THE KIDNAPPING OF THE CHILDREN AT THE PRIMAVERA ORPAHANGE
Yesterday - August 13th., 0009 - the hogar of Primavera was raided again. Oscar Rivas and Rafael Curruchiche of the the District Attorney Office (Ministerio Publico), Jose
Miguel Morales Lopez of the PGN and Jaime Tecú of the National Council of
Adoptions came to the hogar, with a transfer order of Cesar, a two year old
boy whose adoption started as a relinquishment, turned into an abandonment and
it is already at the PGN for final approval. When the lawyers hired by Primavera
opposed the transfer, based on the Abandonment Decree of Cesar that states that
Primavera could continue the adoption initiated in 2007, if the CNA did not
find a suitable family for Cesar within ten days. When the CNA did not place
Cesar with a Guatemalan family, Primavera proceeded with the adoption already
in process, it was approved by the Social Worker appointed by the Family Court
and the file is now at the PGN pending approval, but the CNA refused to obey
the court order and decided to take Cesar away, just to show who is in
command.
The occupation of the hogar took place with the overwhelming help of policemen
armed with assault rifles and the agent Oscar Rivas , who was extremely rude, did not
let in Susana Luarca, the lawyer of the hogar, arguing that there were
already three lawyers inside. Around noon, they decided to take all the
children with them, with the lame argument that "the children were
`abandoned' because the director of the hogar is in jail". That has no legal
grounds, because the director Enriqueta Noriega is in protective custody,
not in jail, and furthermore, the seventeen children were under the care of
three nannies, a cleaning woman and a laundress/cook who take very well care
of them, so there was no reason to take the children to another place.
First they went to the Court of Appeals of the Childhood and Adolescence, to
denounce that the children were at risk, in order to get a court order to move
them. The time was running late, the court closed without giving them the
order. That did not stop them. They went back to the hogar, ordered the
nannies to prepare the children to go, and when they refused they opened the
drawers and filled garbage bags with clothes and shoes, which is a felony, and
under the rain, packed the seventeen children, aged from six months to six years
into a minivan and took the children to the court that remains open all night,
and left them there for over six hours, as the TV news reported, showing the
children being treated as criminals, sitting on the floor of a court, waiting
for a place to be sent. Around midnight, they found where to place them,
although in different orphanages.
Primavera never has accepted children kidnapped from other hogars, in order to
discourage the PGN from doing those illegal transfers of children. That is one
of the reasons why it is being targeted. We hope that the places where the
children are, have their best interest at heart and do not use them as pawns to
further their own agendas. The best way to show that they want the best for
these precious children would be to actively collaborate in sending them back to
Primavera, where they belong, because there is a court order for each of them to
stay at the hogar Primavera until the finalization of their adoptions.
The public officers who conspired and executed the kidnapping have a lot to answer for. We will take care that they do, because what they are doing is an atrocity.
Susana Luarca, Attorney at Law