{"id":785,"date":"2019-12-16T15:10:11","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T14:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.masina.rs\/eng\/?p=785"},"modified":"2019-12-16T15:42:05","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T14:42:05","slug":"laura-palmer-small-town-romania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.masina.rs\/eng\/laura-palmer-small-town-romania\/","title":{"rendered":"Laura Palmer from Small-Town Romania"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cThe police kill\u201d; Photo: Hind Hammoud \/ Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the end of July this year, 15-year-old Alexandra was killed in Caracal, southern Romania. The fact that the police, whom she had called three times, took nineteen hours to locate the call and arrive at the scene of the killing, caused shock and indignation across Romania, but also pointed to the state apparatuses\u2019 mechanisms of subordination, and the catastrophic effect of capitalism on the outskirts of Europe.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Due to the regional public transport restrictions, Alexandra M\u0103ce\u0219anu had to hitch-hike or catch a “wild” taxi<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, which had turned into common modes of local transport in the province. Caracal is, by the way, notorious after an affair discovered in 2012, which involved organized prostitution and sex trafficking of minors, and which implicated the local police, staff of a military (NATO) base situated in the town, and employees of an Austrian company engaged to overhaul a nearby hydro plant. Romania is, according to some, the country from which a shocking three quarters of victims of sex trafficking in Europe come.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

This was as much of the basic information about the case that could be learned from conversations with friends from Romania. The media in Serbia and the region reported on the crime and the initial results of the investigation without mentioning the broader context, which was mentioned and commented on in Romania in various occasions and from various stand points.<\/p>\n

Usual announcements<\/a> of increased measures of repression, surveillance and regulation<\/a> followed soon. The resulting atmosphere and its unwanted and potentially dangerous contradictions, in terms of creeping normalization or widespread manipulation of violence against women, are adequately described in a manifesto<\/a> of a group of feminist activists.<\/p>\n

Since 1989 a fierce battle for the so-called democratization of society has been waged in Romania, with two main opposing sides. One is that of the “reformed communists”, that is, the very shy “social democrats” (agreeing and compliant with almost all austerity measures, although they primarily affect their electorate and erode their political capacity in the long run), and the other being that of the “democratic” bloc, assembled and disassembled over the last three decades out of various combinations and incarnations of nationalists, liberals and conservatives. In the last few years the most prominent battlefield has been the fight against corruption, either the actually existing and to a certain extent inevitable in the given economic and political conditions, or the one inscribed through propaganda, related with racist-mythical stereotypes about states and peoples that have not yet become “normal” (and are therefore practicing corruption in an untidy and \u201cunder the counter\u201d manner, not in an open and administratively-legally-orderly way as it is the case<\/a> in normal<\/em> nations and states).<\/p>\n

In the interlacing of affairs, accusations, lawsuits, defamation, threats and set-ups, a protest-research-defense-inquisitorial public has constituted, perhaps unique (for Eastern Europe), which tirelessly searches for “backgrounds” “conspiracies”, “cliques” which are, of course, all against the ever fewer and less enthusiastic citizens of Romania. Such constellation and dynamics are regenerated on every necessary and unnecessary occasion, when the opposing parties automatically seek to weaken their rival or strengthen their position in the light of a new topic.<\/p>\n

These struggles and the related confusion are to a certain extent also favorable for the development of critical and investigative journalism in Romania. A kind of a bard of that domain, Catalin Tolontan, meets high standards when it comes to dedication, uncompromising stance, even obsessiveness in the search for inaccessible or unknown information, according to the prevailing opinion. After the expected expansion of all sorts of chaotic and opportunistic, accurate and inaccurate news in the days after the crime, he and his team of associates directly drew the public’s attention to the wide(st) context of the crime in Caracal.<\/p>\n

In an article in a newspaper<\/a> which developed from a tabloid (in which Tolontan took over the role of the editor) you can read all about the possible or obvious links between the previous and the last case in Caracal and Romania, whose common lessons are: sex trafficking is a systemic problem, and all power structures are involved and well benefiting from it. This reveals that the last case is a part of a broader system and long-term problems, not an isolated incident. The results of this research are troublesome even if you only check the Google translate of the headline: \u201c16 Caracal minors forced into sexual relations with Romanian citizens, Austrian managers and US soldiers. The security service avoided to investigate military personnel from the base even though they were buying sexual services from girls between the ages of 14 and 16 through a macro.”<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>What follows is one horror after another:<\/p>\n