TIP IN TURKEY: MEDIA ATTENTION, OCTOBER 1-7, 2004

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 23 ANKARA 005751



SIPDIS



DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP, G, INL, DRL, EUR/PGI, EUR/SE



E.O. 12958: N/A

TAGS: PREL, KCRM, PHUM, KWMN, SMIG, KFRD, PREF, TU, TIP IN TURKEY

SUBJECT: TIP IN TURKEY: MEDIA ATTENTION, OCTOBER 1-7, 2004



1. (U) In response to G/TIP inquiries about anti-TIP public

information campaigns, post provides as examples the

following TIP press reports. Text of articles originally

published in Turkish is provided through unofficial local

FSN translation.



2. (U) Published October 7 by Radio Free Europe:



TITLE: Trafficking



BEGIN TEXT: Tens of thousands of Moldovan women are

estimated to have fallen victim to human trafficking.

Most victims come from rural areas, where economic

hardships and ignorance turn young girls into easy prey

for traffickers. RFE/RL spoke with nongovernmental

organizations and government officials about measures

in place to help those who have fallen victim to such

trafficking, and to curb future abuses.



Chisinau, 6 October 2004 (RFE/RL) -- "I was sold for

$2,000. That's how much they asked for me. Once they

sold us somewhere, we would not go back. They sold us

for good."



Alina, a petite 23-year-old, was born in a village in

central Moldova. She says she wanted to earn money

working as a waitress in Turkey during the summer so

that she could afford to go to school in Chisinau.



Alina -- who asked that her real name not be used --

was lured with promises of a job in a bar in Turkey.

The traffickers took care of her passport and visa --

every document needed. Two days later, she says, she

was in Istanbul.



"When we would not have enough clients, they would beat

us up and lock us up until 9. When I did not want to

work, they kept me locked up for a week and beat me."



But Alina told RFE/RL that she ended up being a

prisoner forced to have sex with tourists in a hotel

near Istanbul.



"During the day, we were locked on the third floor of a

house with iron bars on the doors and windows. We did

not have a TV or a phone. It was very strict. At night,

they would take us to a hotel, which had guards and a

tall fence around it, so we could not get out. There

were people guarding us around the clock," Alina said.



Twenty-two-year-old Angela is a young woman from a poor

family in northern Moldova. She is tall and very thin

and is always staring at the floor.



Angela says she wanted to visit a cousin in Italy who

she thought could help her get a job there. But in

Chisinau, she contacted the wrong kind of people,

hoping they could help her get to Italy cheaply.



Angela ended up in the United Arab Emirates, via

Odessa. Once there, she says she was beaten by Moldovan

and Ukrainian pimps and forced to work as a prostitute

under the threat of death before being sold to other

traffickers.



"I did not want to go to work as a prostitute. I

started crying and said I wanted to go back home, and I

did not want to work. They told me, "If you don't work,

you'll end up dead and buried in sand in the desert." I

got scared, and I went with them. From 9 a.m. to 3

p.m., we had to work in a disco. All day long, we were

locked up in a house. When we would not have enough

clients, they would beat us up and lock us up until 9.

When I did not want to work, they kept me locked up for

a week and beat me. I got really scared, and I tried to

swallow pills to make them get me out of the house [to

a hospital]. But they simply sold me in another city,"

Angela said.



Alina also says she was beaten. She told RFE/RL how she

was treated by traffickers in Turkey.



"The boss did not beat us himself, but his driver did.

I had a period when I felt very sick. I felt I couldn't

even walk, and I was trying to make him understand

that, "Please, I cannot. Understand me. I cannot work."

But he didn't care, and he hit me. He wouldn't pay

attention and would beat us, [telling us,] "Move, do

the job," and that was it," Alina said.

Ion Vizdoga is a lawyer who heads the Center for the

Prevention of Human Trafficking, a nongovernmental

organization in Moldova. He says traffickers often use

violence to force into prostitution girls who have left

the country legally, through employment agencies.



"Those girls who fall prey [to traffickers] are beaten,

blackmailed.... In case they refuse to obey, they are

also pressured psychologically. Traffickers gather 10

to 15 girls, and one of them is publicly beaten up in

front of the others. There were also cases when girls

were shot or tortured," Vizdoga said.

Both Angela and Alina come from rural Moldova, the

poorest parts of arguably the poorest country in

Europe. The average income in Moldova is estimated to

be under $100. But such trafficking in women also

afflicts other former communist countries, especially

Ukraine, Russia, Romania, and Bulgaria.



There is no firm information about how many Moldovan

women have been trafficked. But Vizdoga says statistics

from the International Organization for Migration (IOM)

show that 70 percent of the 1,300 women repatriated

over the past two years come from rural areas, and that

12 percent are minors.



Most Moldovan women are trafficked to Russia because

they don't need visas to enter the country, but also to

Turkey, the Gulf states and the Balkans.



Victims are usually young girls from poor families who

graduate from middle school without few, if any,

prospects for the future.



But older women can also fall prey to traffickers.



Twenty-nine-year-old Mariana is from a village in

northern Moldova and spent more than four years in

Macedonia after being sold to Serbian traffickers.



She thought she was being led into Italy, but instead,

this is what she says happened.



MARIANA: When we arrived in Macedonia, we were sent to

a policeman's house. The policeman bought girls and

then sold them to nightclubs. We spent one month and a

half at his place. I did not know where I was and asked

him when we were going to Italy. He said, "Italy is

here." Then he sold me to a club.



RFE/RL: Did you know his name?



MARIANA: Agron. He was an [ethnic] Albanian. [It was

in] Tetovo, Gostivar [regions] ...



RFE/RL: Is he still in business?



MARIANA: No, he is in prison now.



Mariana says Agron was regularly importing girls and

selling them to bars. During the day, she says, the

women were locked up and beaten if they refused to work

as prostitutes.



"The clients were people who came to night clubs, both

locals and foreigners, such as Italians, Germans,

Bulgarians. Clients would not pay us directly, but they

would negotiate with the club owner, who settled the

price -- 50 euros per hour, or 100 euros for a longer

time," Mariana said.



The three women -- Alina, Angela, and Mariana -- were

lucky to escape from their ordeals with the assistance

of NGOs.



Alina and Angela have been helped by the Center for the

Prevention of Human Trafficking. Mariana found support

through the International Center for Women's Rights

Protection and Promotion "La Strada."



La Strada has been active in Moldova since 2001, thanks

to financing from the Dutch Foreign Ministry and other

Western organizations.



La Strada operates in eight other countries in Central

and Eastern Europe -- Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Poland, and

Ukraine.



Viorelia Rusu, a La Strada activist, says the program

also runs a rehabilitation center, which was opened

with the help of the International Organization for

Migration:



"After we meet them at the airport, the women and

children are placed in asylums, where they get medical,

legal, and psychological assistance, as well as

assistance in furthering their education and learning a

profession. We also try to get them a secure job. Since

September 2001, La Strada offered repatriation and post-

repatriation assistance to some 200 women, out of whom

15 percent were minors, and also assisted more than 250

family members, such as children, since 25 percent of

human trafficking victims are single mothers," Rusu

said.



The Moldovan authorities have recently taken some long-

overdue steps to monitor migration and trafficking.

Moldova's Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev spoke with

RFE/RL.



"We took several measures. First of all, we created,

for the first time, a department for migration, which

began to put order into the data we had. Migration in

itself shouldn't be a problem. But [there is a problem]

with illegal migration, with human trafficking, with

other unwanted phenomena, which are causing obvious

complications not only for Moldovan citizens, but also

for other countries. The department for migration has

already been a success," Tarlev said.



The government also established a National Anti-

Trafficking Committee, which includes government

officials and representatives of both NGOs and the

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.



Observers, however, question how effective the new

efforts will be.



As for the three victims -- Alina, Angela, and Mariana

-- they are now trying to put their lives back

together, step by step, although it is a painful

process.



With the help of La Strada and the Center for the

Prevention of Human Trafficking, they are studying so

they can get normal jobs in Moldova.



"I'd like to get my life back here in Moldova. I don't

want to ever have to go away to some foreign country,"

Angela said. END TEXT.



3. (U) Published October 7, 2004 by the Chennai Newindpress:



TITLE: Human trafficking racket busted in city



BEGIN TEXT: CHENNAI: The Bureau of Immigration busted an

international syndicate involved in human trafficking

and arrested its kingpin, Fernando, a Sri Lankan

national, here on Wednesday.



