Ruben Navarrette: U.S. owes India apology over strip-search // Kanwal Sibal: US action against Indian diplomat is unacceptable
U.S. owes India apology over strip-search
By Ruben Navarrette, CNN Contributor
Indian diplomat's arrest sparks reprisals
San Diego (CNN) -- Here's a scary thought: There's a country where officials are suggesting that the visas of gay partners of U.S. diplomats be revoked and these individuals be put in jail -- not because the country recently outlawed same-sex relationships but to crack down on Americans. In that country, the government is also curtailing the privileges traditionally granted to U.S. consulate staff, taking down protective barricades in front of the U.S. consulate and snubbing U.S. diplomatic officers. Where do you suppose you'll find this anti-American backlash brewing? North Korea? Cuba? Iran? Surely, it must be a place where the citizens hate the United States. Perhaps it's a political adversary with which relations have never been particularly good.
Nope. All this is happening in India, which has long been a good and dependable friend and ally to the United States, most recently during the war on terror. These are tense times in U.S.-India relations. And it's all because of how agents with the U.S. Marshals Service treated Devyani Khobragade when she was recently arrested and detained. The 39-year-old deputy counsel general of India was taken into custody in New York on December 12 after she dropped her daughter off at school, and she was charged with visa fraud for allegedly lying on the application that she filled out to get permission for her nanny to legally work in the United States. Court documents allege that she stated on the application that she was paying the nanny the minimum wage in New York -- $9.75 per hour, when she was really only paying her what worked out to be about $3.31 per hour.
Even that part of the story is fuzzy. Imagine someone coming into your home and calculating what you're paying a housekeeper or nanny or gardener by the hour, when you're paying them a flat rate for the day. I know friends who have live-in nannies, and those baby sitters are essentially on-call around the clock. They're probably making less than minimum wage as well, but with room and board thrown in.
Anyway, what happened next isn't being disputed by either side. Khobragade was put in a holding cell with other female detainees and strip-searched. She eventually posted bond, and she was released. She is now staying at India's Permanent Mission to the United Nations.
The U.S. Marshals Service claims that a strip-search is standard operating procedure and that none of its policies were violated in this case. A spokesman says that Khobragade was treated just like anyone else.
That's the problem. Khobragade is not just like anyone else. She is a diplomatic officer with limited immunity. She's in the United States representing a proud country filled with reserved and modest people, many of whom consider a strip-search to be, as one Indian official said, "barbaric." This is a country that in recent years has had good relations with the United States and where we have foreign officers stationed who we expect to be treated fairly and humanely. Besides, she is not a violent criminal or a terror suspect, and she doesn't appear to be a threat to public safety. If there is a labor law violation here, it would a civil crime, not a criminal offense. And if the U.S. government is going to throw the book at people who mistreat workers, I could - as someone who writes about the immigration issue - provide dozens of names of U.S. citizens, from farmers to soccer moms, who belong in a lineup. Lying on a visa application is no small matter, but we're still not sure that is what happened given how wages are sometimes arrived at. Either way, it does seem that U.S. marshals might have overreacted in this case.
Like other law enforcement officers, many federal agents already get what is referred to as cultural sensitivity training. But, it turns out, what they really need is a crash course in International Relations 101. The Indian government is incensed, and it has a right to be.
There are questions about the procedure that agents followed in this case, and they need to be answered. Those policies need to be reviewed. Indian officials also want an apology, and they should get one. Secretary of State John Kerry should deliver it himself, going beyond what the State Department said in a statement is Kerry's "regret" over the incident.
Questions of Khobragade's guilt or innocence can wait for another day. Yet, decency and common sense can be dealt with now. Those things tell us something went wrong in this case. It's up to the Obama administration to make it right before this diplomatic crisis gets any bigger.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/18/opinion/navarrette-india-strip-search/
Kanwal Sibal: US action against Indian diplomat is unacceptable
The arrest and hand-cuffing of India’s deputy consul general (DCG) Devyani Khobragade in New York as if she is a criminal with all the intrusive personal indignities heaped on a “felon” by the US manuals raises serious questions about India-US bilateral equations and the unilateralist manner in which the US interprets the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR). This humiliation has been consciously inflicted by the US authorities ignoring its political implications. It could have been avoided since there is nothing in the case that could have compelled them to take this drastic step. If the US authorities felt that denying the maid the US minimum wage was intolerable, they could have sought the DCG’s expulsion. Instead, they have themselves — not the maid — filed the case against the DCG by contriving a legal cover for their extreme step by claiming that she had committed visa fraud by falsely declaring the maid’s wages.
