Today’s
series of articles continue the theme of the diplomatic spat between the US and
India (the first article is from the BBC and the rest are from “The Guardian”):
10 January 2014 Last updated at 21:07 GMT
US diplomat to leave Delhi embassy amid Khobragade row
Devyani
Khobragade with her father, Uttam, (right) on arrival back in Delhi
The US has confirmed that an American official will leave its embassy in
Delhi at India's request, amid a diplomatic row.
The US state
department said it deeply regretted the move and hoped that it would bring
closure to the case.
The row erupted
after Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade was arrested in New York on charges of
visa fraud and underpaying her housekeeper.
She was asked to
leave and arrived back in Delhi on Friday evening.
'Filled
with joy'
The state
department said it now hoped India would return to constructive ties with the
US.
Analysis
In requiring the US to remove one of its
diplomats from Delhi the Indian government is effectively treating the
departure of its own diplomat from the US as an expulsion.
The question now is
whether this draws a line under the messy diplomatic spat between the two
countries.
Of greater
importance is the longer-term impact this may have on bilateral ties.
India, a democracy and rising power in
Asia, is seen in many quarters in Washington as a natural fit to become a
special partner of the United States. The US has sought a closer strategic and
military partnership with Delhi but to a large extent has been rebuffed.
India is cautious
about advancing ties too quickly. It doesn't want to antagonise Beijing and
many Indians still see the US as having been far too close to Pakistan.
Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: "We deeply
regret that the Indian government felt it was necessary to expel one of our
diplomatic personnel.
"This has
clearly been a challenging time in the US-India relationship. We expect and
hope that this will now come to closure and the Indians will take significant
steps with us to improve our relationship and return it to a more constructive
place," she said.
The expelled
diplomat has not been named.
Sources told Agence
France-Presse that the individual was of similar rank and had been involved in
the Khobragade case.
India had demanded
an apology after Ms Khobragade, 39, was handcuffed and strip-searched following
her arrest last month. It refused to waive her immunity.
Ms
Khobragade has always denied any wrongdoing.
On Thursday she was
indicted by a US federal grand jury in Manhattan, but was also granted immunity
by US officials, paving the way for her to return to India.
She
arrived back in the Indian capital at about 22:30 (17:00 GMT) on Friday.
Her father, Uttam
Khobragade, said: "We are very relaxed and happy that she is back home. We
are filled with joy."
He
added: "We are overwhelmed by the country's support."
Ms Khobragade was
arrested after a complaint from her maid, Sangeeta Richard.
She in turn accused
Ms Richard of theft and attempted blackmail.
Delhi said it was
"shocked and appalled" at the manner of her arrest, and ordered a
series of diplomatic reprisals against the US.
Security barricades
around the US embassy in the capital were removed and a visiting US delegation
was snubbed by senior Indian politicians and officials.
On Wednesday, the
embassy was ordered to stop "commercial activities on its premises".
India also said that embassy cars could be penalised for traffic offences.
The embassy has
been told to shut down a club within its premises which includes a pool,
restaurant and tennis court, NDTV news channel said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
India
says more work needed to repair US ties after diplomatic 'mini crisis'
• Foreign minister
blames Washington for row between allies
• Arrest and strip
search of consular official outraged Indians
·
Reuters in New Delhi
·
theguardian.com,
Saturday 11 January 2014 14.43 GMT
Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade leaves the
ministry of external affairs in New Delhi, India, following her expulsion from
the US. Photograph: STR/EPA
India on Saturday blamed the
US for a "mini crisis" over the arrest and strip
search of an Indian envoy, and said more work was needed to repair
ties a day after the withdrawal of diplomats seemed to draw a line under the
row.
Devyani Khobragade, 39, who
was India's deputy consul-general in New York, was arrested in December on
charges of visa fraud and lying to US authorities about what she paid her
housekeeper. Khobragade's arrest and strip search provoked protests in India
and dealt a serious blow to US efforts to strengthen ties.
India's foreign minister,
Salman Khurshid, said the US should have warned senior officials visiting
Washington a day before Khobragade's arrest by State Department security in
December.
"It wasn't even
mentioned," Khurshid told the CNN-IBN television network. He called the
row a "mini crisis" and said India should have been given the chance
to withdraw Khobragade before she was arrested. He said the core of the
US-Indian relationship was very strong and that he did not expect lasting
damage from what has turned into the biggest rift in years.
"I think we've found that
at least the immediate, immediate concerns have been addressed," Khurshid
said. "But there's a lot more still to do."
He did not clarify what else
must be done to avoid lasting damage to ties between the countries, who share
some $100bn in annual trade. The two countries also cooperate on a wide range
of issues including counter-terrorism, regional security and defence. India is
also a major market for US weapons.
Khobragade returned to New Delhi on Friday, following
a deal that let her leave the US after being indicted by a federal grand jury.
Since her return she has limited comment on the case to expressing thanks for
the support she has received in India, where her treatment caused fury in the
foreign service and broader antagonism towards the United States.