However, his associates in the city are absconding.

Sleuths of the City Central Crime Branch have started a

search for them. Fourteen Sri Lankans, who were staying

in various lodges in the city, hoping to get visas to

fly to Europe, were rounded up and deported to Colombo

by the Immigration officials on Wednesday afternoon.



When contacted, senior Immigration officials here said

it was during a routine monitoring of foreigners"

activities in the city 45 days ago that they got the tip-

off about the racket. Sleuths lay waiting till Wednesday

for the gang to resurface in the city.



Fernando's cover was so cleverly crafted that cops did

not sense anything unusual for nearly six months, during

which he managed to send more than two dozen job-

seekers, all of them Sri Lankans, to Europe.

Instead of tampering with the passports or visas (which

is the practice of other racketeers),he went about

forging supporting documents, like those testifying to

one's prospective employers.



He arranged forged letter-heads and other documents with

the help of M/s Mohan Brothers, a printing firm on

Pantheon Road, and fake rubber stamps of various

European companies with the help of M/s Century Plastic

Art on Mount Road. His company, Sha Travels and Tours,

located in Hill Street, Dehiwala, Sri Lanka did the

spade work for him back home.



Apparently the documents looked genuine, and invariably

applicants got their visas.



Several Sri Lankans approached the Turkish Embassy in

New Delhi with the fake documents supplied by Fernando

and got visas to go to Turkey. He had a pointman in

Delhi to get things done at the embassy. Lankans have to

come to India as Turkey does not have an Embassy in

Colombo.



After obtaining visas, they would return to Colombo via

Chennai. Later, using the Turkish visa, they would fly

to that country via Dubai. All through they would be

accompanied by Fernando's men to avoid their landing in

trouble. Since the passports and visas were original,

there was not much of a scope for the immigration

officials to detect the fraud.



From Turkey, the gateway to Europe, to escape to other

countries in the region, where jobs could be available,

is a relatively easy job, it is pointed out. Fernando

used to collect Rs. four lakh per visa from the

customers.



Only much later the Immigration Bureau woke up to what

he was doing, and when Fernando landed in Chennai last

week, the Immigration officials did not commit any

mistake. They waited for their quarry to assemble along

with those whom he was shipping abroad.



A large number of fake documents, seals and printers

were also seized from the syndicate's headquarters in

Barakath Mansion on Lingichetty Street in Mannadi, here.

Bureau of Immigration will now probe the international

ramifications of the racket. END TEXT.



4. (U) Published October 6, 2004 by the Turkish language

Sabah News:



BEGIN TEXT: Police captured 193 Pakistanis in a

building in Istanbul's Ayazag district G-31 sokak no 16

in Sisli. Fifty of the illegal immigrants managed to

escape by breaking the window. Some of them said that

they wanted to go to Greece and some to Italy.

Meanwhile, 14 Iranians were captured in Istanbul's

Buyukcekmece district. They were reportedly planning

to go to Greece. They said that they paid 2 thousand

dollars per person. Following interrogation, they were

deported. END TEXT.



5. (U) Published October 6, 2004 by the International Office

on Migration:



BEGIN TEXT: SWITZERLAND - Human Trafficking in the

Balkans: "Increasing But Less Visible:" New Study -

Human trafficking is increasing, but has become less

visible as criminal organizations are changing the way

they operate in the Balkans, according to a major new

IOM study.



Trafficking for the sex industry has moved into private

apartments and growing use is being made of the

internet and telephones, says the study, which was

undertaken earlier this year and looks at developments

in Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, the FYR of

Macedonia and Moldova.



Exploitation of victims has become subtler through

small payments to avoid denunciation, and more women

are working as traffickers and pimps, according to the

report, which was funded by the Swedish International

Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

The report was commissioned in response to a marked

decline in the number of victims referred to IOM and

other agencies for protection and help, suggesting that

human trafficking was actually decreasing in the

Balkans.



But new trends noted by the report include increased

trafficking in children for sexual and other forms of

exploitation, greater use of legal travel documents to

circumvent interception, the emergence of organ

harvesting as a new objective for trafficking, and

greater corruption of government and diplomatic

officials.



International criminal organizations operating in human

trafficking have modified their strategies and methods

in response to measures taken by governments and

institutions, according to the study, which looks at

developments in assistance and protection of victims,

as well as the activities of law enforcement agencies

and organized crime in the five countries.



Human trafficking, mainly for prostitution, is a long

running area of concern in the Balkans, where IOM has

run counter trafficking programmes since 1999. IOM

programmes primarily focus on direct assistance return

and reintegration programmes for victims that operate

in close collaboration with governments, law

enforcement entities, NGOs and international

organizations.



The majority of identified international victims

trafficked to and within the Balkan states covered by

the report come from Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and

Bulgaria, with a minority of victims from other

countries in Eastern Europe or from within the Balkan

region. But the report also points to growing numbers

of victims from Turkey, Asia, the Middle East and

Africa trafficked through the Balkans, mainly via

Kosovo and Bosnia & Herzegovina, to different

destinations in Western and Central Europe.



The report can be downloaded from the IOM website at

www.iom.int. For further information, please contact

Theodora Suter at IOM HQ. Email: tsuter@iom.int. Tel.

00 41 22 717 9407. END TEXT.



6. (U) Published October 5, 2004 by the Anatolian News

Agency:



TITLE: Turkey Hosted 2,125,083 Foreign Tourists In

September



BEGIN TEXT: ANKARA - Turkey hosted 2,125,083 foreign

tourists in September 2004, Culture and Tourism

Ministry said on Tuesday.



A statement of the Ministry said that number of

foreigners visiting Turkey increased by 13.38 percent

in September 2004 when compared with the same period of

last year.



On the other hand, the Ministry announced that the

number of foreign tourists visiting Turkey increased by

27.25 percent, to reach 13,936,507 between January and

September 2004 when compared with the same period of

the previous year.



Germany, Russia and Britain were the first three

countries sending the highest number of tourists to

Turkey in September of 2004, the Ministry noted, adding

that tourists from the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Iran,

Belgium, France, Greece, Austria, Italy, Sweden,

Israel, Switzerland and Ukraine also visited Turkey in

the same period. (BRC-ULG) 05.10.2004 END TEXT.



7. (U) Published October 3, 2004 by the Observer.



TITLE: Streets of despair PART I

BEGIN TEXT: Majlinda was just 13 when she was snatched

from her Albanian village and sold into the sex

industry. Ed Vulliamy meets some of the thousands of

children trafficked to the West every month



On the day her life changed, when she was 13 years old,

Majlinda was on the way to help her aunt with the

ironing of clothes in preparation for her cousin's

wedding in their village in northern Albania. She was a

little short of reaching the house when three strange

men stopped her. They grabbed her, bundled her into a

car, blindfolded, bound and gagged her; she was then

driven to the southern town of Gjirokastra. Not until

the men and Majlinda had crossed the border with Greece

and reached Corinth was she told: "Now you are going to

work."



"At first I did not know what they were talking about,"

recalls Majlinda, "until they took me to a flat where

there were other women and told me: "You work here

now." When I refused, they said they knew my family,

and if I made trouble they would kill them. I thought

of the possibilities. I was afraid to stay, I was

afraid to leave, so I started to work - they forced me

to, with violence."



Beaten and raped into submission by her traffickers,

Majlinda began work, confined to a flat, from 8pm until

5am, obliged to meet a monetary quota entailing some 20

clients a night. "And even if I made enough money," she

says, "they usually found a reason to beat me when the

clients had finished for the night."



Majlinda is scarred around the eyes and forehead. She

talks at a shelter, back in Albania, to which she has

escaped and at which she is hiding from her

traffickers, trying to recover. Her expression is

subdued, dead-pan. Outside the sun shines, but the room

is leaden with her grief, and her story.



She was in Greece for a year, until "the police started

catching up with them. So we came back to Albania and

took a speedboat to Italy." Majlinda was sold on to

Florence for a price she doesn't know. By now, "there

were two new Albanians in the group running me, also

one remained from Greece." She was forced to work the

streets on the scrappy edges of the city, well hidden

from the beauty of its renaissance centre. After

dealing with her clients, Majlinda handed over the

proceeds, upon which "all three would violate me at the

end of my work. They would get high on drugs -

marijuana and cocaine - and come at me. And every night

they beat me - even if I made the _ 1,000 [685] they

insisted on, they always found an excuse."



