FAQs: Responses to Questions Raised With ADA on Adoptions in Guatemala

The following is based on frequently asked questions that ASSOCIATION DEFENDERS OF ADOPTION (ADA) receives from parents whose adoption process were supposed to be grandfathered when the Adoptions Law made new adoptions impossible in Guatemala.

Question: The Guatemalan Solicitor General (Procuradoría General de la Nación or PGN) initiated new adoption procedures, including interviews with the birth mothers. Are those interviews legal?

Answer: No, the Attorney General has no legislative powers and by establishing such interviews as an additional step that according to the PGN has to be fulfilled, under threats of not releasing the adoption file or taking other kind of measures, the Attorney General is braking the law that orders the PGN to issue an opinion within three days.

Question: Since the interviews started taking place, has the PGN approved and released any cases?

Answer: Yes, the PGN has released some approved cases, but not all the cases that were approved by the former authorities have been released and not all the cases that had successful interviews have been released, either. Some cases have been released, where the reviewer demands the presentation of documents already in the file or the fulfillment of requirement without legal grounds. Those requirements are referred as previos, and there is no limit to the number of them.

Question: Why is the National Council on Adoption (CNA) involved in the registration of the transition cases?

Answer: The new adoption law which ended the notarial adoption process and established the legal requisites for Guatemala’s Hague-complaint adoption system specifically protected notarial adoption cases initiated prior to the law’s December 31, 2007 effective date. However, it stated that those cases would only be processed according to notarial procedures if they were registered with the Guatemalan Central Authority for the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-Operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption within 30 working days of the law’s effective date. It established that the Consejo Nacional de Adopciones is the Central Authority for Guatemala. As the Central Authority, the CNA is responsible for ensuring that the duties of the Convention are implemented in Guatemala. Since the Notarial adoptions do not have to be Hague Compliant, the notarial adoptions are out of the scope of the CNA, and therefore, their involvement has no legal justification. The former Attorney General, made that very clear and that is why he was removed. The current AG is willing to allow anything that the CNA wants.

Question: What is the U.S. Embassy doing to make sure that the Government of Guatemala doesn’t add new requirements to transition cases (those that were registered with the National Council on Adoption (CNA) before February 12, 2008)?

Answer: The US Embassy is not doing anything. The establishment of the birth mother interviews, the involvement of the CNA in the grandfathered adoptions and the taking by force and without a court order of children being adopted are clear displays of abuse of power that deny the rights of the adoptive parents to have their adoptions completed according to the laws effective until December 30, 2007. The birth mothers have consistently complained about the verbal abuse that they have to endure at the interviews, of the false offers of economical help, a house, medical and education aid that the interviewers offer them if they claim their children back, and how they make them sign blank papers. The US embassy denies all these facts and even though the interviews have no legal grounds, the US embassy refuses to demand that the CAN stays out of those adoptions, and that the PGN respects the grandfather clause and releases the files in a timely manner without asking for illegal and sometimes impossible to fulfill requirements.

Question: Is the new review process, including birth mother interviews, changes that the Guatemalan authorities recently implemented for these cases and that are intended to add an additional level of assurance that the requirements of the old law are actually being met?

Answer: No, the so-called review process that the Colom appointed PGN made mandatory is a clear abuse of power that has a different agenda. The review done by the PGN does not include a birthmother and child interview and much less, the participation of the CNA, and entity that has no legal right to be involved in the approval of cases initiated before the Adoptions Law became effective.

Question: We have heard that during the birth mother interviews, Guatemalan officials are offering money to the birth mothers as an inducement to withdraw their relinquishment and keep their children? Is this true? Who is present during these interviews and is anyone protecting the rights of the birth mothers?

Answer: The birth mothers are grilled by the officials from the PGN and the CNA. Those activities described are not standard practice for these interviews, but happen very often. Even the written acts of the interviews, signed by the people who conducts the interviews, state that the notary was asked to leave, leaving the birthmother alone with them, and the presence of the psychologist is to aid their goal of derailing the adoption. There is nobody to help the birthmother, not even professional translators. When an indigenous birthmother who does not speak Spanish is brought for interrogation, even if she brings a translator, the interviewers do not allow her to use her translator, bringing instead theirs, who is a cleaning lady who works at the PGN and if she does not speak the same language as the birthmother, as there are at least 21 Mayan languages, the child is taken away, as it has happened in at least two cases.

Question: After these new birth mother interviews, have any adoptions been invalidated? What is happening to these children?

Answer: The PGN has not the right to invalidate anything. According to the law, the PGN has to give an opinion that can approve the adoption, or require the fulfillment of additional requirements. If the notary disagrees with the opinion of the PGN, the case may be submitted to the Family Judge, who can disregard the opinion of the PGN and approve the case. A year ago, when the PGN realized that they were loosing control (and bribes) because the judges were approving adoptions, overruling the objections of the PGN, the judges were falsely accused in the press and intimidated by the bad and powerful publicity of Prensa Libre, with the result that now the judges are totally reluctant to approve adoption cases.

Question: When the PGN finds grounds to disapprove an adoption, what is the legal way to approach that situation and how is the PGN handling it now?

Answer: If the PGN finds grounds to disapprove an adoption, it must state so in the opinion that it has to issue within three days. The way they handle it now, it depends if the reason is found during an interview, the PGN interviewers take away the child, ripping him by force of the arms of the birth mother, caregiver or hogar director, then the child is taken to a court of Childhood and Adolescence, where the judge plays along, validating the rescue (as it is called) done by the PGN. Those judges who refuse to do it and give the children back to the hogars or to the caregivers, do not get any of those cases any more and are subject to investigation.

If the grounds to disapprove the adoption are found while reviewing the file, it can be sent to the section of minors of the PGN for investigation, which can take many months and sometimes even years, without notifying the notary, or the adoptive parents. If the investigation does not bring to the light anything wrong, the file is sent back to the reviewer, to find new reasons to object, as to justify the delay in releasing the file.

Question: Does the Procuraduria de la Niñez (Children’s Issues) of PGN, have investigative powers in the adoption processes?

Answer: Yes, but only after a judge has started a process of protection of the rights of a child and only with regard to those processes, not within an adoption process. If the PGN believes that a felony has been committed, they should refuse approval and present a denounce to the District Attorney. To conduct their own investigation is another abuse of power and a takeover of the role of another entity.

