Posted: Wednesday, April 4, 2012 10:58 pm

Breach of International law can't be ignored

By Tony Best

Outrageous behavior of a New York City Police Officer deserves punishment; Inexcusable breach of international law can’t be ignored

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations may have been codified in 1961 but the history of this near universal instrument which governs the way sovereign states and their diplomatic representatives function in a host country can be traced as far back as the 15th century.

Back then, the protection offered to diplomats was provided for in accepted practice but it was in 1815 that the first real instrument to codify all aspects of diplomatic law was adopted at the Congress of Vienna. Almost 200 years ago the complex rules of international diplomatic relations were simplified and embraced. Given that long history and the presence of the United Nations headquarters in New York City since the 1940s you would naturally expect the United States in general and New York in particular, to know how to treat ambassadors and other diplomats with courtesy and respect.

Apparently, right thinking New Yorkers who consider themselves to be a sophisticated lot are wrong, dead wrong. For if there is anything we can learn from the outrageous conduct of a small group of New York City police officers who manhandled and injured Camillo Gonsalves, St. Vincent’s Ambassador to the UN, it is that some agents of this worldly metropolitan center can act as if they were from an unwashed backwater and can trample established diplomatic rules apparently with impunity. That’s why Caribbean nations, vigorously backed by the international community must not allow this blatant act of abuse to be ignored by the City and the perpetrator must not go unpunished.

Under Article 29 of the Vienna Convention which the United States and indeed all members of the international community accept, “the person of a diplomatic agent shall be inviolable. He (or she) shall not be subject to any form of arrest or detention. The receiving state shall treat him with due respect and shall take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on his person, freedom or dignity.”

That’s not all. Another provision of the convention, Article 22, to be precise, makes it clear that the receiving state has a “special duty” to “prevent any disturbance of the peace or diplomatic mission or impairment of its dignity.”

Unfortunately, both key sections were ignored by a police officer, stationed outside of a Manhattan skyscraper, 800 Second Avenue which houses at least a dozen diplomatic missions including those Israel, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, the Gambia, the Maldives, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Grenada, Dominica and St. Lucia. That happened when proceeded to show the world that he isn’t bound to respect the law. Had it not been for the prompt and sensible action of the U.S. State Department, Gonsalves would have suffered a further indignity by being carted off and finger-printed at a nearby police precinct.

Although Gonsalves, a well-dressed, dignified and legally trained diplomat, reacted with restraint by not invoking the question of race, it didn’t stop some clear thinking Caribbean community figures from saying ethnic factors probably motivated the white officer and his colleagues to mistreat the Ambassador.

“It is difficult for me to imagine a European diplomat being treated in that way,” said Rickford Burke, President of the Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy. “What happened was outrageous and inexcusable. Given what has occurred in the City in recent times, the shooting of Ramarley Graham in the Bronx and the treatment meted out by police officers to New York City Councilmember, Jumaane Williams at the West Indian American Day carnival on Labor Day last year when he was detained for entering a police area with the permission of police officers, you can’t shut out the possibility of race being a factor.”

That’s a reasonable assumption.

Caribbean Ambassadors to the UN, used very strong but appropriate language to describe what happened, calling the police officer’s treatment of the diplomat “provocative and uncivilized,” an action that reflected “blatant contempt for the human dignity” of Gonsalves. As Delano Bart, St. Kitts-Nevis’ Ambassador and Chairman of the Caricom caucus at the world body saw it, the disrespectful action, not only reflected the arrogance of the cop who arrested and handcuffed the Permanent Representative but his “action constituted a serious and flagrant violation of the obligations under the United Nations headquarters agreement and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic relations.”

We couldn’t agree more.

But what’s the next step to avoid a repetition of the galling bit of behavior? The State Department which acted admirably in its response to the incident must do more than apologize to St. Vincent. It must ensure that some of the officers are given sensitivity training and are required to behave in an appropriate fashion in their dealings with diplomats, including those from small nations.

The Mayor, Michael Bloomberg and his Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly must share some of the blame. How is it that the New York Police Department can assign an officer outside of a building which houses so many diplomatic missions without being reasonably confident that he knows how to act at all times. It boggles the mind that he would grab the diplomat by his neck and shoulder, spin him around and then place him in handcuffs while threatening to arrest and charge him with disorderly conduct. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he told some of his colleagues that the ambassador looked like a “terrorist.” Come on now. If Gonsalves looked like a terrorist then more than 95 per cent of the people in New York would be under suspicion.

The entire incident was unforgivable and the NPYD which allows its officers to get away with the excessive use of force on far too many occasions must now take steps to prevent a re-occurrence. Police officers are staining Kelly’s reputation as one of the longest serving commissioners in the City’s history. Already, the top cop is under attack for allowing far too many officers to become lone rangers on the job, ignoring the rights of average New Yorkers, especially people of color, through the unacceptable and discriminatory stop and frisk policy.