Arte Polis

Spain Confronts Decades of Pain Over Lost Babies

SEVILLE, Spain — Prodded by grieving parents, Spanish judges are investigating hundreds of charges that infants were abducted and sold for adoption over a 40-year period. What may have begun as political retaliation for leftist families during the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco appears to have mutated into a trafficking business in which doctors, nurses and even nuns colluded with criminal networks.

Laura Leon for the International Herald Tribune

Dolores Díaz Cerpa said she was carrying twins in 1973, but the hospital said she delivered only a girl. Lawsuits have been filed to learn the truth.

The cases, which could eventually run into the thousands, are jolting a country still shaken by the spoken and unspoken terrors of Spain’s 1936-39 Civil War and Franco’s rule. Last week, 78-year-old Concepción Rodrigo Romero joined the rapidly growing ranks of Spanish parents who are turning to the courts to uncover the fates of their babies.

Mrs. Rodrigo Romero, a former seamstress, gave birth, prematurely, in 1971. A doctor in a Seville hospital told her that she had had a son, who was small but “fine and capable of getting a lot bigger,” she recalled in an interview.

The doctor never reappeared, and she never saw her baby again. Two days later, another doctor at the hospital told her husband that the baby had been sent to another hospital for further checks, but had died there.

The second hospital had taken care of the burial, the doctor said, and the body lay in Seville’s San Fernando cemetery, in an unmarked grave.

“Deep inside, I’ve always known that my son was stolen from me,” Mrs. Rodrigo Romero said.

Spain’s judiciary was forced into action after Anadir, an association formed to represent people searching for missing children or parents, filed its first complaints in late January. Attorney General Cándido Conde-Pumpido announced on June 18 that 849 cases were being examined, adding that 162 already could be classified as criminal proceedings because of evidence pointing to abductions.

The statute of limitations on most of the suspected crimes has expired, prompting lawyers to discuss whether a special statute can be adopted. In 2008, Baltasar Garzón, Spain’s most internationally renowned judge, extended an investigation into allegations of crimes during the Franco era to examine whether Franco had ordered thousands of babies taken from women who had supported his republican opponents in the civil war.

The cases of disappeared infants stretch from 1950 to 1990, continuing well after Franco’s death in 1975. It is not known whether government officials played any role.

Mr. Conde-Pumpido, who said it was impossible to estimate how many more cases would surface, also suggested for the first time that organized crime “networks” had been involved. He gave no details, saying only that he did not believe that “one single organization” had masterminded all the abductions.

Antonio Barroso, the president of Anadir, said he believed that over time Spain became a hub for gangs operating an international trade, with many newborns sold into adoption overseas.

The possibility of such an operation is one of many unanswered questions posed by the searing journey of long-silent parents and children in recent months.

Mr. Barroso, 42, founded Anadir last year, after being told by a friend that they were both adopted. He took DNA samples from the woman he had always known as his mother and confronted her after tests showed that his sample and hers were not a match. She admitted paying a nun for a baby and misleading her son about his birth for decades.

Mr. Barroso said he had since tracked down the nun, who had worked in a maternity ward. His own lawsuit — against the nun and other hospital staff members — has yet to be heard in court, and he is still searching for his real parents.

According to Anadir, a handful of adopted people have managed to find their parents, but so far most have preferred to remain anonymous. To help with legal matters, Anadir and other similar associations that have sprung up as the list of plaintiffs grows are trying to recruit lawyers willing to work on a pro bono basis.

Last month, the first cemetery exhumations took place in La Línea de la Concepción, after allegations that newborns had been buried there. Madrid’s regional attorney’s office has said that it would require medical staff members, including nuns who worked as nurses, to testify in court about the whereabouts of some children who were born during the 40-year period under investigation.

As in Mr. Barroso’s case, a few nuns have confessed to selling children, but without suggesting that they were part of a criminal network. The Roman Catholic Church has had no comment.

A Wave of Chinese Money Gives a Lift to Companies Struggling in Tough Times

hinese investment in American companies rose to $5 billion in 2010, but that may be only the beginning of a tidal wave of direct Chinese investment in American businesses, according to a recent report that envisions another $1 trillion to $2 trillion of Chinese overseas investment this decade.

The report, commissioned by the Asia Society and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, outlines the change in China’s priorities from attracting foreign investment to becoming a global purveyor of capital. While China has been investing to develop natural resources in Australia, Africa and elsewhere for years, the coming wave is different. It reflects China’s intention to expand its already enormous but still growing domestic market. To do so, Chinese companies that have mastered manufacturing must develop their distribution, marketing and innovation skills, all areas where American businesses could help.