Majlinda's captors were part of a syndicate - it was

clear to her that "they exploited many other women as

well as me, and had a number of houses, but would not

let us meet."



There were "good clients and bad clients," she says.

Good clients? "I mean the ones who just wanted to have

sex; the bad ones were the ones who beat me, or beat me

and stole my money, so I had to work harder to earn it

again." The traffickers, she says, would "compete

against one another with the money they made out of me

and the other women. They would compete for who could

buy the flashiest car, or the best clothes."



After a year in Florence, Majlinda was moved by car to

Amsterdam. In the bustle, she says, "I was surrounded

by people, but completely alone. I could speak to no

one. I lost all hope. I thought there was no way out. I

was afraid that if I talked to anyone, the traffickers

would do something to my family."



Finally, a "good client" from Afghanistan "told me not

to be afraid, and encouraged me to escape with him. I

did, I trusted him, and became pregnant by him." For a

moment it seems that Melinda's story will achieve some

perverse redemption. "But I was wrong," she says, her

hands kneading one another as she speaks. "He wanted me

to work for him instead, and he also beat me all the

time. I gave birth to my child, and when that happened,

I decided...

"I told my story to a woman who used to come and see my

husband [which is how Majlinda describes the Afghan]

and she in turn told me about some Catholic nuns at

Utrecht who rescued prostitutes. And I went to them.

They helped me register my child and get a ticket back

to Albania." But still Majlinda stares down at the

table, and at her hands, as she speaks.



"I finally contacted my family and asked them to keep

my son, but they didn't even want to see me, they were

ashamed of me. My father said: "So far as we're

concerned, you are dead." Thus rejected, Majlinda and

her baby took refuge at a shelter in Albania's capital,

Tirana, but she was obliged to leave her child at a

place she will not discuss, and move on alone, after

the Afghan came looking for his quarry and his son.

"This place is my last chance," she says of the second

shelter to which she came. "But I am terrified he will

come. And that I will see the Albanian men before my

eyes once more."



Majlinda's enslavement lasted four years. "Men?" she

ponders, "I don't know what to say. All I know now is

that I don't ever want to see another man in my life.

All I want now is to be with my child, and to work.

There were moments," says Majlinda, now 17, "when I

thought I should not be alive, that I should be dead.

But then I thought: why not? You have to be brave to

survive. I have to be strong, otherwise I cannot get

out of this." And with that she smiles - the faint,

hollow smile of the survivor.



Majlinda is but one - bold and fortunate enough to have

escaped - among hundreds of thousands enslaved and

entrapped by a depraved and burgeoning crime, one of

the most lucrative and fastest-growing: trafficking in

young women and children for enforced prostitution.



In terms of the income it nets, trafficking is believed

to lie in third place behind drugs and arms. There is

evidence that criminal syndicates are switching from

drugs to women and girls, finding them easier to

transport than an assignment of cocaine or heroin.

Moreover, a woman can be sold and resold over and over,

while drugs can only be sold once.



The scale of the crime is impossible to quantify. The

US State Department this year said it believed between

600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked across

borders each year; profits are estimated to be in the

billions of dollars. And of those hundreds of

thousands, an inestimable but high proportion are,

under international law, children - under 18 years of

age, and therefore entitled to special protection under

the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.



Documents produced by Unicef and Save the Children have

found up to 80 per cent of those trafficked from some

corners of Albania and Moldova to be children, with

reports showing "a decline in the average age of

children/women being trafficked for prostitution".



Trafficking is, crucially, distinct from people

smuggling or migration, with which it is often,

erroneously - and disastrously - confused by policy

makers. The pitiful business of smuggling occurs when a

syndicate is paid to take a group of people across

borders illegally but willingly, in search of work or

asylum. And although some people may elect to be taken

by their traffickers, a trafficked person does not sign

up for the purposes to which they are put. Trafficking

was defined by a UN convention in 2000 as meaning to

recruit and transport people "by means of threat or use

of force, or other forms of coercion", such as

abduction, fraud or deception, or, indeed, "abuse of

power or of a position of vulnerability".



"We would all like specific numbers," says Steve Ashby,

programme director for Save the Children in Albania.

"But they are simply not available. What we can safely

assume is that the numbers are high enough to warrant

very serious concern. It is impossible to over-stress

the level of oppression and brutality - the vicious

abuse of human rights being inflicted by these

traffickers. And the situation is going to get worse

before it gets better.



"The trafficker," says Ashby, "is invariably ahead of

the authorities. They are always finding alternative

means to carry on. The phenomenon is shifting all the

time. The trafficking problem outstrips all the efforts

being made to control it."



"This has become," says Giovanna Barberis, Unicef's

representative in Moldova - the main source of

trafficking for sexual exploitation in Europe - "a

matter for dramatic concern".



So far as Europe is concerned, the countries in which

communism collapsed tend to provide both traffickers

and trafficked. Moldova, Albania, Ukraine and Romania

are the main source countries from which women are

abducted. They are countries where social structures

have imploded, where large sections of the economy are

controlled by criminal syndicates and where communist

regimes have been replaced by corruption as a means of

political power. Trafficking has become integral to the

economies of these countries - it is the source for

fortunes, for cash to buy champagne and luxury cars,

for profits laundered into resorts and hotels.



The misery of women and children like Majlinda is a

foundation stone for many a new concrete tower in

Tirana or Chisinau. "All along the line," says Ashby,

"there is a chain of people involved in this trade, if

you can call it that. The traffickers themselves,

transporters, forgers of documents, safe houses,

speedboats that take them from Albania to Italy - a

great network of commercial interests engaged in the

business."



There are so-called "destination" countries in Eastern

Europe, too, but the vast, hidden and terrifying

"markets" are wider and elsewhere - across Western

Europe and, ever more, into Russia, Turkey, Israel, the

Middle East and the Gulf states. The victims,

invariably, are drafted from the vulnerable and

subjugated quarters of East European society - from

desperately poor villages, from rugged mountains, from

shanty slums. This is the new criminal power play in

the new Europe.



Albania is a land of dire poverty, fierce patriotism,

rugged mountains in the north, olive groves and vines

to the south - for decades cut off from the rest of

Europe and now opened up to a Western dream world with

which it is bombarded on television, to which its youth

aspires. It is a country whence tens of thousands of

girls are trafficked and through which women are

brought from other parts of Eastern Europe to Greece or

Italy, and thence across Europe. The same syndicates

are opening up new channels, after a clampdown on the

Adriatic sea route, through Serbia and the former

Yugoslav countries into the West.



"It is estimated," says a report commissioned by

Unicef, "that over the past 10 years, 100,000 Albanian

women and girls have been trafficked to Western Europe

and other Balkan countries. Albania is also one of the

main transit countries for the trafficking of women and

girls from central and Eastern Europe." In Albania,

fear of abduction by traffickers is so great that the

numbers of teenaged girls attending high school in

rural areas has fallen dramatically. In remote areas,

"as many as 90 per cent of girls no longer receive a

high-school education," says a report by Save the

Children. "Even here in Tirana, they are afraid," warns

Svetlana Roko, who runs a day centre for trafficked

children and children at risk in the capital.



"The Albanian pimp," says the report, "has a reputation

for extreme ruthlessness, and murder is not uncommon."

In one case in which a woman agreed to testify to the

police in Italy, her father returned home to find the

mutilated remains of his other daughter splattered

around the house.



Some women are simply kidnapped, others are lured by

promises of work. "It depends," says Vera Lesko, who

runs a shelter for trafficked women in Vlora, in the

Albanian south. "They could be promised a modeling

career, work in shops, serving in bars and, more

recently, they have been enticed by promises of

academic scholarships. However, when they come to me

they are totally destroyed, physically and

psychologically. What we try to do is give them back

their lives, tell them that their suffering is past,

that they should focus on their own value, on what they

have. We try to re-integrate them, to teach them

vocational skills. We send them to schools in Vlora,

with other women who do not know their background."



But in spite of all this, says Lesko, "The majority are

simply re-trafficked when they return. They have

nothing; they are annihilated. I had a woman who had

been trafficked and re-trafficked for 10 years. She did

not know how to live in a different way. Something

inside her had changed forever."