Indian Government’s Apathy towards Indian Workers’ Abroad
Debate: Arrest, strip-search of Indian diplomat 'barbaric?
extracts from comments:
May be United States should change their "standard procedure". A mother of two and a senior diplomat of a friendly nation, who is at best alleged to have breached a civil contract does not deserve to be handcuffed, cavity-searched, DNA swabbed, and locked up with the cream of the crop of American criminal society. When you do such a thing to a senior diplomat of a friendly nation, you are causing serious harm to that friendship. And, God knows we need all the friends we can get in the Asia Pacific region. India perhaps is the one military counter balance to the expansionist policies of China, and the jihadi policies of Iran, Syria and Pakistan. Poking a finger in their eye does not do us any good or make us any friends in that part of the world where we have vital interests.
***
By Ruben Navarrette, CNN Contributor
Indian diplomat's arrest sparks reprisals
San Diego (CNN) -- Here's a scary thought: There's a country where officials are suggesting that the visas of gay partners of U.S. diplomats be revoked and these individuals be put in jail -- not because the country recently outlawed same-sex relationships but to crack down on Americans. In that country, the government is also curtailing the privileges traditionally granted to U.S. consulate staff, taking down protective barricades in front of the U.S. consulate and snubbing U.S. diplomatic officers. Where do you suppose you'll find this anti-American backlash brewing? North Korea? Cuba? Iran? Surely, it must be a place where the citizens hate the United States. Perhaps it's a political adversary with which relations have never been particularly good.
Nope. All this is happening in India, which has long been a good and dependable friend and ally to the United States, most recently during the war on terror. These are tense times in U.S.-India relations. And it's all because of how agents with the U.S. Marshals Service treated Devyani Khobragade when she was recently arrested and detained. The 39-year-old deputy counsel general of India was taken into custody in New York on December 12 after she dropped her daughter off at school, and she was charged with visa fraud for allegedly lying on the application that she filled out to get permission for her nanny to legally work in the United States. Court documents allege that she stated on the application that she was paying the nanny the minimum wage in New York -- $9.75 per hour, when she was really only paying her what worked out to be about $3.31 per hour.
Even that part of the story is fuzzy. Imagine someone coming into your home and calculating what you're paying a housekeeper or nanny or gardener by the hour, when you're paying them a flat rate for the day. I know friends who have live-in nannies, and those baby sitters are essentially on-call around the clock. They're probably making less than minimum wage as well, but with room and board thrown in.
Anyway, what happened next isn't being disputed by either side. Khobragade was put in a holding cell with other female detainees and strip-searched. She eventually posted bond, and she was released. She is now staying at India's Permanent Mission to the United Nations.
The U.S. Marshals Service claims that a strip-search is standard operating procedure and that none of its policies were violated in this case. A spokesman says that Khobragade was treated just like anyone else.
That's the problem. Khobragade is not just like anyone else. She is a diplomatic officer with limited immunity. She's in the United States representing a proud country filled with reserved and modest people, many of whom consider a strip-search to be, as one Indian official said, "barbaric." This is a country that in recent years has had good relations with the United States and where we have foreign officers stationed who we expect to be treated fairly and humanely. Besides, she is not a violent criminal or a terror suspect, and she doesn't appear to be a threat to public safety. If there is a labor law violation here, it would a civil crime, not a criminal offense. And if the U.S. government is going to throw the book at people who mistreat workers, I could - as someone who writes about the immigration issue - provide dozens of names of U.S. citizens, from farmers to soccer moms, who belong in a lineup. Lying on a visa application is no small matter, but we're still not sure that is what happened given how wages are sometimes arrived at. Either way, it does seem that U.S. marshals might have overreacted in this case.
Like other law enforcement officers, many federal agents already get what is referred to as cultural sensitivity training. But, it turns out, what they really need is a crash course in International Relations 101. The Indian government is incensed, and it has a right to be.
There are questions about the procedure that agents followed in this case, and they need to be answered. Those policies need to be reviewed. Indian officials also want an apology, and they should get one. Secretary of State John Kerry should deliver it himself, going beyond what the State Department said in a statement is Kerry's "regret" over the incident.
Questions of Khobragade's guilt or innocence can wait for another day. Yet, decency and common sense can be dealt with now. Those things tell us something went wrong in this case. It's up to the Obama administration to make it right before this diplomatic crisis gets any bigger.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/18/opinion/navarrette-india-strip-search/
Kanwal Sibal: US action against Indian diplomat is unacceptable
The arrest and hand-cuffing of India’s deputy consul general (DCG) Devyani Khobragade in New York as if she is a criminal with all the intrusive personal indignities heaped on a “felon” by the US manuals raises serious questions about India-US bilateral equations and the unilateralist manner in which the US interprets the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR). This humiliation has been consciously inflicted by the US authorities ignoring its political implications. It could have been avoided since there is nothing in the case that could have compelled them to take this drastic step. If the US authorities felt that denying the maid the US minimum wage was intolerable, they could have sought the DCG’s expulsion. Instead, they have themselves — not the maid — filed the case against the DCG by contriving a legal cover for their extreme step by claiming that she had committed visa fraud by falsely declaring the maid’s wages.
