------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 23, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
AN EGREGIOUS VIOLATION OF DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY: U.S. TROOPS RAID PALESTINIAN OFFICE IN BAGHDAD
By Leslie Feinberg
In an outrageously illegal move, U.S. military brass ordered a raid on the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Baghdad on May 25. No official excuse was offered in U.S. media accounts.
A convoy of armored vehicles surrounded the mission in the early morning hours. A Palestinian guard from the mission recalled, "We said this is the Palestinian Embassy and there is international law and we are not letting you in. They said, 'We are the international law, you have to let us in.' "
Troops reportedly burst through the gates and blew open office doors with shotguns. They seized books, files and computers. They also confiscated the contents of a safe--$15,000 to $20,000 in payroll cash-- and jewelry belonging to the wife of one of the diplomats, Palestinians officials stated.
When diplomats arrived at work in the morning, they were arrested. Eleven people were held, including the charg� d'affaires, Najah Abdul Rahman, and two other diplomats, all of whom had been accredited by the former Iraqi government. The Palestinian ambassador, Azzam al-Ahmed, was not in the country at the time.
U.S. civilian and military authorities "seemed unable to state today where and on what basis they were continuing to detain the Palestinian diplomats," a New York Times article datelined May 30 explained. In Washington, the Palestinian representative, Hassan Abdulrahman, said the Palestinian Authority had been trying to get information from the State Department. "It's amazing, but we still don't know what's happening," he said.
Palestinian Consul Dalil al-Qusous called on U.S. and British authorities to release the embassy's administrative counselor, Mahmoud Barakat, who suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure.
According to an unnamed administration official quoted in the article, senior U.S. civilian authorities overseeing the occupation of Iraq had not been informed about the raid before it took place. "As a result, according to a State Department official in Washington, the State Department was unaware for at least 24 hours that a military operation had been conducted against a diplomatic compound here."
"I really can't confirm anything about the events or even that they occurred," State Department spokesperson Richard A. Boucher said the day after the raid.
Spokespeople for the United States Central Command in Tampa, Fla., and in Kuwait said they had no information about the situation of the diplomats and other detained Palestinian staff.
The Times concluded "Since the raid, several Arab governments that continue to operate their embassies have sought reassurances from Washington about the safety of their diplomats."
Some governments are trying to send their diplomats back to Baghdad to regain properties and to prepare for resumption of relations with a future Iraqi government. But Boucher urged governments to take their time.
"We're discouraging foreign diplomats in general from entering Iraq," he said. "There is no Iraqi government for them to interact with. There's no Iraqi government to grant the privileges and immunities that diplomats would normally have inside a country."
And, he concluded, the United States reserves "the right to exclude people who we don't think belong here."
This extreme and brutal violation of Palestinian sovereignty came at the same time that the Bush administration was pushing a "road map" that it claims will lead to a peaceful settlement of the Palestinians' long struggle with Israel. n
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