Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 13 Comments

See also: Sangeeta Richard is proof of failed American reciprocity

In the uproar concerning of the US mistreatment of their Lady Diplomat, Devyani Khobragade, the Indian government has pointed out that the United States saw things quite differently just two years ago when the tables were turned.

In 2011, CIA operative Raymond Allen Davis killed two robbers in Lahore, Pakistan, using an illegal weapon.  His defense was that one of them had drawn his weapon on him in order to rob him.  While the Pakistanis charged him with murder and wanted him to stand trial, the United States took the position that he was a consular employee and therefore he enjoyed diplomatic immunity.  Barack Obama himself said that Davis should be returned on the grounds of reciprocity (see video of Obama’s very interesting plea).  The US claimed that Davis was a “technial advisor for the American Consulate in Lahore”.  Yet Pakistani lawyer, Mirza Shahzad Akbarm, argued that Pakistan had the right to hold Davis, as he was attached only to a Consulate:

The governing instrument of International Law for diplomatic immunity is called Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961, and a lot has been said about this already in press and on TV. However no one has paid attention to a similar treaty of just two years later, called Vienna Convention on Consular Relations 1963 which was adopted by Pakistan through Diplomatic and Consular Privileges Act 1972.

This Convention governs immunities and privileges accorded to Consulate members and its staff. The word “consular post” is defined in Article 1 of 1963 Convention as any consulate general, consulate, vice consulate or consular agency, and consular officer is defined as any person, including the head of a consular post, entrusted in that capacity with the exercise of consular functions.

After understanding these two definitions given in Vienna Convention of 1963, one needs to read Article 41 (1) which says: “Consular officers shall not be liable to arrest or detention pending trial, except in the case of a grave crime and pursuant to a decision by the competent judicial authority”.

Now having read the law, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that if a member of US Consulate in Lahore kills someone, he is answerable to a court of law in that jurisdiction, as there is no other crime more heinous or more grave than murder.

Now when it comes to the case of Devyani Khobragade, the US turns around and uses Mirza Shahzad Akbarm’s argument to deny Khobragade’s immunity, stating that she is only attached to the Indian Consulate and therefore she must stand trial for her act of lying on Visa application papers and paying her nanny less than minimum wage.  Since Obama pleaded for Davis’ release, then Khobragade should enjoy diplomatic immunity, a fortiori.  For one thing, no one has yet claimed that she was spying on the United States, and it does seem, at least to me, that her alleged crimes are less serious than murder.  The claim that she is guilty of human trafficking and enslavement of her nanny is an exaggeration.

Generally speaking, I just see this as unadulterated hypocrisy. United States diplomacy thus needs a generous spritzing of PooPourri.

 

 

13 thoughts on “United States diplomacy requires a generous spritzing of PooPourri”

  1. Yep, and the end result was that he was held anyways until blood money was paid, which is acceptable under Pakistani law.

  2. Interesting analogy. Unfortunately, even PooPourri can’t compete with the stench emanating from Washington. I do believe, however, that the company’s spokeswoman could be the next Margaret Thatcher if she chooses to go into politics.

  3. @Deckard, When PooPourri only claims to be able to cover the stench of one’s “business”–and in this case, I’m only applying it to US diplomacy regarding these two incidents.

    As for Benny Woodruff, she doesn’t remind me of the Iron Lady at all. For one thing, she is Scottish.

  4. Nice post Petros. The hypocrisy coming from Washington is simply unbelievable. Seems to me that the U.S. government believes that the purpose of law is to provide a set of predictable rules for other countries to abide by but the U.S. is exempt from.

    Seems to me that any country considering a FATCA IGA should read this post.

    By the way, I hope that you saw @Tim’s comment:

    http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/12/18/united-states-authorities-stripped-and-cavity-searched-indian-diplomat/comment-page-5/#comment-845014

    which includes:

    http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/12/18/diplomatic-abuse-of-servants-not-just-for-indians/

    According to court documents, a U.S. Department of State diplomat and her husband tricked an Ethiopian woman into accompanying them as their domestic servant to Japan, where they held her virtually as a prisoner in their home and forced her to work for them for less than $1 per hour and where the husband repeatedly raped the woman with his diplomat wife’s consent. A Virginia federal judge awarded the victim $3.3 million in damages on a default judgment against the couple. The diplomat retired from the State Department with full pension and then fled the country.

    The victim, identified only as “Jane Doe,” told the court she was hired by the Howards in 2008 as a live-in housekeeper at the couple’s home in Yemen, where Linda Howard worked at the U.S. embassy. Doe says she agreed to move with the couple to Japan after Linda Howard was transferred to the embassy there and that she was promised wages of $300 per month, time off each week, health insurance and a safe place to live and work.

    Once in Japan, Doe says, Russell Howard repeatedly raped her, forced her to perform oral sex and sexually assaulted her. Doe says Linda Howard was complicit in her husband’s sexual abuse, telling Doe that she should gratify her husband and make him happy. Doe, who speaks little English and no Japanese, says the Howards also used nonphysical force, such as isolation and threats of deportation, to coerce her into servitude.

    And more:

    Murder

    Earlier this year in Kenya, an American diplomat who police say was speeding crossed the center line in his SUV and rammed into a full mini-bus, killing a father of three whose widow is six months pregnant. The embassy then rushed the American and his family out of Kenya the next day, leaving the crash victims with no financial assistance to pay for a funeral and for hospital bills for the eight or so others who were seriously injured.

    “It is difficult for me to handle this matter because my kids need to go to school. They need everything, basic needs,” the widow said. “And we have no place to stay because we have to pay the rent. We have no money. … Even if my kids are sick I have no money to take them to hospital.”

