Tatsyana Kazyra refused FM official’s offer: “I have a hard life in Belarus”
- 25.08.2008, 11:07
A 16-year-old school-girl from Barysau Tatsyana Kazyra has rejected an offer of the Belarusian side about her return to her motherland, Belarus.
She confirmed that she asked migration authorities of the US to allow her to stay in the American family after December 25, when her tourist visa expires.
As Paval Shydlouski, an ambassador without function of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry who had been sent to the US town Petaluma by the official Minsk, said to journalists, his talks with Tanya and Debra and Manuel Zapata were fruitless.
“I have arrived here in the girl’s interests, in order to inform her and the US family with the offers of our government. It was in Tanya’s interests,” Shydlouski said. “We offer her to continue studies in Belarus, to get the school-leaving certificate, to take a thoughtful and adult decision as for her choice to stay in the US or to return to Belarus”.
As said by the Foreign Ministry’s ambassador, the offers of the Belarusian side were refused by Tanya and the US family. It means that the girl stays in Petaluma, Radio Svaboda informs.
Tanya Kazyra told to Associated Press:
“I love my motherland and my grandmother. However my life there is hard. And I have a family here”.
As said by Debra and Manuel Zapata, who have 3 own children, the Belarusian girl started to call them “mom” and “dad” during her first stay in the US. It was 9 years ago, when Tanya was seven. Her mother and father were deprived parental rights long ago. Tanya was brought up by her grandmother, who is her guardian, and who has officially supported the decision of her granddaughter to stay in Petaluma.
“Tanya is a part of our family. We will help her, no matter how difficult it would be,” Debra Zapata said.
Meanwhile other American families taking part in the exchange program "Chernobyl Children’s Project", are worried by this events. They believe that now the Belarusian side will suspend their travels, and they won’t be able to see the children who in fact had been brought up by them, and whom they love.
“It’s a great hindrance to the project,” the official representative of the project said. “Thousands and thousands of Belarusian children received great advantages from holidays in the US so far”.
The Zapatas and their lawyer note the decision to halt the program came from the Belarusian government. Thousands of American children go abroad, and foreigners come as part of exchange programs and, on occasion, some don’t return on schedule, said the Zapata’s attorney, Christopher Kerosky.
“It happens, and it never leads to a diplomatic crisis,” he said. “Isn’t this excessive? Why is the government overreacting like this?”