Traffickers, says Lesko, hang around police stations

waiting to pick up their prey as soon as they are

released. In many cases, there is collusion between

police and traffickers. However - in defence of her

work and in praise of those who come to her - "a not

insignificant number make it. They re-integrate, they

remake themselves, and that is when all this work seems

worthwhile." END TEXT.



8. (U) Published October 3, 2004 by the Observer.



TITLE: Streets of despair PART II



BEGIN TEXT: Katalina swaddles the baby she says gives

meaning to her life, once shattered. She is staying

with a family - which knows nothing of her past - in a

rain-swept village in the north of Moldova, but will

soon have a place of her own, she hopes.



At the beginning of this year, Katalina - who had grown

up in an orphanage - was abandoned by her boyfriend

after telling him she was pregnant. Soon afterwards,

she was invited by a Russian woman to a birthday party

in a local bar in her village near Moldova's second

city, Balti. There, Katalina was offered a future in

Moscow, with an option to work as a house painter or

line worker at a pasta factory. Katalina opted to give

it a try - why not? There was nothing for her in

Moldova. But events twisted strangely when she and her

Russian minder reached the Ukrainian border.



"A policeman met us and drove us across the frontier,

avoiding the crossings. The Russian paid the policeman

and we went to get false papers made." They then

proceeded by train to Moscow, where Katalina met

another girl from near Balti, who told her what was

expected. "You can't get away from here," said the

girl. "They will break your legs."



So began Katalina's life as an enslaved prostitute,

working a beat beneath a railway bridge, for which her

traffickers paid local police. "I was told never to say

that I was pregnant, else the clients would not want

me, and I would be beaten to pieces," recalls Katalina.

Some clients, she says, "kept me for a number of days,

and invited their friends. One man kept me for three or

four days in a basement and invited 20 men. When I

objected they told me I was a bitch. They had bought me

and could do whatever they liked to me. Another time, I

was on the 11th floor of a building with seven

Moldovans, all of them taking drugs.



After they had had their way, they insisted I smoke

some drugs, too. When I refused, they became violent,

and one of them opened a window and threatened to throw

me out. But there was one man less stoned than the

rest, who said, "You are just a dirty whore," and sent

me from the room."



Time passed in this way, until Katalina's pregnancy

could no longer be hidden. Clients, their sensibilities

offended, would beat and insult her, demanding their

money back. The Russian traffickers beat her, too,

saying they would lock Katalina away until she was due,

"and that they would sell my baby, when it came".



Katalina has an expression full of guile; it comes as

no surprise when she says that she elected to escape.

The flat in which she was kept by day was watched by

police officers on the pimp's behalf, to prevent the

girls from leaving.



But Katalina noted when the police watch went for its

daily lunch break. That was when she, and the other

girl from her area, made a run for it.



Laughter comes hard while talking about these things,

but now the artful Katalina has her company in unlikely

stitches. "We did a funny thing," she says.



"After running away from the flat, we took a trolleybus

to Red Square, thinking this is where the train to

Chisinau would go from. Just imagine, two escaped

Moldovan prostitutes lost in a tourist trap, asking

smart people how to get the train back to their little

village." Having found the station, they were picked up

by the railway police and sent home.



Moldova is Europe's poorest country and, says Unicef's

representative there, Giovanna Barberis, "one of the

main, if not the main source country for the

trafficking of women and children".



This is how a briefing paper drawn up by the Swedish

Foreign Ministry's aid wing Sida - which is active in

counter-trafficking projects in Eastern Europe -

describes the country: "Moldova has probably suffered

the most devastating peacetime decline in economic

performance and living standards of any country in

modern times. From a situation of relative prosperity,

GDP in this country has fallen by more than 70 per cent

within a decade - placing Moldova on a par with the

poorest countries in Asia and Africa. For most

Moldovans, life has become a daily struggle to satisfy

the most basic needs against increasingly uneven odds."



The bus station in Chisinau, Moldova's care-worn

capital, is a monument to the nation's reaction to its

fate - mass emigration. The population is officially

set at 4.5m, after a census in 1989, but, says

Barberis, "the reality is probably nearer 3.5m.



Hundreds of thousands have simply left, to find work,

legally or illegally, in the West." Every week, fleets

of heaving coaches leave this bus station - with its

mosaic showing a happy socialist life in factory and

field - bound for Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

As a result, thousands of children are left abandoned

by their parents, becoming prey to the trafficker's

eye.



Under communism, Moldova, with its fertile black soil,

was the orchard of the USSR, and its industry was

locked into the trans-Soviet infrastructure. Now,

Moldovan society has been ravaged by a corrupt neo-

communist political class and an economy beholden to

the profits of crime. The price of agricultural produce

is so low that much of it withers - literally - on the

vine. The average wage is $50 (28) per month. And the

generation now growing up with no memory of communism

or relative prosperity is prey to those engaged in

Moldova's rapidly growing and infamous export - human

beings.



"There are about 1m Moldovans living abroad," says

Barberis, "and among that 1m, a great many have left

illegally and are exposed to trafficking. They go in

different ways. The traffickers are getting more and

more sophisticated. There can be direct contact with a

relative, friend, or friend of a friend. There are

advertisements in the newspapers for fake jobs as

waitresses, babysitters or cooks. They are invariably

jobs advertised for women and it becomes an attractive

offer, given the fact that unemployment is extremely

high, given the fact that access to health care and

education is extremely low, given the fact that

domestic violence is deeply rooted."



There is a correlation between the subjugation of women

and children in Moldovan society and their

vulnerability to trafficking, says Daniela Popescu, who

runs the Amicul centre for "at risk" children in

Chisinau. Some 80 per cent of trafficking victims, she

says, have also been victims of domestic violence.



"There are old sayings passed on from grandparents,"

she says: "they say an unbeaten woman is like an untidy

house, or beating his woman is a man's divine right."

Women are held in low esteem, have low self-esteem and

tend to accept things as they are, not to denounce

their men. They are accustomed to hard physical work,

so it is often the best and strongest of them who

decide they can be free from emotional and physical

abuse, and can handle hard work abroad.



"The traffickers are very much aware of these

subjugated conditions," she continues, "and,

ironically, will make promises such as, "You are

working at home and being beaten - why not work away

from the beating, and get good money?""



The village of Biesti, an hour north of the capital, is

typical - the effect is unmistakable and striking. This

is a community where there are no adults; a place where

only children and old people walk the main street and

muddy tracks. The children have for the most part been

abandoned by their parents, and are thus vulnerable to

the traffickers. Angelina, aged 13, just about manages

on what her mother and father send back - she explains

that her parents left for Orvieto in Italy, leaving her

to look after her 10-year-old brother.



But unlike most villages of its kind, there is a quiet

revolution under way in Biesti - proving that where

there is initiative, the traffickers will not have it

all their own way. That with the right resources and

the will to battle the traffickers with knowledge,

there is reason for faint hope in this woebegone

landscape. For here is one of a network of day centres

funded by Unicef, devoted almost entirely to raising

awareness of trafficking and "life skills" in a world

without adults, or where adults do not care. Every

child in Biesti has, as a result, seen a film called

Lilja 4-ever by the director Lukas Moodysson, about a

Russian girl trafficked to Stockholm. "We all cried

when we saw it," says Veronica, aged 16. "We talked

about it, and wondered, what would we do?"



Veronica and her friend Aksenia are prime targets for

any trafficker, but both girls talk with disarming

maturity about the dangers, the film and its message.



"It is not enough just to have the information to be on

the lookout," says Aksenia, "it is a matter of having

the skills to act when and if you find that you are in

trouble." Everyone, however, wants to leave the

village, adds Veronica.



There are 63 "residential schools" for what are called

the "social orphans" of Moldova, where discarded

children learn and live. These are places like that in

which Katalina was raised, and in all, they hold some

13,000 children, any one of whom could be said to be

"at risk" to trafficking. In these places, too, Unicef

is working against the peril that awaits these children

once they try - as they will - to leave. At the

orphanage in Orhei, a group of 14-year-olds has also

seen Lilja 4-ever and rehearse a play they will perform

to the school and around town about social exclusion,

with its obvious message about the return of trafficked

victims. "We are learning that we must have them back,"

says Svetlana, "even if they have HIV and Aids."