    The U.S. embassy commented “The embassy is fully cooperating with the Kenyan authorities as they investigate the accident and work to aid the victims.”

    Ms. Kerry Howard, the community-liaison officer at the U.S. Consulate in Naples, claims she was run out of her job with the State Department after complaining about the consul general’s alleged office trysts with subordinates and hookers. One subordinate was allegedly forced to have an abortion.

    Ms. Howard stated she had been bullied, harassed and forced to resign after she exposed U.S. Consul General Donald Moore’s alleged security-threatening shenanigans in the Naples, Italy, office. She explained that when she revealed allegations about her boss, State Department officials swept it under the rug, according to an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint she filed with the Department’s Office of Civil Rights. State tried to disappear the issue by transferring Moore out of the country, but now the FBI is allegedly involved.

    The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo has had its share of problems. In the early part of this decade, the embassy paid-for-dormitory for domestics (so they did not have to live with their diplomatic masters) was found full of women not connected with the embassy, some of whom were prostituting themselves on and out of U.S. government property. The public restroom just outside the dorm was a known quickie spot for night time taxi drivers looking for sex. Things were handled nice and quietly by State and the story stayed out of the news and out of the taxpayers’ attention.

  6. @Petros

    I give Bethany Woodruff credit for mastering such a prim and proper English accent – sometimes I thought Lady Thatcher’s had to be a put-on since she always sounded like such a caricature of herself.

    Meanwhile, I wholeheartedly agree with you that U.S. hypocrisy has become so highly-evolved that it is now simply in a class of its own. Once again, Americans are playing a very dangerous game by holding themselves to a different standard of respect for international diplomatic conventions than the rest of the world. The inevitable consequences will be very tragic, and entirely predictable, as they have been many times before.

    Nevertheless, America will feign shock and surprise, and ask once again the classic Bush question, “Why do they hate us?” Then, they will dutifully answer their own stupid question with the even stupider answer, “Because of our freedoms.” Right.

  9. @Deckard

    You write:

    Meanwhile, I wholeheartedly agree with you that U.S. hypocrisy has become so highly-evolved that it is now simply in a class of its own. Once again, Americans are playing a very dangerous game by holding themselves to a different standard of respect for international diplomatic conventions than the rest of the world. The inevitable consequences will be very tragic, and entirely predictable, as they have been many times before.

    Nevertheless, America will feign shock and surprise, and ask once again the classic Bush question, “Why do they hate us?” Then, they will dutifully answer their own stupid question with the even stupider answer, “Because of our freedoms.” Right.

    The issue of the “freedoms” of Americans is interesting. It is becoming increasingly obvious that Americans are among the least free people on earth. At least not free by any conventional understanding.

    In his book “Our Endangered Values”, President Carter describes this interesting situation (page 104). He describes American Serviceman Carlos Lazo, who has two teenaged sons living in Cuba. Mr. Lazo was denied permission (by the U.S.) to visit his sons in Cuba. President Carter then writes:

    “It is troubling to realize that American Sergeant Lazo could visit his sons if he were a citizen of any other nation in the world”.

    How do you like your freedom now?

    Why the travel restrictions on citizens of the “land of the free”? You may recall last year @USXCanada published an interesting post “U.S. Passport as instrument of control”

    http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/12/24/u-s-passport-as-instrument-of-control/

    which included:

    The extraordinary Mrs. Shipley: how the United States controlled international travel before the age of terrorism
    Connecticut Law Review 43:3 (Feb 2011) 819-888

    http://uconn.lawreviewnetwork.com/files/documents/JeffreyKahn43Conn.L.Rev.819.pdf

    [389 footnotes] Career civil servant Ruth B. Shipley acted as chief of the Passport Division of the U.S. State Department from 1928 to 1955. Shipley personally reviewed every passport application, and prior to 1958 Supreme Court decision, her actions were subject to no judicial review. Shipley denied passports to Paul Robeson, Arthur Miller, Linus Pauling, and “many other” Americans during the 1950s. Kahn’s article explores how Shipley acquired such power and how the US passport became an instrument to prevent rather than permit travel. A backgrounder opening (825-842) provides a history of travel controls from 1789 to the Shipley era. Originally the passport was “a document [issued by the country that the traveler sought to enter] that granted a foreigner permission to pass into or out of a country’s ports” (825) — the opposite of what the passport came to be. Kahn concludes that current administration of U.S. citizens has achieved the Shipley effect through authority “diffused among intelligence analysts in multiple agencies who now compile watchlists of people deemed too dangerous to travel.” In this environment, judicial review is crippled by “the traditional deference accorded to national security and the sometimes secret processes by which that government interest is secured” (887).

    So, I think its fair to say that the freedoms of U.S. citizens don’t include the freedom to leave the U.S.A. Of course, the issuance of a passport is now related to U.S. tax compliance, as described here:

    http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/03/21/no-u-s-tax-compliance-no-u-s-passport-increased-demand-for-a-second-passport/

    So, the freedom of U.S. citizens must mean freedom inside the U.S. Certainly when a U.S. citizen leaves the U.S. he has less freedom than a citizen of North Korea who has escaped North Korea.

    Why is that citizens of any country except the U.S. are free to visit Cuba?

    Why is that citizens of any other country other than the United States are not required to pay tribute to their country of birth?

    Why is it that any Canadian except one born in the U.S. is free to engage in normal retirement planning?

    Why is that U.S. citizenship comes with restrictions that no other citizens have?

    Could it be that U.S. citizens are nothing more than part of the tax and penalty base of the U.S. government?

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