Kiss The Ass You Can Not Kick

Why should the legality or illegality of intercountry adoption of Romanian children be of concern, or a matter for debate, in the Congress of the United States? Heck if I know, but it is. Evidently, Romanian children are popular here, more than likely with white would be adoptive parents who don’t feel comfortable with the idea of adopting Southeast Asian, Indian, Latin American, or African children. Or it could be a simple matter of the overwhelming numbers of Romanian children availiale, and in dire need.

Yet, the European Union seemingly has a problem with the idea, and the ostensible reason is the prevalence of child traffciking, the implication here being the on-going child sex trade. If so, this is indeed a problem, and so it is a legitimate reason. The unspoken reality is there are doutless other reasons as well, and I tend to suspect that one of those reasons-probably, in fact, the most important one-is health concerns.

In the early 1990’s, immediately folliwng the overthrow and execution of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu and his wife Elena, it was discovered that approaching 100,000 Romanian children had been orphaned and placed into state run orphanages, dire places that were filthy and underfunded, and as a result greatly understaffed and underequipped. Over course of time there developed a need for blood transfusions, and, as fate would have it, a great many Romanian children became infected with HIV-and then full blown AIDS. This was supposed to be due to the lack of adequate care and supervision in the hospitals as to the quality of the testing for the virus.

Which of course begs the question, how many Romanian children needed blood transfusions, and why? Was there also blatant disregard for the basic rules of hygiene and sterilization techniques, to the extent that needles were infected, and rarely cleaned. Was there some degree of sexual abuse at these orphanages that resulted in aiding in the spread.

Finally, was Ceaucescu himself responsible? His wife Elena entertained pretensions of being a great scientist and researcher, though as it turns out her credentials were all “honorary”-and thus fraudulaent. Having throughout the years o ftheir misrule encouraged Romanian couples to have as many children as possible, which resulted in this horrendous number of orphans (as wel as, presumably, great number of children who were simply given up due to their parents inability to care for them) I have to wonder if the Ceaucescus might not have been involved purposefully with the Romanian AIDS epidemic. Might they have been purposefully testing possible AIDS cures and using the nations own children as guinea pigs-literally?

It would not be that unusual for them. Ceaucescu himself was always on the lookout for ways to enhance Romanian status in the world, and to this end, under his rule, Romania became the fourth largest donor of international aid in the world. He was constantly offerring his diplomatic services to such endeavors as mediation in Middle East peace talks, for example. Not a year went by that he was not nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, though this was due to the efforts of his supporters. His personailty cult was the most extensive and pervasive in all of Communist Eastern Europe, during his heyday. Even Richard Nixon made references to Ceaucescu as “the good communist”. He went out of his way to establish his personna among his people, and the world, as a maverick who would not be intimidated by the Kremlin. He would insure that Romanias interests would come first and foremost insofar as both domestic and foreign policies were concerned.

Unfortunately, his grandiose spending and totalitarianism combined to suck the life blood from Romania and it’s economy. He was in every conceivable way a modern day Romanian Dracula. Where the harshness of Vlad The Impaler may have been a necessary catharsis, however, in the face of Ottoman oppression, the repressive regime of Nicolae and Elena Ceaucescu served to set developent back by decades. Romania has yet to sufficiently recover, and as a result, there are still tens of thousands of children, at least, either in institutions, or homeless.

There should be a way for these children to be adopted while insuring that adoptive parents, here and elsewhere, are aware of the status of their health. More importantly, a fresh influx of development capital and humanitarian aid into the country,with the proper oversight, should be tantamount to solving this problem to whatever extent is possible-not just containing the problem, but solving it.

This shouldn’t even be a matter for U.S. concern. But no doubt it will become so. The nations of Europe should be at the forefront of taking the initiative to solve it. Unfortunately, much as in everything else, they are probably waiting for the U.S. to take the lead. Until we do, it looks like European policy will not be one of changing the regime of misery, but of containing it.