Question: Does the PGN have the power to remove a child from the home/foster family where s/he had been staying and place him in a child protection home designated by a Children’s and Adolescents’ Court Judge.
Answer: Nobody has to right to separate a child form his parents or caregivers against their will, only a judge, after he has verified that the child is subjected to mistreatment or neglect. Therefore, to take by force a child because under duress the birth mother said something that in the opinion of the interviewers does not sound right, is an absolute abuse of power ant the fact that a judge validates that, only proves how overpowering the PGN is, not that what they are doing is right.

Question: Is there any way to find out where a child has been taken after a hostile takeover by the PGN?
Answer: Since the people who cared for the child or the birthmother are not being taken into account, the court refuses to disclose to them the place where the child has been taken and even if they do it, to see the child it is necessary to file a written petition to see the child, which can be granted or denied by the judge. And even if the permission to see the child is granted, the new place where the child is, can refuse to allow visitors, because according to their by laws, visitors are allowed only one day each month, and that day was yesterday, for example.

. Question: Is there a special process for handling the following specific kinds of adoption cases:
• Special instances of adoptions that were in process but not registered as on-going cases before the February 12, 2008, deadline?
• Medical emergencies?
• Abandonments?
Answer: Under current Guatemalan law, any adoption case that was not registered before the February 12 deadline will be processed under the provisions stipulated in the new adoption law. But since the CNA and the PGN show absolute no respect for the February 12 deadline, that also ran out for the verifying process (Article 57 of the Adoption Law), and which is the cornerstone of the birthmother interviews, the CNA should register cases of children who were born last year, with the same ample mind that allows them to totally disregard their own deadline.

Medical emergencies are handled privately by the people who care for the children and there is no need to get an authorization from any State entity to do it, since they are not willing to provide any relief, anyway.
The abandonment processes of children started before the Adoption Law, can follow the same grandfather protection if they were registered with the CNA and if they were not, we state that they can still be registered, because deadlines are not being observed by the CNA.

Question: My lawyer is telling me that a child has been identified for me and that Guatemalan authorities are willing to process this case under the new law. Will my child qualify for an immigrant visa?

Answer: Under Guatemala Adoption Laws effective December 31, 2007, lawyers cannot refer children for adoption; all referrals must be made by the Guatemalan National Council for Adoption (CNA). The CNA is the Guatemalan Central Authority for Intercountry Adoptions and six months later is still trying to develop the procedures for referring children for intercountry adoption. After December 31, 2007, and until these new procedures are established and clarified, it would be unwise to accept any offer or make any payments for placement of an adoptive child from Guatemala.

Since the elimination of the notarial process was unconstitutional, a challenge before the Constitutional Court was filed some months ago. Its final ruling is due any day now and it will restore the notarial process, allowing those foreign parents whose government allowed them to adopt abroad (valid !- 600 for the Americans), to adopt a child. As soon as that happens, we will post it here. We hope that the US embassy does not use the visa card on the magistrates of the Constitutional Court, to influence the outcome, as they did with the congressmen to get the Adoptions Law passed. Since the number of parents who filed and kept valid their I-600 is rather small, the number of adoptions would also be limited.

Question: What can I do about the case of the child I am adopting and whose file has been stuck at the PGN for over a month?

Answer: The law says that when the authorities do not issue the opinion that by law they are obligated to give, in over a month, the petitioner can file an amparo to demand that they release the file. If everybody who is in that situation would do it, the PGN would understand that they cannot hold the files for as long as they want. It is an uphill battle, because in Guatemala the relief can be granted at the beginning of the amparo process or the court can wait until they hear arguments from all the interested parties, including the Ministerio Publico. Usually the courts take many months to rule on the amparo. In case they deny it, the appeal is filed at the Constitutional Court.

The amparo should not be confused with the judicial review that the Family Courts may do of the objections by the PGN. A year ago, after a merciless attack by the press to one of the judges who disregarded the previos of the PGN and approved several cases, the rest of the judges do not dare to touch the adoption processes and the Court of Appeals of the Family branch has sided with the PGN, leaving to the the PGN the freedom to object to whatever they want, and leaving the adoptive parents at the mercy of the PGN.

Question: Will I be able to bring home the child I am adopting and whose process seems to find countless obstacles?

Answer: If your place of residence is the United States, request the help of the authorities of your country, because even if the US DOS states that the review process is necessary, it is not and it violates the Guatemala laws, constitutes an abuse of power of the CNA and the PGN and foremost, it is hurting the children, by depriving them of the family they need to grow up as normal human beings. The validation of the PGN review process by the US embassy is wrong and your authorities should be made aware of that.

Question: Are there any news about the amparos filed by the lawyers?

Answer: An amparo filed by the director of a hogar was filed to demand: a) the return of a child who was taken away at the interview at the PGN, because even though the child had been ruled abandoned by a court of Childhood and Adolescence, a woman sponsored by a group called Sobrevivientes (Survivors) whose battle cry is the killing of women, but lately switched to attack adoptions with empty cribs and women lamenting the loss of their children for illegal adoptions, claimed that the child looked like the one she lost, even though she could not tell the same story twice and could not remember the date when she lost her child; b) to rule about the legality of the interviews and c) to order the PGN to release the files of the children t the hogar that has been withholding for over a month. The court, as usual, refused to grant the petitions, so an appeal was filed last Friday.

Other amparos have been filed by birthmothers whose children were taken by force at the PGN and they are still pending resolution.

Question: Will adoptions from Guatemala open again sometime?

Answer: If it is left to the CNA, adoptions do not stand a chance. They have no idea of how to do them and are not prepared to supply the level of child care that the lawyers and hogars have supplied thus far. When the private hogars close, and the children stop being cared for privately, the CNA will have to find the way to duplicate those services or simply close down their office, because without the income of adoptions, and with an unreasonable law that expects that the private institutions have a highly qualified staff, excellent facilities, nutritious food, and proper medical care but dos not allow them to charge for their services, it is highly unlikely that many of them will remain open.

Question: Is it likley that the child I am adopting will come home?

Answer: Provided there is nothing really wrong with the adoption process and the birth mother does not claim the child back, yes, the chances are that your child will go home, even if now it looks so unlikely. Do not loose the faith and keep demanding collaboration from your authorities, that in an election year are so willing to be in the good graces of the voters. Remind them that the vote of an adoptive parent could the deciding vote.

