65° SUNNY, Belarusian girl sparks international incident
Last Modified: Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 9:15 p.m.
A 16-year-old girl visiting Petaluma as part of a summer exchange program apparently has refused to return home to Belarus, touching off an international dispute and threatening the future of a program meant to help young people living in the shadow of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Tatsiana “Tanya” Kazyra, who has been visiting the same host family for nine summers, failed to show up Tuesday at San Francisco International Airport for the flight with her group back to her country, said Diane Decicio, president of the Petaluma-based Chernobyl Children’s Project.
Decicio said she received a letter from a San Francisco immigration lawyer saying the girl has applied for an extension of her visitor status and would remain in the United States to await a ruling.
Her hosts, Manuel and Debbie Zapata, could not be reached for comment. No one was present Thursday afternoon at the Zapata home in east Petaluma.
“I know they love her dearly, but it’s not part of the program,” Decicio said outside the Petaluma Police Department, where officials from the Belarus consulate and the U.S. Department of State were meeting. “We are totally in support of sending her back.”
Reuters news service reported Wednesday from the Belarus capital of Minsk that authorities in the nation formerly part of the Soviet Union had demanded that U.S. officials return the girl. According to the news service, U.S. Embassy officials said they were working with the Belarusians to accomplish the return.
Relations between Belarus and the West have deteriorated in recent years amid accusations of violations of basic freedoms. Relations with the United States are especially strained.
The teenager’s decision to stay effectively postponed the return of 24 other Belarussian children ages 7 to 17 and two adult chaperones who had arrived with her June 26 to join families in Sonoma and Marin counties, Decicio said.
The chaperones, both Belarus citizens, initially said they would not go back without her because they would face arrest, Decicio said. But late Thursday they received word they could return with the remaining children and not be prosecuted, Decicio said.
One chaperone is to remain in Petaluma until the matter is resolved, Decicio said.
Anxious host families and their charges were outside the police station Thursday, awaiting an update. A Russian television crew stood by as lawyers and government officials from both sides ducked in and out of the meeting. A Belarus official said it was her last year of eligibility for the program.
Some of the children said they were surprised Kazyra was planning to stay. She lives with her grandmother in the town of Borisov, near Minsk, and loves to dance and sing, they said.
Tanya Siniutskaya, 13, said she hung out with the teen during a trip last week to UC Berkeley. She recalled joking and laughing with her.
“I have no idea why she did this,” she said, sitting on a curb outside the police station. “She never talked about it.”
The Chernobyl Children's Project was founded in 1991, five years after the Ukrainian nuclear disaster that spread fallout across parts of Eastern Europe. Chernobyl is near the southern border of Belarus.
Organizers said the program is meant to give kids respite from contamination that has been blamed for dozens of deaths.
Decicio said kids compare the experience of traveling from Belarus to Sonoma County as “like going from black and white to color TV.”
“It’s very bleak,” she said. “But none of these kids are orphans.”
Marin and Sonoma families have been hosting children for about 17 years. Some return to attend college but none have stayed.
Rosey Erickson of Petaluma, a host for the past four years, worried the controversy could doom the program. A similar program in Italy was shut down after host family tried to hide a 10-year-old who they believed had been mistreated in a Belarus orphanage.
Erickson said the Zapatas had been trying to find a way to adopt the girl for the past few years.
“We understand the emotional ties they have,” Erickson said. “But we aren’t happy with the way they are doing this.”
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August 7, 2008 9:35:32 pm
RE: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080807/NEWS/706509798
If the feds sent back Elian Gonzalez, then they have to send her back, after all, fair is fair, or wait, fair and law has nothing to do with anything nowadays. She is entitled to millions of dollars, free healthcare, a free car, a free home, free education, free clothes, free food, until she becomes a citizen, then she has to pay for everyone else....
August 7, 2008 9:46:47 pm
As a host family of a Belarussian child our life has been put on hold while this situation is sorted out. The Zapata family has negatively impacted over 50 families in the US and Belarus, put the Belrussian chaperones future in question, and put an organization that has been dedicated to helping these children imagine a better future and improve their health in jeopardy. This family had other avenues to pursue this, and opportunities to return the child. Instead they selfishly without regard for all the other people involved have pursued keeping her and the rest of us waiting for resolution.
August 7, 2008 10:25:05 pm
well i do not know the political structure of this country but here is the case of elian gonzales to remind a few:
our nation's policy has always maintained that no child be returned to a communist nation justifying it due in part that they view them property of the "state". Of course our country finds this untenable.
Using this in the rulings in the courts in florida the Clinton administration continually lost in trying to aid in elian being returned to cuba.in typical clintonista fashion since they could not win legally in a court of law they unleashed "illegally" the federal ATF to kidnap and break u.s. law and returned him to cuba who is still using him as a propaganda tool to stick in our eye.
don't forget when the democrats position wins in court they fight like a wildcat to keep appeals from taking place and claim immediate victory.But we saw in soviet style justice under Willie that the courts mean nothing if they lose.
