A visa for Dipika

Mr. Elio Di Rupo, free immediately 5-years old Dipika

Open letter to Mr. Elio Di Rupo, Prime Minister of Belgium

Mr. Prime Minister,

For almost three years one of our citizens, Bénédicte Van De Sande, has been exiled in Nepal under extremely harsh conditions. Her guilt: having adopted and taken care of a little Nepalese girl as if she had given birth to her. But because she and her Nepalese husband Gyanendra Khatiwada were ill-advised, and because they dared to believe that ultimately Belgium would be able to understand their commitment, she cannot return to our country except by abandoning her child Dipika in a Nepalese orphanage. That is what the Belgian diplomacy recommends that she do. You are responsible for this situation.

The country you have led since 2011 has refused any visa to Dipika Khatiwada. All representations made by Bénédicte and Gyanendra have ran into a wall, the wall of the administration, the wall of Laws which no longer tolerate the slightest infringement and take us for machines, the wall of policies that have forgotten that they were intended to serve people and leave some to consider only the letters of the rules, not their spirit. This couple is blamed for not having followed all the rules, but if they had, they would have been prevented from adopting; they would have been deprived of the possibility of becoming mother and father.  For a country like Belgium, we feel that perpetuating the present situation takes us back to the middle ages.

The indifference of the State to the fate of Dipika and Bénédicte looks like an epitome of evil.

In Belgium, Bénédicte and Gyanendra had taken all the long, painful, complex steps for the “Sesame” which supposedly would open the door for the adoption. Unfortunately, after years of waiting, their dreams to adopt a Nepalese baby crumbled. Why? Because one day the Flemish Community of Belgium decided to cancel all Nepalese adoptions in process, considering Nepal as unreliable for adoption.  The couple then decided to take the bull by the horns, go to Nepal and to adopt there. This adoption is legal in Nepal, and the child they adopted had really been abandoned.

 International law and the rights of the child require that you admit immediately the family in the country where both Benedicte and Gyanendra are nationals: Belgium.  So far, your administration rejects this because they did not follow the ruling excluding Nepal as a country for adoption. But you will not find in this country or elsewhere, any citizen that can claim to have always followed all the rules.

For three years, Dipika – now five years old - and her mother are separated from their husband and adoptive father, Gyanendra.  Gyanendra has been helping them from his small shop in the Flemish city of Bruges, trying to ensure his wife and daughter a more or less decent life during this forced exile. Nepal is one of the world's poorest countries. Women are worthless. No one can envy the life of a mother living there alone with her child. No one can understand that you fail to take into account that Dipika has a cardiac deficiency, easy to treat in Europe, but potentially fatal in Nepal. This seems to have slipped off your skin as a drop of rain on a National Day. If one day, Gyanendra could no longer meet their needs, their situation would be hopeless. Now the economic crisis is here and the financial situation of the Gyanendra - Van De Sande family has been deteriorating.

You pretend to have a heart –just show it!

For three years Gyanendra has been supporting his family from far away, without being able to see his wife and his daughter. For three years every day, they have been wondering if they will ever be together again. For months the small Dipika asks every night why she cannot see her dad. It has been almost 36 months that every morning, Benedict wonders if she will be allowed to see again her country, her husband, her home.  

The reason for this exile, forced upon them by your administration, is understandable. They waived some of the increasingly complex regulations, ever more absurd, of our divided country.  The various Ministries, Departments and Communities competent at one level or another, do not want (do not dare, to be more accurate) to give the impression that one can adopt a child with impunity in a country if Belgium has prohibited doing so. Every citizen the least bit responsible, and Bénédicte included, understands this concern. But how many Belgians would be willing to risk a minimum sentence of three years in exile for adopting a child?

In a few weeks, it will be three years that their  pleas for help are ignored by your government and by the national and sub-national governments of Belgium, as well as by our Embassies and Diplomatic corps , which are supposed to manage the problems of citizens here and abroad. You have received two letters and you have answered by sending form letters. How many calls for help will it take to trigger the robots that govern us into showing a semblance of humanity?