THE ABUSES OF THE PGN

Just when we thought that we had seen it all, the PGN/CNA amazes us with a new display of abuse of power of the worst kind. On Friday May 31st. was scheduled the interview of two unrelated children, a boy and a girl, who were separately ruled abandoned by a Judge of the Childhood and Adolescence, with the favorable opinion of the PGN, and are being adopted by the same couple. Trusting that the judicial abandonment sentence of the children would protect them from any dangers at the PGN, the director of the orphanage went to the interview with one of the caregivers of the hogar and the notary. As soon as she got to the PGN, a group of the people brought by Fundacion Sobrevivientes followed them from the entrance to the basement. They were made to wait, while the mob, formed by men and women stood near by. After an hour of waiting, the notary asked Estela Torres, the PGN employee who is in charge, to go ahead with the interview. They were moved to one of the tables were the interviews take place and one of the women of Sobrevivientes came along too. She said that she was positive that the girl is her daughter. The CNA people and the DA delegate told the director of the hogar that her services were no longer needed and that the girl was being transferred to another hogar. The director of the hogar pleaded with them to let the girl stay at the hogar, promising that she would take the girl to the DNA lab and would not object to give her to the woman who claims her if the DNA showed a match. They refused, telling her over and over that she had done right in taking care of the girl for over a year, but now they were taking over. While all this was being discussed, the notary asked the woman how she lost her daughter, and her answer was that she was walking at the Bolivar Avenue, when her daughter was snatched by an unknown person When the director of the hogar asked her a little later the same question, the woman said that she was fooled into giving her. When she was asked when did that happen, she said that she did not remember, but insisted that she was her daughter because she had a tiny mole in a hand, which she happened to mention only after she saw it. An employee of the hogar went to the PGN with a DNA kit to try to get swabs of the alleged birth mother and of the little girl, but the PGN people did not allow it. Even if it was just to find out the truth, they should have allowed it, or even better, they should have the lab people there, to do it right away, since they have been saying that the birthmothers interviews are being done because three girls were stolen. I am sure that those interested in finalizing the adoption would willingly pay for a DNA test rather than have their child taken away from the people who care for such child.

The little girl was taken away by the PGN social worker who refused to let the director talk to her, to calm her down, because the girl was crying and did not even let her take her doll with her. When the PGN social worker saw the tears of the caregiver and the director of the hogar, said that they were giving the girl away into adoption, so she did not believe that they cared for those children or that they feel any love for them. As soon as the alleged birth mother saw the press people, burst into tears, and so did her entourage, in a well coordinated display of emotion, totally oriented towards the lenses of the news people who took them several pictures and eagerly filmed the waterworks.

The case will be brought to a Judge of Childhood and Adolescence who will start another abandonment process to determine if the mother is the birth mother and if she is a suitable option for the girl. Meanwhile, the frightened little girl will be who knows where, waiting for those heartless people to decide her life. If it turns out that the woman is not her mother, what will erase the harm done to the girl and to her adoptive parents? And if it turns out to be the mother, why is that she did not come forward to the court when publications of the picture and court in charge were made in two newspapers? It is understandable that the illiteracy and the poverty may prevent them from buying the newspapers, but the Police and the DA could very well have a collection of all those ads, to show them to those who denounce that their child is missing, and the DNA should be done in the less disruptive way.

The interviews of the birth mothers by the PGN/CNA are ILLEGAL, even if they are smooth and without any problems. To take the children away is ILLEGAL, because the law says that the children can be taken against the will of their parents and caregivers, only with judicial order and the PGN is doing it backwards. They snatch the children, and then go to a judge to validate what they did. The suspension of the adoption process, for whatever reason, is ILLEGAL, because the law very clearly says that the PGN has to give an opinion within three days, and there is no legal provision to justify the extension of that period.

The US Consul (same who passed list at the voting of the Adoptions Law in Congress last year) and Joint Council representatives Tom DiFilipo and Bruce Mossburg, visited the PGN last Tuesday, and it is our understanding that they advocated that the birthmother interviews were done in a respectful way, which misses totally the point that the interviews are illegal and that they should not take place at all. Doing the interviews politely and respectfully does not make them right. The CNA has absolutely nothing to do with grandfathered adoptions after the registration deadline of February 12 and in the remote possibility that they would have shown some interest in the situation of the children who need adoptions, that period also expired on February 12. Right now what they must do is to see how to become Hague Compliant, to be able to give families to all the children who need them and to set up state orphanages to provide the care that the private hoarse have been giving thus far and that no longer will give, once the children who are in them go home sometime this year. We really hope that after closing down a successful system that gave work to many people, provided homes and families to many children and kept older children off the streets, the Guatemalan government steps to the plate and opens nice orphanages, like the private ones that are closing now, and gives the children the food, care, medical attention and families that the lawyers and private institutions will no longer provide.

The press continues to malign the work of the adoption lawyers. Unsubstantiated accusations of coercing the mothers, of tricking them into giving away their children and of taking them by force are still published in one newspaper or another, depending on which was being paid by UNICEF to do their dirty job. A tool for that was the so called study done by an inexistent entity named ILPEC, that UNICEF presented at a big forum against adoptions in 2000, giving the credit for that so called study to such ghost entity as a way to distance UNICEF of what this entity very well knew that was a collection of lies, exaggerations and false accusations. The problem is even though everybody understands that the exception confirms the rule, when the subject is adoptions, it is the other way around. The exception makes the rule. A facilitator does something bad and instead of judging the facilitator, automatically adoptions are placed at the accused stool and people like Juan Carlos Llorca of Associated Press and many others, seize the opportunity to update one of their old articles full of venom about the corruption of adoptions in Guatemala.

What we have been seen and heard at the PGN this past weeks is very much what the media attributed to the lawyers: baby stealing, coercing of birth mothers, total disregard of the law and conning the mothers to make them change their minds, just to yank the children from their foster mothers and send them to the place of their choice, without a court order. It is a pity that neither the US consul nor the JCICS visitors used their influence to request to the PGN to put an end to those abuses that were limited just the day they were at the PGN, but continued as soon as they left. It was a very wasted opportunity to avoid the unnecessary anxiety and grief that this abuse of power is bringing to the waiting parents and to the interviewed mothers and as it was shown on Friday, to the directors of the hogars as well.

Because most Guatemalans would not adopt a child, much less an indigenous looking child, many find very difficult to understand why is that the Americans adopt them. A former PGN director, in her recommendation that the Hague Convention were ratified as soon as possible, wrote: The foreigners adopt children from Guatemala, not because they like them, but because it is easy to do it and we must prevent that. That summarizes the way the people in the government see the adoption of Guatemalan children by foreign citizens and since most of the Guatemalans do not set foot at the hotels where anyone could see that the children being adopted are treated with love by their visiting parents, we understand now that the harassment of the adoptive parents by the police was not only to obtain green papers with portraits of former American presidents, but as a successful way to keep the adoptive parents off the streets, and away from the public eye so they could not see that the children being adopted are loved beyond any physical feature by their adoptive parents.