While there is some concern that political tensions could get in the way, the investment money is a huge opportunity for American businesses. The following four small businesses, already the beneficiaries of such investments, illustrate the aims of Chinese investors and the benefits that American companies can take from them — including rescue from a very tough economy.

Solar Power Inc., of Roseville, Calif., received a $33 million investment in March from LDK Solar, a large Chinese manufacturer of solar cells. The American company, now seven years old and with 60 employees, installs solar arrays on commercial buildings, including on the roofs of Staples Center and the 20th Century Fox movie studios in Los Angeles. Solar Power initially focused on the United States residential market but that market collapsed in the recession. In 2010 the company’s sales declined to about $24 million and its losses increased.

So Stephen C. Kircher, Solar Power’s founder and chief executive, turned to commercial projects and attracted LDK Solar’s investment in exchange for 70 percent ownership of Solar Power. Mr. Kircher had met LDK executives in China through two California financial institutions, Roth Capital Partners in Newport Beach and East West Bank in Pasadena.

“LDK Solar’s investment will allow us to compete for many projects across the United States, not just one job at a time,” Mr. Kircher said. Indeed, Solar Power recently won a three-year job to provide engineering on solar energy projects in New York and New Jersey.

Why did LDK, which has $3.6 billion in annual sales of solar energy components, buy into Solar Power? “Their aim is to employ Chinese people,” Mr. Kircher said. “They will integrate their manufacturing with marketing and distribution on our solar panel projects and then have the know-how to help them in the emerging domestic economy in China.”

MVP RV of Riverside, Calif., a maker of recreational vehicles, was able to reopen its doors this year thanks to a big order and significant investment from Winston Battery of Shenzhen, China. Brad B. Williams, Roger J. Humeston, and Pablo Carmona had purchased MVP, a motor home and travel trailer operation, in July 2008 from their employer, Thor Industries. At that time, MVP had 440 employees and close to $100 million in sales, Mr. Williams said.

Two months later, the recession began and demand for recreational vehicles collapsed. Gradually, employees were laid off, and the company closed its factory “to preserve capital,” Mr. Williams said.

“We went through more than 40 presentations trying to raise capital, with no luck,” Mr. Williams said. “But then we got a call from somebody asking us to visit Winston Battery in Shenzhen.” There the partners met Winston Chung, an entrepreneur whose company makes lithium ion batteries. “We hit it off immediately,” Mr. Williams said.

Mr. Chung gave MVP an order for a few motor homes that got the company working again. Then early this year, Winston Battery gave MVP a $5 billion order for 10,000 motor homes — which can cost from $100,000 apiece to more than $1 million — and 20,000 smaller vehicles over the next three years.

The Chinese company also began an investment “that will ultimately amount to $310 million, making Mr. Chung the majority owner of our company,” Mr. Williams said. As a result, he added, the original partners will have “a smaller piece of a bigger pie.”

The company is now back up to 250 employees and plans to take on about 1,000 more in the next few years. “We are building prototypes for the China market now,” Mr. Williams said. The recreational vehicles on order will be diesel-powered, he said, “but we will work with Winston Battery to develop electric-powered vehicles in the next few years.”

Synthesis Energy Systems, of Houston, recently got an $84 million investment from Zhongjixuan Investment Management, of Beijing, which will assist Synthesis in developing new ventures in China. Synthesis Energy was introduced to Zhongjixuan Investment, also known as ZJX, through a Chinese business associate who helped arrange a gas-from-coal energy project in China in 2006.

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President Looks for Broader Deal on Deficit Cuts

WASHINGTON — Heading into a crucial negotiating session on a budget deal on Thursday, President Obama has raised his sights and wants to strike a far-reaching agreement on cutting the federal deficit as Speaker John A. Boehner has signaled new willingness to bargain on revenues.

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Senators Al Franken, Frank R. Lautenberg, Sheldon Whitehouse and Debbie Stabenow, all Democrats, discussing debt limit negotiations Wednesday at a news conference in Washington.
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Mr. Obama, who is to meet at the White House with the bipartisan leadership of Congress in an effort to work out an agreement to raise the federal debt limit, wants to move well beyond the $2 trillion in savings sought in earlier negotiations and seek perhaps twice as much over the next decade, Democratic officials briefed on the negotiations said Wednesday.

The president’s renewed efforts follow what knowledgeable officials said was an overture from Mr. Boehner, who met secretly with Mr. Obama last weekend, to consider as much as $1 trillion in unspecified new revenues as part of an overhaul of tax laws in exchange for an agreement that made substantial spending cuts, including in such social programs as Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security — programs that had been off the table.

