NOT
PERMISSION TO ACT WITH IMPUNITY
INDIAN
GOVERNMENT WORKERS REMOVE CONCRETE
SECURITY
BARRIERS FROM THE UNITED STATES EMBASSY
IN NEW DELHI
IN RETALIATION FOR THE ARREST OF
A MEMBER OF
THEIR DIPLOMATIC CORPS IN NYC LAST WEEK
TAGS:
INDIAN DIPLOMATE ARRESTED IN NYC, CONSULAR OFFICER DEVYANI KHOBRAGADE,
INDIAN GOVERNMENT RETALIATES,
US
DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY,
UNITED STATES MARSHALLS SERVICE,
NYPD,
PERMANENT MISSION OF THE USSR, RUSSIAN EMBASSY, DIPLOMATIC PARKING TICKETS,
NYPD,
NYPD 19TH PRECINCT, THE COLD WAR
(Wednesday December 18, 2013
67th Street & Lexington Ave., NYC) Even the most casual stroller through this
Upper East Side neighborhood can tell this is among the toniest areas in
Manhattan. This is the heart of the NYPD
19th Precinct, the swanky “Silk Stocking District” that runs from 59th
Street to 96th Street and
from 5th Avenue to the East River. It is
home to some of New York City’s most famous institutions including Gracie Mansion,
Lenox Hill and Sloan Kettering Hospitals as well as the Council for Foreign
Relations (CFR), Hunter College and the Russian Permanent Mission sometimes referred
to as the Russian Embassy, just to name a few.
Walking east on 67th Street the unfamiliar may not realize
that this very street, this block from Lexington to Third Avenues was the most
visible site in New York City during the
decades long Cold War between the USA and the USSR. Along the north side of this block sits the
storied 19th Precinct; directly across the street is a stolid red
brick building that is now the Russian Embassy.
Before the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1990, Cops of the 19th
Precinct stared across the street at their Soviet counterparts in the USSR
Security Service. In those days this
block saw some very unruly demonstrations conducted by anti-communist
protesters and Russians living in NYC.
Since New York City is the
home of the United Nations, we host 197 Permanent Missions of the United Nations
member states as well as 114 Consulates and upwards of 70 international
multi-state sponsored trade and commerce organization. NYC is truly an international City and with
that title come myriad responsibilities that NYPD and other City services and
agencies must perform over and above the challenges of the normal day to day
operations that keep this City running including policing and enforcing the law
for our fellow 9 million diverse and disparate New Yorkers.
Each of the UN member states
assigns high ranking members of their Diplomatic Corps to represent them in
NYC. It is without a doubt a plum
assignment for those fortunate enough to be tapped for such duty. Some of these foreign contingents consist of
scores of people ranking from Ambassadors, Consulate Officers, Charge’ de Affairs, as well as Aides de
Camp’ Diplomatic Aides, Assistants, Assistants to the Assistants and
Associate Assistants to Assistant Assistants. Many of these personnel bring
their families with them so the ranks of those granted “Diplomatic Immunity” is
substantial and quite often problematic to the City and NYPD. Additionally, the actual precepts of what
“Diplomatic Immunity” covers are poorly understood if understood at all by
some.
The members of these
contingents also bring members of their protective and security services to serve
as body guards and keepers. In some
cases these security keepers find themselves tasked with running interference
and creating obstructions if the personnel in their care runs afoul of the law
which happens with far more frequency than is reported in the press. The stories almost any current or former
Member of Service (MOS) of NYPD can tell about confrontations with people
claiming “Diplomatic Immunity” range from the benignly comical to the
tragically lethal. Some incidents that began as relatively minor civil or
criminal activities perpetrated by Embassy staffers quickly escalated into full
blown international diplomatic crises.
NANNYGATE
The latest such type of
kerfuffle in the headlines is the account of an Indian Consular Officer, Devyani
Khobragade, who was arrested and detained last Thursday by MOS from the United
States Marshalls Service (USMS) because she had allegedly falsified immigration
documents for a “nanny” in her employ and perhaps other information on her visa application as
well. The 39 year old has vociferously
complained that she was treated in a “heavy handed” manner by the Marshalls,
held in a cell with “drug addicts” and was subjected to a humiliating and
completely unnecessary “strip and full body cavity search”. She was released soon after her arrest on a
$250,000 bond. Her arrest has generated
serious repercussions and fallout that is causing troubling and potential
dangerous reverberations from New York City to Washington, DC and to New Delhi.
The Indian government has levied
a host of sanctions on our Embassy personnel in New Delhi and has gone as far
as removing the concrete security barricades from the front of our
Embassy. This is a gross over reaction
that has graver implication than anything that was or was not a matter of fact in Ms. Khobragade’s
arrest. As is usual our Department of
State, under the misguided leadership of the hapless, woefully inept Secretary
John Kerry, has handled this incident poorly to say the least. If the Indian government’s actions thus far
are any indication, it appears that this may be the spark that ignites a
dramatic shift in our relations with India at a time where there were signs of
progress between our two nations towards a more “normalized” relationship in
trade, commerce and military concerns as well as offering guidance for the
security of their nuclear arsenal.