UNICEF could not prevent the grandfather provision in the Adoptions Law of the in process cases, but it is doing its best to prevent those cases to be finalized. If anyone ever wonder who is paying for the salaries of the interviewers since neither the PGN nor the CNA are doing it, the answer is in the bottomless pockets of UNICEF. After giving to Oscar and Wendy Berger their farewell present for a job well done, regarding the passing of a draconian Adoptions Law, now they have to deal with the stubbornness of those who have been doing everything they can to finalize the adoptions that do not move forward, but seem to go backwards with the collaboration of different characters. Fundacion Sobrevivientes, whose sole purpose is to denounce the killing of women, suddenly turns against adoptions and gets three women who claim that their daughters were stolen and that they know that they are being adopted. Even though we feel sorry for anyone who suffers the loss of a child, to try to find the missing children of three women does not justify to steal as many children as possible every day, at the PGN. When the law does not mean anything to those who have the power and the employees of the PGN can take by force and with the help of the police, a child that is being legally adopted, for groundless reasons or clerical mistakes, the pain that the mothers who want their children to be adopted and the people who are adopting them is much more real than the pain of those women whose flimsy versions of the way they lost their children makes us seriously doubt of the authenticity of their pain and of their stories.

Last week, the reviewers of the PGN were pressured into taking back the already signed approvals by them and by Barrios, and review again the files, searching for anything that could be new previos. We were told that they refused to do so, but in view of the limited number of approved files being released, we are wondering if they caved in and did as they were told.

The order to bring the birthmothers, the children and the biological mothers (even in the case of abandoned children), to the PGN has no legal grounds. According to the Constitution, nobody has to obey an order that is not based on law. The risk of losing a child due to the dirty tricks of the interviewers is ever present. To bring a birthmother to the PGN and have a successful interview is not a guarantee of the file being released soon. The fact that only a few approved files were freed and that two of them belong to an agency that has been questioned and that is under investigation in the US, brings to mind the nagging suspicion that the adoption files have been kidnapped and that only those who pay the ransom are set free. In view of this hostage situation, a stronger plea for help must be filed by the affected US parents with their Congress and Senate members, to bring this matter to the attention of the Secretary of State, to use their almighty power to stop the delays and the trickery and let the adoptions be finalized according to the laws, not to the whims of each reviewer, interviewer or third level bureaucrat of the PGN.

What happened to adoptions?

By Manuel F. Ayau Cordon
(Prensa Libre, June 2, 2008)

An unpleasant misfortune imposed by law to the Guatemalan childhood was the success that UNICEF had (with its lobbying and huge contributions, that rumor has it that they were $900 thousand) to ensure the end of adoptions of abandoned children, success that it also had in other countries who heeded its ghostly stories, leaving thousands of boys and girls without a family and in a situation of wretched poverty, begging and prostitution, when they were not aborted, for lack of homes willing to adopt them. (I remember that the US Government suspended its aid to Unicef form indirectly promoting abortion).
There are many fooled by phrases like “They don’t want the children, because they are no longer a business”. It is a cruel cynicism to speak like that about those who use to give the services of receiving, supporting, sheltering, feeding, providing medicines, dental work, of doctors and education to abandoned children, recovering those expenses with voluntary contributions and with the collection of a fee for lending those services to the abandoned youth.
The term “trade of children” sounds as insidious as if it we criticize that the Press sells news for money or that the Unicef diplomats get money for their services. Regrettably, for reasons that come from very far away, since before Dickens, to earn money has a bad reputation, event though everybody does it, because there is nothing wrong with that and even churches request money ( "donations").
It is known of isolated cases of theft of children in Europe, in the United States and in other countries, where the remedy is not to punish thousands of children, but the few delinquents. Has anyone in Guatemala been punished? Do you know that the foreign adoptions are done mainly (95%) to the US and that its government requires two DNA maternity tests and previous authorization?
It is said that babies are abducted to extract organs, as if this does not require of sanitary facilities, qualified medical staff, compatibility testing and proof of origin and procedure by the recipient, a process difficult to achieve, especially in a clandestine way. If the government knows about this, why they do not apprehend the delinquents? Meanwhile, while more yellow and ghostly the tale is, the more it is liked by the morbid minds.
Now it turns out that only the Government can handle adoptions and, consequently, the private orphanages had to close and according to the Press, the adoptions have stopped, because the Government does not have neither the hogars nor the funds to care for those boys and girls. Taking care of them costs money that formerly was willingly paid, without being a burden to the public funds. Now the new bureaucracy resorts to give their care to “chosen" people who will have to be paid to cover up keeping expenses, etc. Now the people will have to support it with their taxes (Trade?, Business?, Bribes?).
The greatest damage, which obviously they do not care about, has been to deprive so many abandoned young people of a family, of a home to grow up and develop, of an opportunity to get an education, and of a promising future. This law constitutes a cruelty, and should be eliminated, even if that is not liked by the ambassadors of countries and institutions who "help" and that only because they give money they believe that they are entitled to interfere and impose their ideological judgments on what is not of their incumbency.

Who are the real baby snatchers?

More abuses are being reported to ADA by lawyers who took birth mothers to the CNA/PGN interviews. The offers of money, housing, health plans, etc. have moved some of the mothers to take back their children, but instead of giving the children back to their mothers, the children are being taken away to who knows where and when the deceived mothers expressed their intention to continue with the adoptions, since they were not getting the children back and the offers made did not materialize, the interviewers told them that it was too late to change their minds.

Siglo Veintiuno reported yesterday what Nineth Guevara, the director of the Section of Childhood and Adolescence of the PG, calls anomalies the mistakes found in several adoption files. Guevara says that the PGN will file criminal charges against 80 notaries. She is the same woman who took by force a baby girl against the will of her mother and grandparents last October. What the PGN is doing is not only reviewing the cases already approved by Barrios, which is totally illegal, but labeling the mistakes in the files that can be amended and that are cause of rejection for amendment (previos), as anomalies, and the notaries who preside those files, as delinquents. Since there are not legal grounds to prosecute the notaries, there is little chance that the PGN will actually file charges. The so called anomalies are actually typos, human errors and PGN requirements without legal grounds, results of an overzealous analysis of the files done by underpaid and jealous lawyers of the PGN, who are trying to justify their work by creating unnecessary obstacles. The least they have in mind is the best interest of the children. An example of that are the adoptions that were legally approved by the Family judges a year ago, and that were tangled in the appeal process filed by the PGN. After succeeding in getting back the files for its approval, after the court of appeals revoked the lower court approval, the PGN has had no other choice but to approve every one of them, stealing a whole year of the lives of those children, who were deprived during all that time of the love of their waiting families.