The intensifying negotiations between the president and the speaker have Congressional Democrats growing anxious, worried they will be asked to accept a deal that is too heavily tilted toward Republican efforts and produces too little new revenue relative to the magnitude of the cuts.

Congressional Democrats said they were caught off guard by the weekend White House visit of Mr. Boehner — a meeting the administration still refused to acknowledge on Wednesday — and Senate Democrats raised concerns at a private party luncheon on Wednesday.

House Democrats have their own fears about the negotiations, which they expressed in an hourlong meeting Wednesday night with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.

“Depending on what they decide to recommend, they may not have Democrats,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, said in an interview. “I think it is a risky thing for the White House to basically take the bet that we can be presented with something at the last minute and we will go for it.”

Officials said Mr. Boehner suggested that he was open to the possibility of $1 trillion or more in new revenue that would be generated by addressing tax issues already raised in the talks, like killing breaks for the oil and gas industry, eliminating ethanol subsidies and ending preferential treatment for corporate jets.

But those changes would fall far short of the revenue goal, and the source of the rest of the money would, under what they described as Mr. Boehner’s proposal, be decided by Congress through a review of tax law changes. One official said some revenue could be generated by allowing Bush-era tax cuts for affluent Americans to expire at the end of 2012, which would produce hundreds of billions of dollars, though those savings would be offset by the costs of retaining lower rates for those below the income threshold.

Aides to Mr. Boehner said that no tax increases were on the table and that he had not agreed to the expiration of any tax cuts.

One source familiar with the talks said the speaker had put forward options on how to proceed, including making a commitment to a tax code overhaul that would lower rates while closing loopholes, ending deductions and instituting other changes to generate substantial new revenue. Mr. Boehner has in the past pushed tax simplification as a way to help the economy.

Democrats were distrustful of Mr. Boehner’s idea, saying such an approach raises the prospect that future tax and revenue changes could be blocked by Republicans after Democrats had already agreed to the detailed cuts. They sought assurances that all the elements of any budget deal would be enacted simultaneously.

“We want as robust a deficit reduction deal as possible,” said David Krone, chief of staff to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, who would serve as point man for moving any agreement through the Senate. “But it has to be balanced between spending and revenues, in terms of timing, specificity and dollars.”

Democrats are not just worried about the substantial policy issues at stake; they are also concerned about the political implications of any deal as they try to hold control of the Senate next year and win back the House.

To the degree that any deal wins bipartisan support on slowing the growth of Medicare, for example, it would deprive Democrats of what has been one of their most potent arguments heading into 2012: their assertion that Republicans would gut the traditional Medicare system and leave older Americans vulnerable to rapidly rising health care costs.

Faced with the prospect that the federal government would default on its credit obligations, Democrats might indeed be cajoled into backing an agreement they did not strongly support. But at the moment, there is substantial private and public grumbling about what looms ahead.

Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, urged the president not to yield to Republican demands to reduce the deficit by cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare, Medicaid and other domestic spending. He said that “the president has got to demand that at least 50 percent of deficit reduction come from revenues,” including higher taxes on the wealthy and large corporations.

At the same time, Representative Eric Cantor, the Virginia Republican and majority leader, said Wednesday that he would not accept any net increase in federal revenues, and that any money raised from eliminating tax breaks or loopholes must be offset by cuts elsewhere in the tax code.

“If the president wants to talk loopholes, we’ll be glad to talk loopholes,” Mr. Cantor said. “We have said all along that preferences in the code are not something that helps economic growth over all. But, listen, we are not for any proposal that increases taxes. Any type of discussion should be coupled with offsetting tax cuts somewhere else.”

White House officials acknowledge the unrest among Democrats. But they argue that Democrats will be in stronger shape politically heading into November 2012 if they help enact a credible deficit reduction deal, allowing them to mount the argument that they protected Medicare from a much more drastic overhaul by Republicans.

In contrast, they say, failure to produce an agreement could bring unpredictable and unfavorable economic and political consequences.

The officials are convinced that a larger package — one that would demand deeper cuts and more taxes but put the nation on a sounder fiscal footing for a decade or longer — is more politically palatable than the $2 trillion-plus package that was being cobbled together in talks presided over by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

And not all Democrats see the push for a major package as a negative.

“We don’t need a minideal,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat, said Wednesday on the Senate floor. “We need something that speaks authoritatively to the world that the United States understands its deficit challenge and is prepared to make the hard choices to address it.”

Robert Pear contributed reporting.