Given that; if this government is not overtly communist and does not look at children as property of the state she has little chance of staying here unless:
she claims other recognized reasons such as political dissident; fear of reprisal or religious freedoms being denied.
August 7, 2008 10:47:37 pm
"Instead they selfishly without regard for all the other people involved have pursued keeping her and the rest of us waiting for resolution."
How is it selfish if they're trying to provide a better life for a child who has NO FUTURE in a Communist country? Belarus is ruled under the thumb of a dictator. There is no religious freedom. There is certainly no way of cutting through the red tape. The relationship between the US and Belarus is strained to almost the breaking point, as our government is vehemently opposed to the LACK OF BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS IN THEIR COUNTRY.
If you can provide a more reasonable means of providing this child with a better future using the *normal* routes of navigating foreign policy, please enlighten them.I hope everything works out for this family and the girl they're fighting for. I know it's not a popular view right now, but some people still think America is a country to be proud of. A place where people would like to come to build a better life for themselves and their future by escaping tyranny and oppression in their homelands. And taking advantage of a visa that is still valid and using the legal system to aid that journey seems to be extremely in line with what you say this organization stands for. Why would you help children improve their health and imagine a better future to send them back to a place where both are unattainable? Doesn't that sound a little hypocritical?
August 7, 2008 11:03:14 pm
Belarus is a presidential republic, governed by a president and the National Assembly. In accordance with the constitution, the president is elected once in five years. The National Assembly is a bicameral parliament comprising the 110-member House of Representatives (the lower house) and the 64-member Council of the Republic (the upper house). The House of Representatives has the power to appoint the prime minister, make constitutional amendments, call for a vote of confidence on the prime minister, and make suggestions on foreign and domestic policy. The Council of the Republic has the power to select various government officials, conduct an impeachment trial of the president, and accept or reject the bills passed by the House of Representatives. Each chamber has the ability to veto any law passed by local officials if it is contrary to the Constitution of Belarus.[29] Since 1994, Alexander Lukashenko has been the president of Belarus. The government includes a Council of Ministers, headed by the prime minister. The members of this council need not be members of the legislature and are appointed by the president. The judiciary comprises the Supreme Court and specialized courts such as the Constitutional Court, which deals with specific issues related to constitutional and business law. The judges of national courts are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Council of the Republic. For criminal cases, the highest court of appeal is the Supreme Court. The Belarusian Constitution forbids the use of special extra-judicial courts.[29]
House of Government in Minsk, with a statue to Vladimir Lenin in the foregroundAs of 2007, 98 of the 110 members of the House of Representatives are not affiliated with any political party and of the remaining twelve members, eight belong to the Communist Party of Belarus, three to the Agrarian Party of Belarus, and one to the Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus. Most of the non-partisans represent a wide scope of social organizations such as workers' collectives, public associations and civil society organizations. Neither the pro-Lukashenko parties, such as the Belarusian Socialist Sporting Party and the Republican Party of Labor and Justice, nor the People's Coalition 5 Plus opposition parties, such as the Belarusian People's Front and the United Civil Party of Belarus, won any seats in the 2004
August 7, 2008 11:27:25 pm
Funny, I read that Wikipedia article too. I would think, however, that a president who amends the law of reelection so that he can stay in a position of power indefinitely just might cross the line into dictator.
But you're right, saying Lukashenko is a communist implies that he values everyone's freedoms equally, when clearly he is doing the direct opposite of that.
August 8, 2008 12:09:34 am
I can't believe someone would defend this action's selfishness.It is selfish because this ill-reasoned if well-meaning attempt to secure one individual more time here in this great land is potentially destroying an organization that has been able to bring a great number of children here for a time for the last 18 years... and means 20 or 30 kids a year from now on won't be allowed to come experience this land. It is selfish because it directly put the interpreter-chaperones in direct peril of imprisonment and loss of livelihood. And it is selfish because it makes it that more likely that others of the many similar organizations around the world bringing children out of Belarus are less likely to be allowed to continue to do so.
August 8, 2008 1:09:35 am
A corrupt government is no better than a democratically elected government. All government is the immoral use of force. Human rights and individuality trump all your excuses to abuse me and victimize me! I will not be told what to do as long as I keep my hands to myself and earn what I want in life.
August 8, 2008 2:02:00 am
So without considering the fact that the return of Gonzalez may have been illegal, do you think that he should not have been returned?
I was do not personally remember that incident, as I was quite young at the time, and didn't read the news much. I have only read about it since then.
August 8, 2008 2:06:28 am
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ? That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . ."
Unfortunately, things don't always turn out this way. Nevertheless,
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
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