Adoptive parenthood is punished more harshly than pedophile crimes.

Have Bénédicte and Gyanendra committed an unpardonable crime in the eyes of your administration? They believed that parenting and generosity were still fundamental values ​​of our society, how horrible! They believed that in the end, you would understand, such madness! They believed that the state was still capable of a hint of flexibility, such utopia! They believed that our leaders would still have a semblance of empathy for the people who entrusted them with the complex task of governing, such nonsense! Their offense must have been monstrous to be punished , with already three years in exile, accompanied by an absolute uncertainty about the future. There is no way to predict the end of this situation. Should a mother raising a child removed from an orphanage , where living conditions are appalling , be sentenced to a longer sentence than a rapist, an incestuous father , a pedophile priest or politician caught in offense of corruption?  No, Mr. Di Rupo, this is not demagoguery.  Alas, three times alas, this comparison is valid. And you will have to explain us, Mister Prime Minister, the logic of this justice which, by its refusal to intervene, punishes so severely a benevolent initiative, the desperation born of maternity , family solidarity, and generosity towards this abandoned child!

You are guilty of this injustice, you, your ministers, your state secretaries and the Flemish government. As much as you and all political parties, you have seen on TV, heard on the radio, read in the newspapers the simple story of this family torn apart. Despite what you have seen, you have looked elsewhere, with the easy excuse that "the law is the law" - an excuse that you put aside so nimbly when you, from your high position, need to adjust something in a hurry. But you have good reason, beautiful explanations when it comes to doing nothing for a simple citizen in distress in the Himalayas.

Your voice is vibrant with emotion when you recall the story of your father who immigrated here in Belgium, providing you with Belgian citizenship, benefitting from our social security, benefitting from our best educational system, becoming a successful professional, and finally becoming our head of State. Splendid speech, but vain!  We are tired of hearing speeches, we want action. What we ask of you is very simple: Use your power to meet with the respective authorities and decide on a solution - a humanitarian visa, for example; or a regularization of the adoption, if you have the right and courage. So set aright once and for all this situation unworthy of a modern state. Otherwise, you would be guilty of abandoning a fellow citizen and allowing an unacceptable tragedy in regard to the rights of this child.

Is Dipika worth a panda?

If Benedict and Gyanendra were part of the “well-off " people that you enjoy criticizing, they would have hired good attorneys and  would have had a chance to claim their rights at the European Court of Justice in order to force Belgium to respect their fundamental rights. But here we are. In a country where international crooks are excused provided they are millionaires, you, the President of the Socialist Party, the party of the small people, the workers' party, the party of the heart, the party of solidarity, you have found no other strategy than closing your eyes and your heart.

Mr. Prime Minister, the elections are coming. New populist parties will arrive in force at the parliament. What has brought them is not the lack of public interest in politics. Rather it is the impression that you are not talking to us. You do not care about most of us. The figures, the GDP, great ideas, dogmas, drafting laws, ideologies, slogans, cockfighting with the N- VA took our place in your diaries. The gap between the citizens and the political leaders, who are meant to serve the common good and who are supposed to focus on our destinies, has definitely turned into an abyss.  During the next few weeks yet, it is you, Mr. Elio Di Rupo, who is in charge of demonstrating that the traditional parties are still concerned with justice. To show that there is still a heart in your view of the world.  

Some months ago, we were all pleased to see how you were welcoming into Belgium a couple of pandas arriving from China. Dipika is well worth a panda. If you are unable to solve the problem of the family Van De Sande - Khatiwada,  unable to understand that the basic right of the child to live with her parents together at home in Belgium must be restored immediately, then tell us , Mr. Prime Minister, what hope can we still have? What can we still expect from our country?

We do not expect a better world. All of which has been promised to us long ago. We understand that you are clueless yourself, facing a crisis that is beyond you. We only ask for a basic right. We do still hope that this is not asking too much.