There is much chicanery involved here. Indian diplomats taking domestic staff to the US accept the minimum wage requirement when all concerned, including the US visa services and the State Department, know this is done pro-forma to have the paper work in order. To imagine that the US authorities are duped into believing that our diplomats will pay their domestic staff more than what they earn is absurd. The US authorities have been clearing such visas for years to practically resolve the contradiction between reality and the letter of the law. Any US concerns about this practical approach exposing our diplomats to potentially lethal legal consequences do not seem to have been amicably addressed at the official level despite the numerous dialogues that we boast of to underline our transformed bilateral ties.
Absurdly, US authorities first recognise domestic staff as officials because visas are affixed on their official passports (without insisting on affixing them only on ordinary passports) and subsequently de-recognising their official status by subjecting them to local employment laws. The VCCR does not require that home-based domestic staff be treated as local American employees. The other ludicrous implication of the DCG’s case is that any Indian national giving wrong information on a US visa form can be hauled into a US prison at the whim of US authorities.
The US sees no moral wrong in our diplomats and our India-based service staff being paid far less than their US counterparts, but feels morally outraged if our domestic staff is not paid according to the US standards. Their moral sensibilities are not aroused when their own consular diplomats, paid extra in hardship postings like India, give slave wages to their Indian staff, disregarding their own laws on what is technically sovereign US territory. The Americans adhere to or ignore international law as it suits them. Their abusive interpretation of the VCCR cannot be challenged before any international adjudicatory body. Powerful countries can insist on their own interpretation and weaker countries have to adjust. While the US is cavalier about diplomatic immunity applicable to other countries, it seeks total immunity for its own personnel stationed in foreign countries as an entitlement.
The case of Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor attached to its consulate in Lahore who murdered two Pakistani citizens in a street shoot-out, is an egregious example. Would the US authorities have treated the DCG of Russia or China in the same way it treated our DCG? Tellingly, they have recently expelled, not arrested, several Russian diplomats for defrauding the US healthcare system, a crime that cost the US exchequer. Our DCG not paying her maid the minimum wage did not cost the US exchequer a penny. The US is more careful with countries where their stakes are higher or where the threat of retaliation is more real.
This unfortunate episode reveals a lack of respect for India and a belief that we will not react forcefully. The State Department, instead of expressing regrets, can, therefore, be flippant in observing that this incident should not affect bilateral ties. Unfortunately, because of numerous cases of maltreatment of domestic staff in India and some cases abroad, the egregiousness of US action in humiliating a senior Indian diplomat is escaping proper public understanding. The lady DCG, whose diplomatic passport has been impounded, is in for a long torment. Whatever our unmerited prejudices against our career diplomats and grievances about the efficiency of our consular services in missions, we should not forget that our diplomats abroad represent the country’s sovereignty. Debasing them is demeaning India and its sovereign status.
The government has rightly called the US action unacceptable. Concrete reciprocal action should follow to signal that there is a price to pay for wilfully humiliating our diplomatic representatives. Some steps have already been taken. A systematic review of the privileges accorded to the US government personnel in India should be made and the principle of reciprocity strictly enforced in stages as the case in New York proceeds. The US has already self-inflicted a big price for its high-handedness as the Indian Foreign Service is seething with anger against it with a lasting fallout on the relationship at the diplomatic level.
Kanwal Sibal is a former foreign secretary, Government of India
http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/analysis/us-action-against-indian-diplomat-is-unacceptable/article1-1163715.aspxIndian Government’s Apathy towards Indian Workers’ Abroad
Debate: Arrest, strip-search of Indian diplomat 'barbaric?
extracts from comments:
May be United States should change their "standard procedure". A mother of two and a senior diplomat of a friendly nation, who is at best alleged to have breached a civil contract does not deserve to be handcuffed, cavity-searched, DNA swabbed, and locked up with the cream of the crop of American criminal society. When you do such a thing to a senior diplomat of a friendly nation, you are causing serious harm to that friendship. And, God knows we need all the friends we can get in the Asia Pacific region. India perhaps is the one military counter balance to the expansionist policies of China, and the jihadi policies of Iran, Syria and Pakistan. Poking a finger in their eye does not do us any good or make us any friends in that part of the world where we have vital interests.
***
The housekeeper went along with it for a long time. The vanished in June. She got a US visa in violation of diplomatic agreements, as did her family without following standard process or being eligible for one. Her family was smuggled out of India. The US committed Visa fraud here not India. People rip off their own countrymen all the time. There are plenty of American farmers and builders who hire Mexicans at slave wage rates.
In any case I will buy into the argument if you can show that arrest, strip search and cavity search (police rape) are standard actions over wage issues or civil contracts in general.
In the end this is not about the maid or the consular officer. It is about a poor Indian family who tricked the USA into giving them immigration visas and a NYC DA of Indian origin who will run for governor and is pushing this issue to voters that he is not Indian, but very American.
*****************
