blinded her. You know, she has become used to so many praises from false admirers......