Associated Press, eager to attack adoptions as usual, is spreading the news that the Attorney General annulled fifteen adoptions for illegalities in the files. The truth is that those adoptions were actually approved by Barrios and there is no law that gives the new authorities the power to modify such approval. That is another display of shameful abuse of power of the PGN and of irresponsible journalism of Associated Press, who also collaborated in the closing of adoptions in Vietnam to US families.

The CNA should be setting up shelters for children who are being left abandoned in public places, instead of trying to take away the children already in process of adoption, Thus far, thirty two children have been found in garbage dumps, in the street and in vacant lots. Recently, a baby was found in a cardboard box just a few yards away from the PGN building. According to Nineth Guevara, of the PGN, those abandonments were done by the baby snatchers who dumped the children, afraid of being discovered. She has no explanation for the lack of complaints by the mothers of those children, who will have to be summoned during two months, according to her, through publication in two different newspapers of the pictures of the babies found, and if nobody claims them, the children will be ruled adoptable by the courts.

The announced suspension of adoptions during a month, may last for as long as the attorney general wants. The sign posted at the window of the PGN says that no adoption files will be released until further notice, not necessarily a month. In 2003, the PGN, acting as central authority and directed by Elizabeth Hernandez de Larios, the same lawyer who now directs the CNA, did not release any file during six months and it could have been more, because what they were planning then was to exhaust the financial reserves of the attorneys by tying up the cases for a long time, until they had to give up and surrender the children to the Central Authority, so Larios and her PGN accomplices could renegotiate the second half of the fee with those foreign parents who could afford them. Larios had no qualms in expressing her plans and to travel then to the US, expenses paid by adoptions agencies, to establish contacts with them in order to set up her monopoly of adoptions, just as she is doing it now.

ADA has been asked constantly if the children in process will go home. The answer is yes, but since the current government is showing as much respect for the rights of the birthmothers and adoptive parents and for the laws of the country, as the Nazis in Germany, we believe that the US government will have to intervene to restore the order in a situation that was created by them, when forced on Guatemala the passing of a law without the necessary preparation to implement it properly and by allowing the abuses that have been committed by the current authorities, while the US embassy claims that they cannot do anything, because it is an local matter, when they well know that an intercountry adoption is not a local matter and that they have to step up to the plate and fix the problems they created.

THE ILLEGALITIES CONTINUE AT THE PGN

The situation with the PGN and the CNA is getting worse every day. The interviews to the birth mothers have no legal grounds, but their misinterpretation of article 57 of the Adoption Law gives them the excuse to drag the birth mothers to the PGN for interviews where they have to confirm their willingness to the adoption, even though the same article says that the verification of the situation of the children SUBJECTED TO SUCH LAW, which is very different of the cases being grandfathered, should be done by them WITHIN THIRTY DAYS of the law becoming effective, that is to say, that the time to do it was the same period given to the notaries to register the in process adoptions in order to be grandfathered, which ended on February 12 of this year. So even if it was their duty to verify the situation of the children, doing it NOW is illegal, because the time to do it is long expired.

We know of a case where the birthmother expressed at her interview, in very clear terms that she wanted the adoption to be finalized, but the PGN took her child and sent him to a hogar, no explanations given. In other case, the birthmother expressed her desire to keep her children and they were given to her, right there. Even though we are not advocating for adoptions being finalized against the will of the birth mother, we cannot support a system of intimidating the birth mothers to such extent as to make them claim back the children that they voluntarily relinquished many months before. Today six children were taken by the CNA for no legal reasons.

The website of the CNA is an admission of guilt, and at the same time, a display of how untruthful they can be, when we all know that their intentions never were to protect the children but to try to steal the work they did not do. The last paragraph is self explanatory: no lawyers or notaries are needed to do an adoption with them, but they do not disclose the little detail that the Adoptions Law allows the CNA to charge foreign adoptive parents for their adoptions. Elizabeth Hernandez de Larios has been quoted in the newspapers saying that currently the lawyers charge the foreign parents up to sixty five thousand dollars for each adoption, which she very well knows that it is not true.

Two of the directors of the CNN traveled on Sunday to Washington, in a trip of six days, paid by the US embassy, according to a note published today by Siglo Veintiuno, page 6. In view of the role that the CNA has taken with the grandfathered cases, it looks more as a reward to them from the US DOS than an attempt to stop the abuses to the birth mothers by the CNA. One of the directors, Norma Elizabeth Robles Avila is the sister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Elizabeth Hernandez de Larios is the wife of the chief of staff of President Colom. Their trip includes visits with private adoption agencies, who are looking to establish a working relationship with the CNA.

If the real intention of the birthmother interviews were to identify the girls that supposedly were stolen to three women, it is unforgivable that the CNA/PGN are delaying the release of the adoptions of boys and of older girls. It more and more looks as if the CNA is trying to derail the notarial adoptions for a purpose and the PGN and the US DOS are their accomplices. The adoptive parents entered into those adoptions in good faith and the birthmothers and legal guardians of the children gave their consent to them. The formalities of the adoption process have fulfilled and all the PGN can do is to give its approval and release the files. The notaries have their hands tied, because if the amparo that is ready to be filed is dismissed, that will strengthen the position of the CAN/PGN and the US embassy will continue with its hands off approach of the situation. For that reason, the birthmothers and the children have been taken to the PGN by the notaries, to be verbally abused by the people interviewing them, who have the audacity to offer the birthmothers a monthly stipend if they take the child back. The notaries have to be at the PGN but are not allowed to witness the interview. Even strong women have left humiliated and in tears after they were interviewed.

The respect of the law no longer exists. The CNA and the PGN are making up their own rules in the so-called best interest of the child, hurting as many children, birth mothers and adoptive parents as possible. You must report this to your Congressmen and Senators, because if the US DOS is not supporting the abuses of the CNA/PGN, by consenting to them and paying trips to the perpetrators are as guilty as them.

INTERVIEWS TO THE BIRTHMOTHERS - THE FIRST DAY

This morning, the PGN was a circus. With news people crawling the place everywhere and lawyers bringing birthmothers and children, lots of policemen, bodyguards and attendants to guide the visitors to the places where the interrogatories were going to be taken.