"It is amazing to me," says Barberis, "that this issue

of trafficking is simply not a matter for the

government in this country. Similarly, not only is

there no support for the victims of trafficking when

they return, but there is no effort to re-integrate

them, to rescue them from their non-future."



Viorica, a child of 17 from southern Moldova, cannot

finish her story. She wanted, she says, to go to music

school and improve her singing voice, "to learn to sing

and play". But life had other plans for her. Instead,

she was lured from her village by a distant cousin, to

Turkey, with a promise of work. When she arrived at the

coastal resort of Antalya, she "was told to put on some

clothes and get ready. "It"s time for you to work,"

they said. I asked what work? They said I was going to

a hotel to be with men. When I objected," she

continues, "they said I would have to do this thing if

I ever wanted to see Moldova again.



They threatened me with a gun and made me get into a

car. We got to the hotel. The thing is, I'd never been

with a man before. I was a virgin, and that night, they

made me go with 11 men." At this point, Viorica stops

in the tracks of her tears and her words. It is a

terrible moment.



The psychologist treating Viorica, Ana Chirsanov, tells

me that the girl has tried to commit suicide. "Her soul

was destroyed that first night, with those 11 men,"

explains Dr Chirsanov. "She used to resist, spitting

and pulling the clients" hair, but they thought it was

all part of some erotic game. She was crying out, "I

don't want to do this", and they just laughed at her,

amusing themselves. After which she got into thinking

that she was the one who was insane and that this was

what the world is like. That the people doing this to

her were normal and she was insane to be unhappy about

it." Most of the girls, when they return, says Dr

Chirsanov, "speak of their desire to die. We had a case

of one minor who had jumped from a sixth-floor

window... she survived, after six surgical operations."



There is a glaring problem in calling what happened to

Viorica, or any trafficked woman or girl,

"prostitution", since the word can imply a degree of

consent. "Here, there is absolutely no meaningful

consent at all," says Sian Jones, co-ordinator for the

Balkans at Amnesty International. "It is clear that if

you knowingly have sex with a woman who has been

trafficked, that is rape."



"There is no consent in sex with a trafficked woman,"

says Denise Marshall, who runs the Poppy Project in

south London, Britain's only shelter for trafficked

women. "If a trafficked woman is forced to see 30

clients a day, so far as I am concerned, that is 30

rapes a day. The impact on the body and on the psyche

is the same as rape. It is the same level of violence

against that woman."



A website called www.punternet.com offers an insight

into these clients" heads. It invites entries from men

comparing notes on prostitutes. On occasions, there is

every indication that the woman visited is trafficked

and that the client knows this. "Worst shag of my

life," laments one entry, "the girl was a robot - felt

sorry for her - kept thinking why is she doing this? -

she said only a couple of words to me - gave me 10 mins

of hand job while looking the other way and jumping

when I tried to touch her - she lay down trying to

cover her tits - 15 mins with me trying to grab her ...

Why does she do it? I probably can guess."



When politicians turn their attention to trafficking

and prostitution - as the British Home Office is now

doing - little attention is paid to the "demand" side,

to the punters.



The debate is most advanced in Sweden, from where money

has been pumped into counter-trafficking abroad and

legislation enacted at home, in 1999, attempting to

fight trafficking by tackling all use of prostitutes.

"The problem of demand has been engaged here by

criminalising the buying of sexual services," says Nina

Strandberg, East Europe area manager for Sida.

"Basically, that means it is not illegal for a woman to

sell sex, but it is illegal for a man to buy it. It"s

an interesting position, introduced as something we

regard as integral to the battle against trafficking."

According to Stockholm police, the measure has cut by

more than two-thirds the number of prostitutes being

operated in the city, with 754 convictions from 1999

until this summer, and fines imposed.



"The Swedish law is controversial, but until countries

of destination for these women and girls have some kind

of legislation in place, we cannot begin to address the

matter of trafficking," says Steve Ashby. "Prosecution

of traffickers is not enough - another will always take

his place. But if there were tighter laws on demand,

then a lot of the so-called punters would think twice

before they accepted the risk."



"The Swedish measure would make a great difference if

it was more widespread," says Lesko. "It targets the

right people - not the girls who come back damaged, but

the people who damage them."



"This matter of trafficking," says Giovanna Barberis,

"is becoming of dramatic concern. And yet I do not see

governments in Western Europe wanting to address and

find solutions to this issue. In some places, there

does not appear to be any political will at all. There

are many countries in Europe which have not even

thought to undertake a serious assessment or analysis."



The 45 member states of the Council of Europe are

currently drafting a convention on trafficking,

providing an opportunity for binding minimum standards

for the protection of and support for trafficked

people. Most governments - including Britain's - tip-

toe, however, confusing the issue with smuggling and

migration, and are wary of the political liability in

any discourse on arrivals from Eastern Europe. Within

the Home Office, there are conflicting interests,

between immigration services, which put a priority on

removing people without proper documentation, and law

enforcement, which requires willing witnesses and

intelligence to prosecute traffickers.



A triumvirate of organisations - Unicef, Amnesty

International and Anti-Slavery International - campaign

for three basic standards to be met by the European

convention. They are: first, support, shelter and

safety provision for women who emerge as having been

trafficked. Second, a minimum period during which women

can decide whether they want to co-operate with police

investigations. (Protection at the Poppy Project, now

funded by the Home Office, is conditional on agreeing

to help the police. Italy has the most advanced

legislation to date, with a 90-day allowance for

reflection, and now suggests a six-month reflection

period.) Third, resident permits - temporary or

permanent - should be on offer in the country of

destination "whenever there is reasonable likelihood

that a trafficked person will be subject to re-

trafficking or other serious harm". Italy already has

such a system, which has proven effective not only in

terms of protecting victims, but also in prosecuting

traffickers.



Britain's record is different. In autumn 2003, London

and Tirana signed a bilateral agreement on repatriation

to Albania of girls or women found to have been

trafficked. "I cannot respect a policy of

repatriation," says Vera Lesko. "Since that year, I've

had 16 girls sent back from Britain, 14 of whom have

since been re-trafficked back into the system. Is it

really so hard for you to take 16 people?"



Mike Kaye of Anti-Slavery International argues that

"there is no conflict between protection and

prosecution". Quite apart from respect for the human

rights of a person who has had them destroyed, he says,

"Protection of trafficked people three distinct

advantages: it disrupts the trafficking system, because

they do not get re-trafficked; it favours intelligence,

because they are more likely to tell the support agency

how they were trafficked; and in the long or medium

term, it means that the trafficked person is more

likely to co-operate with the police."



"What really irritates me," says Denise Marshallat the

Poppy Project, "is that governments - not just the UK -

put the responsibility on to the country where these

women originate. The fact is this: if British men were

not wanting sex with trafficked women, then trafficked

women would not be here. I had a woman who was raped 88

times - no, not 18, 88 - on Christmas Day 2002. She is

completely annihilated. She is a religious woman who

dares not go to church. She has a child but does not

think she deserves to see that child. The men who did

that to her were British, and I think Britain has a

responsibility to provide her with at least sometime

and proper resources. There are no quick-fix solutions

for a woman like that."



Eva, from southern Albania, fell in love with the man

who took her to Naples, promising a wedding. But on

arrival, her fiance demanded that Eva work for him as a

prostitute. "When I protested, he said he would kill my

family and that his accomplices back home would do the

same thing to my sister." The trafficker worked

alongside a "group of his friends" while Eva and other

girls enslaved into their operation walked the streets

of Naples, taking up to 20 clients a night to meet her

quota, and, if lucky, avoid a beating. Most nights,

however, would end with her being violated and beaten

by her trafficker and his accomplices.



"I could see people living their normal lives," she

says, her eyes staring into mid-distance - "shopping,

going about their business. They had their families and

children with them, they had their lives, they had all

the things I wanted but could never have. It made my

heart cry to see them. Instead, I became accustomed to

being a slave, crying all the time, but always afraid

to leave him, because he knew my family, he knew my

sister. I was alone, I had no one."



Eva's trafficker was brother to one of Albania's

biggest dealers in drugs and women, who was killed in a

car crash. Eva duly managed to escape when her

trafficker returned to Tirana for the funeral,

successfully seeking out one of her brothers, living in

Venice.



