Hello Indymedia -

I am former diplomat, and with other colleagues, we have started a website which send a free intelligence newsletter (I hope you won't think it's spamming, because IMHO the news are interesting and it's completely free). Anyway, the news are of course from "our" (ie left, if I can use the word) point of view - please check also another very old article of mine published on Indymedia (  http://csf.colorado.edu/forums/wsn/2001/msg00637.html ) to see what I mean. We are also looking for contributors - which might eventually be taken up as consultants and then paid, which is nice... ;-) Our newsletter is currently read by over 3000 people. There main difference with Indymedia, of course, is that articles will be read before and then published...

Well, if anyone's interested the website is www.euren.agropyron.org and here's today's article, which is the main point of this posting...

Agropyron.org - Daily intelligence briefing

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03 February 2004 - N.21 - file 20040203.txt

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REPORT: Organ, Women and Children Trafficking in Moldova (part 1)

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Summary: Moldova, the poorest country in Europe, is now a centre for organ sales, women and children trafficking. Here we present the facts.

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"It was a Volkswagen," says Jura, "and not too old. 1988. 312 thousand kilometres [about 200,000 miles]. The engine had been twice refurbished. Two doors." For that piece of rubbish Jura gave his kidney. Two months later he smashed the car to pieces.

2. "Every day a friend comes to me and asks how to sell a kidney," he goes on, and cries again. "The operation was very bad for me. I almost cannot urinate. My body can't deal with the water intake, and I am always sweating and crying for no reason. I should go to dialysis, but I have no money and no insurance. I can barely stand up."

3. I arrived in Moldova with lots of doubts. I doubted that there is a country in the middle of Europe where the income per capita is the same as Pakistan - 449 US dollars a year. That is, half the income in the Ukraine, nine times less than Poland and 75 times less than Switzerland.

4. The official figures given by the Moldovan government are almost as sad as Jura's story: the per capita income is one third of what it was in 1989. Inflation is 104% a year and the foreign debt is 2300 million dollars. The average monthly pay is 51 dollars and the state pensions are 12 dollars a month. The average overall income is 18 dollars a month. Officially, the "minimum income for survival" is 34 dollars a month, and 85% of the population has less than that, which means that, in the middle of Europe, there are people who starve all year round. This is very strange, because 80% of Moldova is covered with a two metre layer of excellent black earth, and it was the richest republic in the Soviet Union. Moldova has as many vineyards as Germany and it is the 9th producer of wine in the world - and the country is a tenth of the size of Poland. The wines are excellent but people here sell their bodies by parts, as well as children and women.

5. Jura Sobiecki cannot drink any of that wine. He only drinks tea with eight lumps of sugar. "I need glucose. Anything else is bad for me, I swell like a balloon". He now weighs 65kg [142 lbs] down from 79kg [173 lbs] at the time, in his teens, when he was a judo champion. He had been adopted 20 years ago by a doctor in the hospital where he was being treated. His mother is now retired. He stopped practising sports four years ago when he went to Moldova's capital, Chisinau, to study mechanical engineering. He was also working with a circus as an acrobat and master of ceremonies, making 39 dollars a month.

6. "I had to pay for university," he said. "But isn't it free in Moldova?," I replied. "In theory. Either you study in the evening, for which you have to pay, or you study during the day, where you have to bribe every professor to pass. The more you work, the worse as a student you become. And the worse you are as a student, the more you have to pay and therefore to work." The only way out would be to become a top student, but Jura liked night life, discos, women, and nice clothes. Soon he had many debts, and people in Moldova are often killed for not paying them. "Then some friends in the disco asked me if I want to sell a kidney. They would pay 20,000 dollars".

7. Jura agreed. The two friends, Russian citizens, took him to an apartment, where a doctor, Russian by birth but now Israeli, drew his blood to be tested and assured Jura that he would personally conduct the operation. Then Jura and a friend travelled with a courier to Turkey, where he was sent to a private clinic on the Asian side of Istanbul. He could see the Bosphorus from the window. He met the person who would get his kidney, a Belarussian citizen, who told him he had paid 100,000 dollars for the operation, plus 20,000 for Jura. He also said he was very happy that he would be getting a European kidney, and not an Afghan or Muslim kidney. He also told Jura that he was a dupe for not asking for the money before the operation.

8. Jura was operated, and two days later he received 5,000 dollars. They told him the costs had been higher. "Couldn't you go to the police?", I asked. "How?", he said. "It was a private clinic and two days after the operation they put me in a car and took me to the airport. And I didn't want to go back home, I wanted to go to the West. They said they would arrange for a visa, but they also lied about that. After I paid my debts, I only had 1,500 dollars left."

9. With this money he bought the car which he smashed two months later. He sold what was left of the car for 200 dollars. The people who contacted him in the disco received each 7000 dollars from the doctor. Jura now lives with friends in Chisinau who feed him out of pity. No work is suitable for him. He cannot lift weights, eat or drink what he wishes. He also has no girl-friends, as none wants a boyfriend who is hot wholesome.

10. "People often come to me and ask where to sell a kidney, because they also want to do that. Here 5,000 dollars is a lot of money, and in some places people even got 10,000 dollars. Yesterday a young couple came to me and wanted to sell a kidney each for 8,000 dollars. For 16,000 dollars you can already buy a small flat in Chisinau. I gave some of the money from the car to my mother, who now has a pension of 120 lei [9 dollars] a month. If you want, I can show you the scar from the operation for 100 dollars." "In the countryside, they showed me scars from the operations for 20". "It's also OK". "But for 20 lei [1 dollar 50], not 20 dollars". "That's too little"

(to be continued)