A big room at the PGN building was furnished to conduct several interviews at once. The lawyers demanded to be allowed at the interviews and to exclude the media from them. Despite the fact that the PGN invited the media to the show, they had to tell them to leave, as they were filming the birthmothers and their children. The interviews were conducted by people of the National Council of Adoptions, who definitely have nothing to do there, since the registered cases are not under the scope of the CNA.

In most cases the questions were just a few and what it took longer was that the clerks who were typing in the computers the written acts of the interview, did not know how to do it and had to repeat them several times. Twenty five birthmothers were interviewed today and ALL of them confirmed their willingness to the adoption. The CNA people were very frustrated. They commented that it was a waste of time, because the mothers should be interviewed in closed quarters, and by the psychologist. We can easily imagine what would follow next.

In the afternoon, attorney Jorge Armando Carrillo and I participated in a radio program about the suspension of adoptions. The PGN was invited and accepted, but did not send anyone. There was also a young woman of the Fundacion Sobrevivientes, who brought a woman who claims that her child was stolen by a woman who went to her house while she was at work, and asked the grandmother of the child to allow her to take the child to the mother of the child because she wanted to show her to a friend. The grandmother did not think twice in giving the child to a total stranger and since September las year, they have not seen the child. When I asked her what made her think that her daughter was placed for adoption, se said that the woman who took her child works on adoptions. Then I asked her if she had filed a complaint and when she said yes, I asked her why is that she was trying to stop all adoptions, instead of making the District Attorney and the police to do their job and find the child. She had no answer for that. The program went really well, and its conductor confirmed that the PGN invited the media to the birthmothers interviews.

The PGN continues to accept new adoption files, but refuses to give them back, even when they were duly approved by Barrios. The abuse of power of the PGN officers is incredible. Even if the interviews held today were not as awful as we expected, the fact is that the people of the CAN has nothing to do with adoptions being done according to the old laws and the PGN is consenting to the violation of the law and even giving the CNA a place in its building to do it.

Neither the CNA nor the PGN have the last word. There are legal measures that will be taken. An amparo is being prepared to demand that the PGN reassumes its legal obligation to review the files and give them back to the notaries. We hope that the courts will see the danger that any new administration re writes the laws of the country or gives in to the pressure of anybody who chooses to oppose adoptions.

The accusation against the sister of Gudy Rivera, the president of the committee for the child and the family of Congress had a hogar that according to the director of the CAN, Elizabeth de Larios, was even registered at the CNA. The CNA has no right to go to the place were the children are kept, because the adoptions that are registered, are none of their business and it would be better that the people at the CNA would do their real work and leave alone former adoptions. The lack of respect for the privacy p the children is disgusting. In today’s paper was the copy of the registration form of one of the children found at the hogar of Ms. Rivera. Clearly can be read the names of mother and child, which is very upsetting.

Keep calling your congressmen and senators. This could become a long time situation unless we do what we can to restore the order. The PGN and the CNA are breaking the laws and abusing their power and we have to stop that, because the worst enemy of an abandoned child is the time. The children being adopted should not be involved in the shows of the current administration to malign Gordillo. There are enough reasons to fire him, and adoptions should not be used as a mean to justify his destitution, because it involves human lives.

THE ILLEGAL REQUESTS OF THE PGN

The change of authorities at the PGN, instead of being a breath of fresh air, is more of the same but worse. Displaying a total disregard for the welfare of the children, the birth mothers and the adoptive parents, the new Attorney General, Baudilio Portillo Merlos, has been doing his best to stop adoptions and to create uncertainty with his ill advised comments about the legality of theadoption processes at the PGN.

Portillo Merlos said that they will interview the birth mothers of the cases that were already approved by Barrios. This is beyond his legal power. The arguments to support that measure are: that some of the notarial acts in some sdoption processes lack the signature of the lawyer who represents the adoptive parents and that some of the photocopies are not clear. How is the interview to birth mothers going to fix that is not explained by Portillo Merlos.

Yesterday we learned that the birthmother interviews will be held in the presence of the psychologist of the PGN, the same who kept a young birth mother for two hours, to convince her to claim her baby back, despite the clear opposition of the parents of the girl and the will of the girl, who did not sign the affidavit prepared by the PGN, and it was until they kidnapped the baby and promised the mother that if she came to the PGN she would get the baby back, that she signed it. After she did, the PGN people took mother and daughter and sent them to the Casa Alianza hogar for teen mothers, where they have been until now, unable to communicate with their family.

The interviews will also be witnessed by the lawyers of the District Attorney’s office, some other from the Human Rights Office, the same who has been claiming all the time that all adoptions are illegal and who has filed amparos to try to stop adopted children from leaving the country. The press will also be present at this interview, that is looking more like the Inquisition, than that an effort to know if everything was all right with the adoption.

The birth interviews by the PGN are illegal as they have not legal grounds and constitute an abuse of power. This week an amparo will be filed to try to get a court order to stop the PGN form suspending the approval of cases and to release the already approved cases. We will do our best to make the court to see that the PGN is abusing their power, the illegality of their acts, the harm done to the people involved in an adoption process.

The diligent lawyers of the PGN have been warning the Social Workers of the family court not to release the files to the notaries because they will come to review them. They also have been at the Civil Registries telling them that the final deeds of adoptions should not be recorded. All this is also illegal, but the PGN has a power over the other bureaucrats that has no explanation, but it is very strong.

An order that is not based on law should not be obeyed, says the Guatemalan Constitution and since the order to present the birth mothers to the PGN is not based on law, should not be obeyed. Nobody should be tried for wanting to give to her child a better life, and much less by a made up court whose only purpose is to prove that the mothers are not smart enough and did not know what they were doing when they gave up their children. The CNA summoned a birth mother of two sisters because the girls were so cute, and did not let the woman go until she admitted to take the girls back. Instead of having a loving family with means to give the girls what hey need, they will go back to a mother who cannot support them, and who works in the oldest profession, and who would not give them a good life. But for the CNA director, it was a triumph, to have rescued two girls from adoption.

Two days ago, Enrique Urizar, the ADA president, Dina Castro, former president and Olga Ogaldez, current president of the Institute of Family Law met with the US ambassador and the consul, to discuss the problem of the suspension of the adoptions by the PGN. The diplomat expressed his concern but stated in very clear terms that they cannot interfere, because it is an internal matter and they are bound to respect that. The bag of tricks that they used last year to get the Adoptions Law passed is a distant memory for the US diplomats. They also said that it will be long time until the US will do adoptions with Guatemala, because they are new at being Hague and Guatemala does not have a system in place that would allow it.