Eva, who wears a cross around her neck, has two

distinct and different faces: the one she wears when

telling her story hitherto - bounden, staring blankly -

and another, which comes suddenly alive, effervescent,

when she gets to this point in her narrative. In

Savona, she met her sister-in-law, an evangelical

Christian, who took Eva to church and to see a film

about Mary Magdalene, the reformed prostitute. "She

saved my life," says Eva, "a certain peace came into

me. I began to think differently and became a believer.

My fear left me. I realised that people judge you, but

God can forgive everything."



Now living in hiding from reprisal, as does her sister,

Eva is clearly the life force of the shelter in which

she lives. "For the moment, I have what I want. I have

my sister with me, I tidy up, I plant flowers, I sew."

But Eva also urges her fellow victims and those still

captive, out there in the hell of enslavement, whence

she returned: "I tell them, do not be afraid to do what

is right. Go to the police. Testify against those who

exploit you, for they deserve to be punished."



All names of trafficked women and children in this

article have been changed for their own safety. END

TEXT.



9. (U) Published October 3, 2004 by Radio Free Europe and

Eurasianet.org:



TITLE: TURKEY: EU REPORTS PAVE WAY FOR QUALIFIED

APPROVAL OF ENTRY TALKS; Ahto Lobjakas



BEGIN TEXT: Some form of go-ahead in the coming days by

the European Commission for Turkish entry talks now

appears a foregone conclusion.



However, two draft progress reports prepared by the

European Commission suggest that uncertainties abound,

and that any decision is likely to come with extensive

conditions and qualifications attached to allow more

skeptical member states to support it.



The European Commission's annual progress report on

Turkey praises democratic reforms undertaken since 1999

and accelerated in the past two years. However, it does

not clearly say Turkey now meets the so-called

Copenhagen entry criteria dealing with democracy, the

rule of law, and human rights. Instead, a number of

areas are identified where Turkey is clearly at odds

with what are described as "modern" European standards.



Thus, the recognition that constitutional reforms have

shifted the balance of civil-military relations toward

civilians comes with the caveat that conflicting legal

provisions allow the military to continue to enjoy a

degree of autonomy.



Turkey's new Penal Code, adopted a few days ago,

receives wide praise for abolishing the death penalty

and enshrining women's rights.



The Penal Code also outlaws torture. The report notes

there was a marked decline in reported instances of

torture in 2004 as compared with 2003. However, an

increase in claims of torture was recorded outside of

formal detention centers.



An EU fact-finding mission returned from Turkey in

September and concluded that Ankara is seriously

pursuing its policy of zero tolerance on torture. Again,

however, the mission reported that "numerous cases" of

torture and ill treatment of detainees still occur.



Similar conclusions are evident in other key judgments.

Reforms are praised, but continued contrary practices

are noted.



Thus, the report says there have been a significant

number of cases where nonviolent expression of opinion

is still prosecuted and punished. Books were still being

banned and writers put on trial in 2003.



In the field of human rights and the protection of

minorities, the report recognizes the introduction of

two constitutional reforms and eight legislative-reform

packages since 1999. Turkey has adopted a number of

human rights treaties since 1999. It executes some

judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, but --

again -- not others.



Human-rights-monitoring bodies have been set up, as have

specialist training programs at the Interior and Justice

ministries, as well as police. However, implementation

of human rights reforms is said not to be uniform across

the country.



Turkey is criticized for not having signed the Framework

Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. It

receives praise for having allowed TV and radio

broadcasts in minority languages, such as Kurdish,

Arabic, Bosnian, and Circassian. However, it is noted

that harsh restrictions exist limiting their length.



The report notes that Turkey constitutionally guarantees

the freedom of religion, but adds that non-Muslim

communities continue to encounter difficulties. Thus,

Christians are said to occasionally still be subject to

police surveillance.



The second report analyzes the potential impact of

Turkish membership on the EU. It proceeds from the

assumption that Turkey would not join before 2014. That

date marks the start of the new EU multiannual budget

cycle.



The assessment appears to be that most of the Emus

current policies -- above all, farm support and regional

aid -- will need to be radically rethought so that they

do not prove ruinously costly.



The study says a Turkish accession would be different

from all previous enlargements because of the country's

population, size, and geographical location.



The annual cost of farm support to Turkey is estimated

to top 11 billion euros ($13.6 billion) - or more than

10 percent of the Emus current budget.



Long transitional periods are predicted for the free

movement of workers, and a potentially permanent

"safeguard" measure may become necessary to allow other

EU member states to lock out Turkish labor if their

markets suffer ill effects.



Another major challenge is said to be the future

management of the bloc's external borders, as well as

dealing with migration and asylum issues once Turkey

joins. Fighting organized crime, terrorism, and the

trafficking of human beings, drugs, and arms will also

present significant new challenges for the EU.



Turkey's membership in the visa-free Schengen area is

said not to be a "short-term" prospect after accession.

This means that border controls would remain in place.

Opportunities for the EU could arise in the form of

heightened security for the bloc's energy supplies.

Turkey would provide direct links to the Caspian

countries, as well as the Persian Gulf.



The clearest positive potential for the EU emerges in

the field of foreign policy. As a country with a Muslim

majority and a strategic position, Turkey could valuably

enhance the Emus role in the wider Middle East. It could

also serve as an important model for reform.



However, the report says that, in practical terms,

Turkish and EU policies are still often at variance

regarding Iraq, the Caucasus, and relations with the

Muslim world.



Turkey could also become a channel for stabilizing EU

influence in the South Caucasus. Much is said to depend

on Turkey's willingness, though. In particular relations

with Armenia will need to improve. The study says

reconciliation must be achieved over the mass killings

of Armenians in 1915 and 1916, which are widely called

genocide. Turkey must also contribute to the easing of

tensions in the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan

concerning Nagorno-Karabakh.



The study says Turkey could also help the EU to

stabilize Central Asia. END TEXT.



10. (U) Published October 2, 2004 by the New York Times:



TITLE: European Public Uneasy Over Turkey's Bid to Join

Union; By ELAINE SCIOLINO



BEGIN TEXT: AMSTERDAM, Oct. 1 - There are no minarets

at the Ayasofya Mosque in Amsterdam, no marble atrium,

no crystal-chandeliered prayer room. The biggest

Turkish mosque here operates out of a dark, rusting

hulk of a warehouse that was once a car repair and

supply service.



It is a place more for meeting than for prayer. It

sells subsidized groceries and meals, advertises jobs

for pizza makers and factory cleaners, and offers its

floors as temporary sleeping space for new migrants. It

is, in other words, just the sort of place that makes

many Europeans view Turks as truly foreign.



On Wednesday, the 25-member European Union is poised to

take a small but important step toward deciding whether

Turkey will be the first Muslim country to join its

ranks. The organization's executive committee will

vote on a report stating that Turkey has reformed

itself enough to merit entry talks.



If the committee's recommendation is accepted

unanimously by the member nations in December, there

will begin a negotiating process that could drag on for

a decade or more. Even then, it might not gain Turkey

full membership in the union, the world's largest

trading bloc.



But just the prospect of admitting a Muslim country of

71 million people - far larger than most members and

with a per capita income much lower than any member -

has set off a fierce, even ugly, debate over the nature

of European identity.



Polls throughout Europe suggest that many share the

fear first expressed by former President Valerie

Giscard d'Estaing of France that Turkey is not a

European country and that Turkish membership would mean

"the end of Europe."



A French opinion poll released Tuesday indicated that

56 percent of the French oppose Turkey's membership.

President Jacques Chirac said Friday that he would

require a national referendum on any future expansion.



While Chancellor Gerhard Schroder of Germany has

reacted favorably, a poll released Friday showed 57

percent of his country's population opposed. A poll

issued earlier this week stated that 62 percent of

Germans wanted the matter to be decided in a

referendum.



"There is a deep anti-Turkish feeling in the debate

over the E.U.," said Haci Karacaer, the director of

Ayasofya. "They say that Turkey is too big, too

Islamic, too poor, too undemocratic, too Asian to join

Europe."



His words echoed those of Frits Bolkestein, a Dutch

member of the European Union's executive committee. Mr.

