RUSSIA-U.S.: Immunity Dispute Brings New Tensions to Diplomats

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 16 1997 (IPS) - For Russian diplomats stationed in New York, a new Cold War is being waged — not over communism and capitalism, but over parking spaces and police harassment.

For some Russians, this new war began when two diplomats, one from Russia and one from Belarus, were allegedly assaulted by New York police officers after protesting a parking ticket on Dec 29.

But for others, the war began in earnest this week, with a new wave of ticketings by police, and harsh words from neighbours of the Russians’ eastern Manhattan diplomatic compound.

“Pay for a garage like everybody else! Obey the law like everybody else! Don’t tie up the parking spaces like everybody else (sic)!” read a leaflet, distributed in recent days by the East Side Neighbourhood Community and attached to Russian mission cars.

“If you don’t comply, we will spray-paint your car and take the air out of your tires!” the leaflet warned.

Nor is the tough attitude only coming from neighbours. “We feel like the police have declared war on us,” said Dmitri Feoktistov, a second secretary at Russia’s U.N. mission. In recent days, Feoktistov told IPS, police have stopped Russian cars for speeding even when they are travelling at the same speeds as the cars around them, and have stepped up tickets for a range of parking violations.

For the Russians, the police harassment began last Dec 29, when the U.N. mission’s first secretary, Boris Obnossov, and Yuli Orange, his counterpart in the Belarus mission, were served a parking ticket by two police officers who claimed they had parked in front of a fire hydrant.

According to the police, Obnossov and Orange provoked a fight with the officers, who contend that the diplomats were drunk.

According to the Russian mission, the two officers without any explanation dragged the diplomats out of the car by force, and “one of the police officers broke Mr Obnossov’s arm, broke his glasses and tore his clothes”. Both were handcuffed and taken to a police precinct before their diplomatic credentials were verified and they were released. “And this is despite the fact that (Obnossov) is the gentlest man you could meet,” Feoktistov said.

“What has happened is an attack on a person enjoying diplomatic immunity and protection, which represents a violation of international law and, as we understand, relevant United States legislation,” the Belarus and Russian missions said in a statement to the United Nations. Both missions asked for an investigation and disciplinary action against the officers.

New York officials deny any harassment, however. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani defended the officers and demanded the expulsions of Orange and Obnossov instead.

The mayor accused Russia and Belarus of being among the top nations taking advantage of diplomatic immunity to avoid obeying laws — especially by parking illegally or by speeding and reckless driving.

The statistics bear him out. The Russian Federation leads all countries in parking violations and criminal offenses committed in New York, with nearly 900 violations racked up in 1995 alone. Belarus, Russia’s closest ally among former Soviet republics, has consistently been among the top 10 on the list of violators.

Behind the debate are long-running tensions over the nature of diplomatic immunity. New York police and some Manhattan residents have clearly come to resent the international practise of preventing diplomats from having to appear before court for any charge.

That practise is based on the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which tried to free diplomats from political harassment by preventing ranking diplomats from facing trial on either civil or criminal charges in the countries where they are posted. The United States acceded to the convention in 1974.

Diplomatic immunity, however, does not mean that the envoys do not have to obey local laws, argued Nicholas Burns, U.S. State Department spokesman. “All diplomats must respect the laws of the United States,” he said last week. “Unfortunately, we’ve seen what we believe is a pattern of abuse by some foreign diplomats.”

Burns added that Washington will take no action on the scuffle in New York until it receives a full report by the New York police on the incident, which is expected later this month.

The incident in New York is only one of the cracks in U.S. support for diplomatic immunity. Even more damaging was a five-car crash in Washington on Jan 3, allegedly caused by the reckless and drunk driving of a Georgian diplomat, Gueorgui Makharadze. A 16- year-old girl, Joviane Waltrick, was killed in the crash.

Although Georgia initially planned to send Makharadze back home, it abruptly shifted following weeks of U.S. pressure and agreed to waive his immunity so that the diplomat could potentially stand trial for second-degree murder. U.S. officials have yet to charge Makharadze, whose diplomatic immunity has not yet been waived.

“I cannot imagine diplomacy and politics devoid of moral principle,” Georgian President Eduard Schevardnadze argued Sunday in explaining the decision to waive Makharadze’s immunity. Burns called the waiver — one of fewer than a dozen granted since Washington accepted the Vienna Convention — as “a courageous step”.

But the Russian diplomats — who not so long ago felt embattled in the United States for quite different reasons — do not feel their gripe has been resolved so neatly. Feoktistov said that Russia and Belarus would continue to pursue claims of unfair treatment by New York police at the United Nations, which has its own committee on “host country relations” to deal with diplomats’ concerns in New York.