NOTHING NEW
The stories of Foreign Embassy
personnel acting poorly in public and often committing serious crimes in New
York City are legion and legendary. Over the years some have made the headlines while many more, particularly during the
height of the Cold War, were handled via back channels, quietly, privately and,
in the cases of crimes against persons with the perpetrating Embassy’s country
making large cash pay outs to the victims and their families as “hush money”.
The fact of the matter is
these miniature armies of Foreign Diplomatic Corps personnel often feel they
are “untouchable” by NYPD and that the cloak of “Diplomatic Immunity” is
absolute and bullet proof. Sadly, that
has often been the case. There have been
more incidents than anyone in One Police Plaza or the Department of State would
ever dare admit in public where a foreign national assigned to their country’s Permanent
Mission here committed serious felonies including grand theft, assault, rape
and even homicide. In some of those
scenarios in the not too distance past, the alleged offender was immediately surrounded
by his security keepers as reams of red tape were spooled out from NYC to the
appropriate country’s capital to Washington, DC and back again. With sufficient interference and obstruction
there were times the alleged offender was quickly spirited out of the United
States back to his homeland and safely out of the range of NYPD and any US law
enforcement.
Some of the most notorious situations
involved members of the Soviet Foreign Service and the Israeli Contingent. The Soviets lorded the pretext of the Cold
War over us to avoid making the crime public while the Israelis would always
claim some form of exalted status simply because they were Israelis. Without going into details now (for obvious
reasons) there have been brutal sexual assaults and homicides committed by
Soviets and Israelis as well as Chad, Nigeria and Bolivia stationed here. In
virtually every case the perpetrator was never held account in any way, let
alone arraigned, indicted or tried in a NYC or US Federal Court. That was just how the game was played. It was sickening then and it is just as
sickening today.
Many of the Foreign Service
personnel that are assigned to NYC seem to fall in love with our City and open,
free society. They see our great City as
their own private playground where they can flout our laws with impunity. They partake in behavior here that they would
never dare dream about in their homelands.
Some of our most exclusive restaurants and nightclubs have been the
scenes of drunken debauchery and criminal behavior that any other New Yorker
would be arrested for without question. Too
great a portion of the Foreign Service personnel are possessed of the notion that
our laws simply do not apply to them; that they need not abide by our criminal
code. What these people fail to
recognize is that they are our guests;
they are the guests of The City of
New York and The United States of America.
TRIVIAL MILLIONS
A case in point for any New
Yorker owning a car has always been the fact that cars with “diplomatic plates”,
special license plates issued to each Permanent Mission and Consulate, seem
permitted to park anywhere, at any time, in any circumstance that suits their
convenience. For years NYPD and the NYPD
Traffic Division would issue parking tickets to those cars that were illegally
parked. The problem was none of the Embassy’s amassing huge numbers of summons
ever paid them. “So what”, one might
say, “What’s the big deal”? The big deal
is that when dozens of tickets turn into hundreds and then into thousands the
fines begin to add up to real money; real money as in millions of dollars
unpaid to the City of New York. At one time the Soviet Embassy had over 170 vehicles
registered in their name and it was not uncommon to have a week in which their
vehicles alone were cited dozens of times for parking and other
violations.
When Michael Bloomberg was in
his first year of his first term as Mayor, he learned that there were over $22
million worth of unpaid parking tickets that had been written to “diplomatic
plates”. Mayor Bloomberg wanted that $22
million and, after all sorts of machinations from our own State Department and
the offending countries, those fines were paid and Bloomberg revamped the NYC
Code governing the legal usage of diplomatic plates.
REAL DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY
Diplomatic Immunity as
it is understood and respected by most sovereign nations today was drafted as
part of the Geneva Conventions chapter addressing Diplomatic Relations written
in 1961. The specific intent is in the
language and is not ambiguous. It
specifies that any foreign Diplomat or Emissary of the same stature cannot be
prosecuted by a host country for any actions this representative may take in
the conduct of his or her “official duties” as a foreign Ambassador. It does not extend to conduct and actions
that such a representative might take “outside” his or her codified role. Essentially, it allows for Diplomats to
travel safely to and from other countries, even during times of hostility,
military conflict or war to conduct the business of their government. It is very clearly defined and understood.
When members of a Foreign
Service are abroad they are considered to be immune from prosecution only as it
relates to their diplomatic efforts. It
also protects the transfer and transport of documents while a diplomat is in
transit conducting his or her governments bidding. That is it; that’s the long and short of
it. It does not imply that a member of a
Foreign Service can shoplift at Macy's, not pay for damages to hotel rooms they
have lodged in, stiff a waitress for a hefty dinner bill, get falling down
drunk and sexually assault a woman in a nightclub or any of the other offenses
some of them have attempted to throw their tarp of Diplomatic Immunity over.
The retaliatory actions the
Indian government is now engaged in as well as their unreasonable and
unproductive saber-rattling rhetoric is a violation of the Diplomatic Immunity
of our Embassy personnel. The removal of
the security barricades, permitting angry mobs to picket and demonstrate outside
our now unprotected Embassy in New Delhi are serious violations of common law. They are grossly disproportional to the
incident that triggered this as yet unfinished business between our two
countries. Our Department of State
should inform New Delhi that we will simply not tolerate any of these
retaliatory measures and will hold that government liable and responsible for
the safety and security of every one of our personnel currently in India. This should not be couched as a mild threat
or related as a mere admonition but as a stern warning and an absolute promise.
Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2013 © All Rights Reserved
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