Bolkestein warned in a speech last month that Europe

risked becoming "Islamized" if Turkey joined. If that

should happen, he added, the battle of Vienna in 1683

when Austrian, German and Polish troops pushed back the

Ottoman Turks, would

"have been in vain."



Europe, he concluded, "would implode." The fear

coincides with a rise in anti-Muslim feeling throughout

the continent, fueled in part by the train station

bombings in Madrid in March, which Spanish

investigators say were carried out by Islamic radicals

with ties to Al Qaeda; ongoing arrests of Muslims on

terrorist charges across Europe; and recent kidnappings

of European civilians by radical Muslim groups in Iraq.



"Even on the soccer field they yell at you and call you

"Turk" or "dirty foreigner," " said Yucel Gundogdu, a

Dutch-born employment counselor who plays midfield on

FC Turkiyemspor, once an all-Turkish amateur soccer

team and now the reigning amateur champion in the

Netherlands.



For him the European Union's decision is a kind of

litmus test for Europe. "If the E.U. refuses Turkey for

cultural or religious reasons, then it's racist," he

said.



The draft of a 54-page confidential report, which has

been leaking out to the European press and is to be

voted on by the European Union next week, largely

ignores the potential problems posed by Turkey's

cultural and religious heritage.



On the contrary, the report states, "Turkey would be an

important model of a country with a majority Muslim

population adhering to such fundamental principles as

liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and

fundamental freedoms and the rule of law."



If Turkey joins, the new border of the union will

extend to Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, Azerbaijan and

Georgia. That would pose a "policy challenge and

require significant investment" to manage migration and

asylum, and fight organized crime, terrorism and

trafficking of human beings, drugs and illicit weapons,

the report warns.



It also acknowledges the high cost of farm aid to

Turkey if it joins, as well as charges that human

rights abuses and the influence of Turkey's military

are still a problem. But the report also concludes that

a long transition period could mitigate the impact of a

huge wave of migration, that Turkey's young population

could provide an important new labor source and that

the negotiating process itself would spur Turkey to

even more democratic reform.



Many opponents of Turkish membership point out that

about 90 percent of the country is geographically in

Asia, not Europe, and assert that the European Union as

an institution should not be sacrificed to solve the

geopolitical problems of the world.



Even the Vatican has entered the debate, although it is

split on the question. "Turkey has always represented

another continent in the course of history, in

permanent contrast to Europe," the Catholic Church's

top theologian, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said in an

interview with Le Figaro Magazine in August, in

opposing Turkey's membership.



But on Thursday, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's

secretary of state, told reporters in Rome that the

Vatican "must remain neutral" on the matter.



The position of France has been particularly clever -

and calculated.



France knows well that no issue is more important for

Turkey than getting into the European Union. After

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan swept into office

nearly two years ago, he listed membership in the union

as his government's highest priority, even before

improving Turkey's economy.



During a visit to Paris in July, Mr. Erdogan brought a

generous package of economic incentives, including the

purchase of 36 Airbus planes worth more than $1.5

billion. President Jacques Chirac responded with an

announcement that Turkey's candidacy was compatible

with "France's national interests." Now he has joined

three of his ministers, including Prime Minister Jean-

Pierre Raffarin, in calling for a referendum on the

question.



The opposition has frustrated many of the three million

Turks and Europeans of Turkish descent already living

in Europe beyond Turkey's borders.



"The European Union is playing with Turkey," said

Levent Karaus, 22, a Dutch-born airport worker, as he

played backgammon at a Turkish teahouse in western

Amsterdam. "They say, "Come, come, come," and when

Turkey gets halfway across the bridge they say, "Stop."

"



At a nearby table, a group of young men of Turkish

descent playing cards said in chorus that Turkey should

not be allowed to join.



"They will flood into Europe," said Akag Acikgoz, 21, a

Dutch-born bouncer at a nightclub. "I don't want the

Turks to join, even if they are my people."



Firat Hokmanoglu, 18, a Dutch-born student, agreed,

saying: "Turkey is too poor to be in. Its getting in

doesn't really matter to me. I'm already here."



Helene Fouquet contributed reporting for this article.

END TEXT.



11. (U) Published October 1, 2004 by EUROFunding.com:



TITLE: European Commission simplifies funding of

external assistance



BEGIN TEXT: The European Commission has decided today

to replace the existing range of financial instruments

for the delivery of external assistance with a simpler,

more efficient framework.



Instead of the current wide range of geographical and

thematic instruments that has grown up in an ad-hoc

manner over time, the new framework will comprise six

instruments only, four of them new. The four new

instruments are: an instrument for Pre-Accession

Assistance, a European Neighbourhood and Partnership

instrument, a Development Cooperation and Economic

Cooperation instrument, and an instrument for

stability. Two existing instruments, for Humanitarian

Aid, and for Macro Financial Assistance are not in need

of modification, and will be maintained.



MEDA, and a substantial number of thematic instruments,

for example the European Initiative for Democracy and

Human Rights. In the Mediterranean and Middle East

alone, co operation and assistance are managed through

no less than 13 regulations. All these Regulations have

significant differences in their programming and

implementation procedures. Managing the Community's

programmes on the basis of such a mixed and complex set

of instruments, in an efficient and coordinated way,

has become an increasingly difficult task. The

framework set out in this Communication radically

reduces these differences.



The Pre Accession Instrument will cover the candidate

countries (Turkey and Croatia) and the potential

candidate countries (the Western Balkans). It replaces

existing instruments PHARE, ISPA, SAPARD, CARDS as well

as a number of other regulations.



The European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument

will cover third countries participating in the

European Neighbourhood Policy i.e. the countries of the

south and eastern Mediterranean, Ukraine, Moldova and

Belarus, and the countries of the southern Caucasus,

thus replacing MEDA and part of TACIS. This instrument

will also support the Emus strategic partnership with

Russia. A specific and innovative feature of the

instrument is its cross-border co-operation component,

that brings together regions of Member States with

neighbouring countries sharing a common border.



The Development Cooperation and Economic Cooperation

Instrument will cover all countries territories and

regions that are not eligible for assistance under

either the Pre-Accession instrument or the European

Neighbourhood and Partnership instrument (replacing

ALA, EDF[1], etc.).



The Instrument for Stability is a new instrument to

tackle crises and instability in third countries and

address trans-border challenges including nuclear

safety and non-proliferation, the fight against

trafficking, organised crime and terrorism.



The Humanitarian Aid instrument and Macro Financial

Assistance will remain unchanged except that all Food

Aid of a humanitarian nature will be included under

Humanitarian Aid instead of being dealt with under a

separate Regulation.



Further information can be found in the "Communication

from the Commission to the Council and European

Parliament on the Instruments for External Assistance

under the Future Financial Perspective 2007-2013". END

TEXT.



12. (U) Published October 1, 2004 by LE MONDE:



TITLE: France: Le Monde Examines Illegal Immigration

into Europe



BEGIN TEXT: France's major center-left daily Le Monde

recently has focused on trends in illegal immigration

to the European Union. The paper's online edition has

provided web-based Flash graphics detailing routes

taken by "clandestine" immigrants, their methods of

travel, and the adoption of recent legislative measures

throughout Europe to deal with the flow of illegal

immigrants.



German Intelligence services estimate that at least

500,000 illegal immigrants arrive each year in Europe

and receive about 5 billion euros in annual social

welfare benefits, a sum that ranks just behind drug

trafficking and arms smuggling receipts.



As of August 2004, there have been 9904 illegal

immigrants turned back at Europe's borders.

In the above diagram, yellow arrows represent routes

taken by illegal immigrants via sea, blue represents

land routes, and red represents air routes.



Immigration Routes from the Middle East The first

destination for illegal immigrants from Iran, Iraq,

Turkey, or Kurdistan is Istanbul, Turkey. From there,

they depart for either Brindisi or Bari, Italy or

Frankfurt, Germany, and then on to France, Spain, or

the United Kingdom.

Sea Routes From Istanbul, the route is by "zodiac"

boats with the immigrants leaving from the coasts of

the Aegean Sea. The cost of passage averages 1500

euros.



Air Routes Forged passports and tourist visas can be

bought in a travel agency for approximately 4,000 US

dollars with about eight days wait time. Air travel is

usually from Istanbul to Frankfurt, where an immigrant

seeks political asylum.



Land Routes Illegal immigrants traveling from Istanbul

to Germany -- usually by truck -- normally pass through

Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania. The Bulgarian border is

considered to be the most permeable.