The adoptive parents have rights. Even if the adoption is not finalized, the birth mothers have given their consent to the adoptions and their saliva to prove that they are the mothers of the children being adopted. The fact that some children have been abducted, does not have the power to halt the adoptions in process. The presumption of innocence also applies here, and until somebody proves that a child being adopted was not relinquished by the mother of the child, the adoption cannot be stopped. There are more than two thousand children waiting and three girls missing. We are sure that there should be a less harming way to find if any of those girls is among the girls and boys being adopted, if only the real purpose where that, but it is looking more and more as an orchestrated way to derail the system and stop the children from going home. We msut fifth that.

This is the moment to call your representatives in the US and demand that the US diplomats do everything in their power to see that the adoptions in process are finalized in a timely matter without further and illegal requirements.

ADA is poised to fight this illegality and to win, because regardless of what the new authorities of the PGN say and the US DOS wants, those children have families who are adopting them, who love them and they belong with them, not being held I in custody as evidence of a crime that never was committed.

THE PLANS OF THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY

According to the Adoptions Law that became effective in January 1st. 2008, adoptions started before that date can be finalized according to the old rules, provided they were registered at the Consejo Nacional de Adopciones. After a marathonic race to register those adoptions at the CNA, the notaries were able to submit the adoption files at the PGN, or to resubmit those cases that were rejected for any reason. Until a few days ago, the PGN respected the law, at least with regard to the approval of the adoption cases (after many reviews and rejections, and an average of two months after submission).

We have been waiting for the National Council of Adoption to start to work, which does not mean to have a functional system up and running. We mean the literal meaning of the word work, which is what we expect them to do, since they were appointed to do a job not just to hold press conferences and criticize what the notaries or the PGN has been doing. The CNA claims that they have not done anything because they do not have the funds to do it. The official newspaper published two weeks ago the executive order to release the funds for it, stating that eight of the ten million quetzals granted to the CNA are for salaries, the rest is for the implementation of the CNA, and not a penny is for the care of the children who are cared by the private institutions who will no longer support them, for lack of the adoptions income.

Mario Gordillo was fired as Attorney General, not only because he was so corrupt, embezzled the funds of the PGN taking his wife and children in long trips to different countries, and broke the law in more ways than one, but also because it was necessary for the CNA to have an ally at the PGN, and Gordillo refused to obey the orders of Elizabeth Hernandez de Larios, who has self-appointed as President of the CNA

The new Attorney General, Baudilio Portillo Merlos was selected by Carlos Larios for that position and it was expected that he would show his appreciation by following the instructions of the wife of his benefactor. When Elizabeth de Larios was appointed as chief of the Central Authority in 2003, not a single case was processed. Her intentions, as she had no qualms in expressing them, were that the Central Authority would finish the in process cases and collect the second part of the fee owed to the notaries. When she was told that the notaries did not pocket the whole fee, that the legal expenses and taxes, medical bills and care of the children have to be covered with that amount, she said that the notaries would have to get donations to cover those expenses. She was told that there was not way that she could pull that off. Thanks to the successful constitutional challenges against the illegal accession to the Hague Convention, Elizabeth de Larios could not get away with her plans.

Some years later, after Elizabeth de Larios and her husband Carlos supported Alvaro Colom, are being rewarded for their efforts. Carlos Larios has been as appointed Chief of Staff of Alvaro Colom and Elizabeth is the legal advisor to the wife of Alvaro, the very powerful Sandra Torres Casanova. It seems that Elizabeth de Larios has not lost her fantasy of collecting the second part of the adoption fees on all the cases, so after getting rid of the people of Wendy de Berger, she got herself appointed as delegate of the Secretariat of Social Welfare and is ready to take over.

The lawyer who was appointed instead of Barrios is a very respected lawyer, Flory de Leon who was stopped from releasing the already approved files by the new Attorney General, who told her that Elizabeth de Larios called him to tell him that not a single file should be released to the notaries, because the National Council for Adoptions will review them. Some days ago, in a case where there were some inconsistencies in the birth certificates of two children, the PGN notified the NCA, who summoned the notary, the biological mothers and both children. Only one of the birth mothers was located, but regardless of the presence of the other birth mother, both children were taken away and placed who knows where.

President Alvaro Colom will meet with the Congressional Coalition of Adoption Institute, on Tuesday 29th. This is the moment to call your representatives in Congress to support the article 56 of the Adoption Law that removes the adoptions registered before the National Council of Adoption, from their scope. We are not asking for special favors, we are just expecting that everybody respects that adoptions in process must be approved by the PGN, not by the NCA and that the time to give an opinion is of three days, not two months or more.

According to the ever biased and anti adoptions Prensa Libre, an organization funded by UNICEF with the sole purpose of disrupting adoptions, named “Movimiento Social de los Derechos de la Ninez, la Adolescencia y la Juventud” is asking for protection for the 2,398 children who were registered with the NCA and whose adoptions are still pending approval,. Their allegations are also supported by the same people of Casa Alianza who aided and abetted the unspeakable behavior of Bruce Harris and who could not protect the children under their care of the abuses of their director. Ignoring the fact that a child needs to pass a second DNA test before getting the visa to travel to The United States, they are claiming that the notaries filed a lot of inexistent adoptions, in order to present later another child. Elizabeth de Larios is echoing this allegations and as a result of that plans to summon the notary who will have to come to them, with the birthmother and the child being adopted. The article is at http://www.prensalibre.com/pl/2008/abril/25/234342.html

Today, the PGN posted a sign stating that all adoptions are suspended until further notice. On Monday, all lawyers and notaries who have pending cases must go to the PGN to talk to the Attorney General, and explain to him, that is sweet of him to be so grateful to those who gave him the job, but that he can express his gratitude with a heartfelt thanks and do his job according to the law. In case he does not remove the sign and continues withholding the adoption files, all sort of legal actions will be filed against him. Agencies and parents must tell their lawyers and notaries to be at the PGN at nine in the morning this coming Monday April 28th.

There is no need to panic, because we will not let the NCA take over the children. But it is good that the Central Authority is showing their true colors, so everybody stops believing that they have the best interest of the children at heart. They are not trying to set up a system to enable needy children to find shelter now and safe, loving, permanent homes later. They are just trying to harvest the fruits of the work that they did not do and make adoptions as difficult as possible and will succeed only if all of us who want pending adoptions to be finalized, let them do it.

Susana Luarca

GUATEMALA: THE NEXT ROMANIA?