Immigration Routes from East Africa Illegal immigrants

from East Africa travel via Istanbul, or Brindisi. Such

immigrants usually come from Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia,

Egypt, Somalia, Kenya, or Niger.



Via Italy Libya has become a major hub for illegal

African immigrants whose destinations are EU countries,

especially Italy, as Tripoli no longer requires a

transit visa for travelers from the "brother countries"

of continental Africa.



Via Turkey Departing from Sudan, frequently in cargo

ship containers originating in Eastern Europe, illegal

immigrants arrive in Turkey; they proceed on their way

to the Ukrainian port of Odessa, then via land route

through Moldavia, and on to Galati in southeast

Romania.



Immigration Routes from West Africa the typical route

for illegal immigrants is via Algeria, with Tamanrasset

as the first point of entry. Immigrants then travel

through Algeria by car or truck and cross the Moroccan

border at either Oujda or Nador. The goal is to reach

the enclave of Melilla, also known as "little Spain" or

Ceuta, on the Moroccan coast. Immigrants taking this

route are from Niger, Mali, Nigeria, Cameroun, Togo,

Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, and Liberia.



The passage north to Gibraltar is usually made at night

in overcrowded boats called "pateras." Passage is

organized by traffickers who charge 600 to 2,000 euros

per person. Once in Spain, immigrants can travel to

other destinations within the EU.



Immigration Routes from Asia Illegal immigrants from

Asia, traveling by air or by land, come primarily from

China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Sri

Lanka. Immigrants from Russia and the Federated

Republic of Chechnya travel primarily by land routes.



Air Routes Some Chinese immigrants fly directly to

Paris, using false Japanese or South Korean passports

that cost approximately 15,000 euros.



Land Routes Illegal immigrants from China cross the

Ukraine, Poland, and the Czech Republic by truck,

proceeding on foot across the Czech-German border into

Germany. Chinese immigrant networks are using Belgrade

as a hub.



From East to West Europe Illegal immigrants taking the

East-West route come mainly from Russia, Ukraine,

Moldavia, Belarus, Georgia, and the Caucasus.

Land Route Traveling by truck, car, and by foot,

illegal immigrants travel through Slovenia seeking to

reach Italy as their port of entry to the European

Union. Leaving from Chisinau, Moldova, they travel to

Italy by train, car, or by foot at night, crossing the

Romanian and Albanian borders.



Sea Route Illegal immigrants from Albania who arrive on

the Italian coast sail in small, flat, light-weight

boats called "scafi" that can travel below radar. Most

often, they arrive either in Lecce, in southern Italy,

in San Foca, a resort opposite the Albanian coast, or

in Bari, Brindisi, or Otranto.



European Legislation Countering Illegal Immigration

Current legislation being studied by the European

Commission includes the negotiation of a common asylum

rights policy; harmonization of penalties for those who

aid in human trafficking, those who aid or organize

coordinated transits through the EU, and penalizing

employers who overlook irregularities on work visas.

Sri Lanka, Macao, and Hong Kong have already signed

cooperation accords with the EU to combat illegal

immigration. The EU is negotiating with an additional

six countries -- Morocco, Ukraine, Russia, China,

Pakistan, and Algeria -- to sign agreements on

immigration policies.



The European Commission is also discussing the

implementation of a Europe wide database of all

temporary visas issued for the countries of the

Schengen zone and the creation of a European agency to

control borders.



The G5 Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK meet

annually to discuss the undertaking of immigration

projects and legislation by the group such as:



-- Establishing a list of countries from which

immigrants to Europe are ineligible to claim asylum



-- Intensifying international cooperation to discover

and dismantle illegal immigrant and human trafficking

networks



-- Requiring airlines to provide passenger data before

arrival



UK Legislation In the United Kingdom, an illegal

immigrant can stay for an unlimited period while being

processed for political asylum. During this time, the

asylum seeker is provided with publicly-funded legal

services and housing.



Recent legislation includes a November 2002 law

providing for the reinforcement of border inspections

with France and Belgium, fines and penalties for

transportation companies caught carrying illegal

immigrants, wittingly or not, and the creation of

reception centers for asylum seekers.



-- The law also provides for the naturalization of some

50,000 immigrants who requested political asylum three

years or more prior to November 2002. The law also

enacted stricter penalties for asylum seekers who have

lost or misplaced their paperwork and made visas

obligatory for nationals of the 18 countries with the

highest number of immigrants to the UK.



According to the Home Office, the majority of asylum

seekers and illegal immigrants come from Somalia,

Afghanistan, Iraq, and Zimbabwe followed by China,

Iran, and Pakistan. It reported 61,050 requests for

asylum from undocumented and illegal immigrants in

2003. While this is the highest number within the EU,

it is 43 percent less than the previous year, when the

new asylum law was enacted.



German Legislation At this time, an illegal immigrant

can remain in Germany for only 18 months while

processing for political asylum.



A law adopted on 9 July 2004 restricted even legal

immigration to Germany -- requiring an immigrant's

dossier to be re-examined after three years, providing

for the automatic expulsion of immigrants sentenced to

prison, the construction of deportation centers, and

the automatic expulsion of any immigrant deemed a

threat to national security.

According to the Interior Ministry, the majority of

illegal immigrants come from Turkey, Serbia and

Montenegro, Iraq, the Russian Federation and China. The

ministry reported that 50,600 immigrants in Germany

requested asylum in 2003.



Italian Legislation Italy allows an illegal immigrant

to remain in the country for only two months while

processing asylum documentation.



The "Bossi-Fini" law of 2002 required the

intensification of border patrols, digital

fingerprinting of all illegal immigrants, and immediate

expulsion of, or one year imprisonment for repeat

offenders. Although Italian employers classified

634,728 immigrants as documented workers in 2003,

residence permits will no longer be given to immigrants

not possessing valid work contracts.



Italy is currently negotiating an immigration treaty

with the Balkan countries (including Albania) and

Libya, under which Italy will have a fixed quota system

for immigrants. The countries, with which Italy is

negotiating, are being asked to institute mechanisms to

reintegrate returning illegal immigrants.



Italy saw a 40 percent decrease in reported cases of

illegal immigration in 2003 compared to the year prior

(14,331 vice 23,719).



According to the Interior Ministry, the majority of

illegal immigrants to Italy come from Sri Lanka, Iraq,

the former Yugoslavia, and Turkey. The Ministry

reported that 7,280 immigrants requested asylum in

2002.



Spanish Legislation Spain allows 40 days for an illegal

immigrant to begin processing the documentation needed

to remain in country. However, the law of 29 October

2003 provided a statute of limitations on clandestine

immigration. The law provides local and federal police

the power, for up to 10 years, to bring charges against

a person who has entered the country illegally and

continues to reside within the country, even though he

or she may be a citizen at the time of prosecution.

Procedures are being negotiated to make it more

difficult for family members to rejoin each other once

asylum status has been granted to one member. There

will be severe penalties for immigrants caught trying

to enter the country illegally and for businesses that

knowingly employ illegal immigrants. In addition,

transportation companies, such as airlines, buses, and

trains, will be required to supply information on

passengers who do not use their return trip ticket on a

round trip purchase.



The Spanish and Moroccan police reportedly will

increase cooperative efforts to patrol the Straits of

Gibraltar and implement the Integrated Border Patrol

System (SIVE),a string of radar stations capable of

picking up the movement of small marine craft.



The Spanish Ministry of the Interior stated that of the

more than 70,000 immigrants deported in 2003, 16,000

entered Spain via clandestine coastal landings. In

2002, there were 6,179 requests for political asylum in

Spain from immigrants coming primarily from Morocco,

Algeria, Nigeria, Cuba, and Colombia.



Austrian Legislation Considered to be one of the most

extreme in the EU, a law adopted on 23 October 2003,

which allows only two months to begin processing for

residency status, does not permit demands for asylum to

be made at Austria's borders and bars additional

evidence to the court of appeal once the appellate

court has rendered its decision. An immigrant can also

be deported during the appellate process for any

reason.



The Austrian Ministry of the Interior reported 32,400

demands for asylum in 2003, with the majority of the

requestors originating from Russia, Turkey, India,

Serbia and Montenegro, and Afghanistan. END TEXT.

EDELMAN