After the US DOS and UNICEF (and of course, the then president Oscar Berger and his wife Wendy) twisted the arm of Congress to get the Adoptions Law passed, we found that three and a half months later, the Central Authority has not started to work. Only the enormous pressure of the State Department, who was duly pressured by the adopting families, made them work to register the in process adoptions and - in record time - , stamp a seal and handwrite a date, a number and a signature on the forms that the notaries who presided the adoption processes started before the end of 2007, were forced to present in order to be able to finalize them.

ADA and other lawyers have filed constitutional challenges against the elimination of the notarial process of adoptions and we all expect that the seven lawyers and notaries who are temporarily magistrates of the Constitutional Court, do not bend the rules and decide against the clear wording of the Constitutional provisions that protect the work of the university graduates, such as the notaries. They refused to suspend during the time that it takes to process the challenges, the detrimental effects of the unconstitutional elimination of the notarial process, stating that they did not deem it necessary. It is obvious that to prevent someone form doing his/her work is evidently harmful, and it is even more obvious that it is far more harmful to deprive orphans and abandoned children of their right to a family.

The Hague Conference for International Private Law is an international entity that Guatemala has nothing to do with. Not being a member of such entity and never attending its meetings, our country remained immune to its negative effects on adoptions. Far from setting golden standards for adoptions, what the treaty created by UNICEF and marketed by The Hague Convention for Inter Country Adoptions does, is to close them down. We witnessed that effect in 2003, fought against it and won at the Constitutional Court. During the six months that adoptions were closed in 2003, even though the United States was not a party to such convention, when adoptions were paralyzed and harmed the interests of its citizens, the US DOS simply stopped accepting initial documents of new adoptions and did nothing to claim their Third Party Status according to the Vienna Convention, also known as The Treaty of Treaties, that both Guatemala and the US are parties to, in order to remove from the scope of the convention, the adoptions done by the citizens of the United States. Seeing the issues more clearly than the US DOS, a Guatemalan Court of Amparo, granted the relief requested through an Amparo resource by nearly three hundred notaries (who are also lawyers) and ordered the PGN to proceed to process the adoptions to the United States. The Attorney General disregarded the order and was not prosecuted just because the Constitutional Court restored the order by ruling unconstitutional the approval by Congress of the Hague Convention.

Laura Martínez-Mora and Ignacio Goicoechea, the liaison for Latin America of the Hague Conference, are right now in Guatemala and according to the ever biased Prensa Libre, they stated their satisfaction because the situation of adoptions in Guatemala has improved very much. It does not take a lot to figure out what the real purpose of The Hague Convention is, if they think that no adoptions at all and a central authority that does not work amount as a great improvement. The same newspaper states that Holt International determined that in Guatemala there are 127 private orphanages (a year ago there were 500, according to the mission report of The Hague Conference) that shelter 5000 children (half of the amount of children who were in private orphanages a year ago). Elizabeth de Larios, who was the director of the Central Authority in 2003, and who is now one of the three directors of the CNA, says that they are very sure that they will work without anomalies and there will not be any more traffic of children. And by the way it looks now, not any more adoptions, either.

The Hague Convention can be implemented without closing down adoptions. The problem is that no country has done it yet. The United States will continue doing adoptions with non-Hague countries and trying to close them down at the same time. We only want a law that keeps the many good features of the former notarial system and at the same time implements The Hague Convention in a way consistent with our Constitution and with our laws. But we cannot accept that no adoptions at all, one fourth of the orphanages that were running a year ago and half the children who used to be in orphanages, is a step in the right direction. We believe that simple rules, easy to follow and easy to supervise, are the solution to the system. When the entity that has the right to approve the adoptions has all the power and no supervision, as it happens with the PGN, corruption blooms with total impunity. The same can be said of the Mixco Civil Registry, where it is vox populi that final deeds of adoptions are rejected for insignificant reasons unless a bribe is paid, and the Santa Catarina Pinula Civil Registry, where a birth certificate of a child is issued for fifteen quetzals (two US dollars) and the same certificate of an adopted child costs two thousand quetzales each, and since it takes three of them to finish an adoption (one for the passport, one for the visa and one for the parents), the Civil Registry of such town has no qualms in over charging six thousand quetzales (almost as much as what each of the reviewers of the PGN make a month) to issue them, despite a Constitutional Court ruling that stated that all children are equal and that no distinctions can be made between adoptive and birth children.

Our country has many problems, but adoptions are not one of them. The reason why Guatemalan adoptions are being so maligned is to finish something that was successfully done. The bad publicity turned adoptions into something shameful, when it was something that not only is protected by the Constitution but was duly regulated and that gave work to all the people who helped to make them possible, and changed positively the lives of the children being adopted. We refuse to give up and let Guatemala become the next Romania. With half of the children suffering malnourishment, a million children working to support themselves and their families and one of the highest rates of infant death in the Western Hemisphere, the children of Guatemala need that all of us speak up for them and work to make it possible that adoptions, that used to be the only way out for many children, opens again.

PRESIDENT COLOM WANTS GORDILLO OUT

Few days alter the Attorney General celebrated the triumph of his wife who was appointed by the Congress as one of the magistrates of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal,
Mario Gordillo, Attorney General was politely requested to present his resignation, by the Chief of Staff of President Colom. Gordillo refused sch request.

In a press conference held yesterday at the PGN, Gordillo expressed that he will act as Attorney General until March 2010, because he was appointed by Oscar Berger in 2006, for a period of four years, and that he will file legal resources to prevent Colom from firing him.

President Colom has said that he needs someone who does not have a conflict of interests, like Godillo has, because he belongs to another political party, has a wife in a high position and he is not handling efficiently the adoption processes. We can attest that it is not only adoption processes that are not being properly handled, but all the processes where the PGN has to act as such. Because of the PGN interference, the abandonment processes take years and that affects negatively the children, because the worst enemy of an abandoned child is time. The PGN lawyers do not go to the hearings, or demand unnecessary documents to prevent the judge from ruling on the merits of the case and when the child is ruled abandoned, the PGN files an appeal, that even if it is not granted, it takes many months of the life of the child who is waiting.

There is need for a change in the way the PGN is being handled. Gordillo must go. It is necessary that someone who has the best interest of the children at heart, is appointed as Attorney General. This is the time when you can tell President Colom, the problems with your adoptions, due to the groundless requests of the PGN. His email is cartapresidente@scspr.gob.gt. Don't wait any longer. Write now and make a difference in the lives of the Guatemalan children.