"I'm really grateful for
all your support, my government will speak for me, my lawyer will speak for
me," she told reporters on Saturday.
Khurshid said Washington
should have asked India to withdraw Khobragade rather than arrest her.
"When you have two
friendly countries when something is becoming untenable, then you cooperate
with each other," he said. "If you have inkling or a sense that
something like this will unfold, you should take the quickest steps that you
can to ensure that it doesn't happen."
India sharply curbed
privileges offered to US diplomats in retaliation for the treatment of
Khobragade. Khurshid gave no sign these measures would be reversed.
India on Friday asked
Washington to withdraw a diplomat from New Delhi, in response to what was
effectively the expulsion of Khobragade from the United States. An Indian
official told reporters the government believed the US diplomat had a role in
the Khobragade case but gave no more details.
Washington has agreed to
withdraw the envoy, who it did not identify. Citing sources, Indian media said
the diplomat was a senior security official at the US embassy who India
believes helped the housekeeper Sangeeta Richard's husband flee to the United
States despite a court injunction against him in Delhi.
The continued presence in the
US of the housekeeper could pose a challenge to Washington as it seeks to
repair its relationship with New Delhi. India has asked US authorities to
arrest Richard over the Indian government's allegations that she stole cash, a
mobile phone and documents from Khobragade. Richard has denied the charges.
·
© 2014 Guardian News
and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
US withdraws
diplomat from Delhi over Devyani Khobragade row
Dispute nears conclusion as Indian deputy consul general
indicted for visa fraud expected in Delhi after effective expulsion from US
- Jason Burke
in Delhi
- The Guardian,
Devyani Khobragade was indicted for visa fraud and making
multiple false statements. Photograph: Stringer/Reuters
The US state
department has agreed to India's
request to withdraw a diplomat from Delhi in connection with a row that has
threatened to badly damage relations between the countries. It appears that the
dispute – sparked by the arrest of India's deputy consul general in New York on
charges of visa fraud and underpaying her maid last month – is moving towards a
conclusion.
Devyani
Khobragade was expected to land in Delhi late on Friday on an Air India flight
from New York after a battle of nerves over two days that resulted in her
effective expulsion from the US hours after she was granted immunity from the
charges against her. "The drama is coming to a close. It was beginning to
seriously affect the relationship and, because there is still sufficient
goodwill despite the outrage, we have seen serious efforts in recent days to
find a way out," said Raja Mohan, a foreign affairs analyst in Delhi.
Khobragade's
arrest caused outrage in India and prompted a range of retaliatory measures in
Delhi against US diplomats. Though John Kerry, the US secretary of state,
expressed regret after the incident, this fell short of the apology demanded by
India. Senior US officials postponed trips to India while Indian officials
expressed "deep disappointment".
Hours after a
grand jury in New York indicted Khobragade, 39, for visa fraud and making
multiple false statements, and with a court appearance due next week, a series
of last-minute moves saw the US first grant a visa confirming her full
immunity, then ask India to waive that immunity and finally ask the
mother-of-two to leave the country.
Indian official
sources said they had applied for the visa, normally a formality, about three
weeks ago. Khobragade flew out of the US, according to her lawyer, with
"her head held high". "She looks forward to assuring that the
truth is known," the lawyer said.
The US state
department confirmed a US official would leave Delhi, saying it deeply
regretted the move. Senior officials in Delhi had earlier confirmed a demand
for the US diplomat of Khobragade's rank to be withdrawn – tantamount to an
expulsion – following a "strict principle of reciprocity".Officials
in India have not directly denied US prosecutors' claims that Khobragade lied
to visa officials about the salary she would pay her maid, who had been flown
over from India, but say the charges are a "grey area open to
interpretation". "The worst that can be said about her is that she
did not comply with the amount that was supposed to be paid under the
law," Salman Khurshid, India's foreign minister, told the Guardian last
month.
The indictment
claims Khobragade showed visa officials in India a contract which stated she
would pay her Indian maid $4,500 per month but subsequently wrote out a second
contract offering a significantly lower rate of pay and eventually gave her
employee far less than the US minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. It is also claimed
that Khobragade withheld her maid's passport and had forced her to work 13- to
15-hour days, seven days a week. She denies all wrongdoing.
Though the
exact sequence of events leading to the arrest is unclear, it appears the US
state department alerted Indian authorities to the pending prosecution of
Khobragade several weeks before the diplomat was arrested. Usual practice in
such cases is for the official in question to be quietly withdrawn. However, no
action was taken as the legal case against Khobragade gathered momentum.
Indian
authorities had shifted Khobragade to their mission at the UN after her arrest,
a move that should have guaranteed full diplomatic immunity rather than the
limited immunity that comes with a consular post. However, without a crucial
visa from US authorities the possibility remained that Khobragade could still have
been open to prosecution. If found guilty she would have faced up 10 years in
jail.
One sticking
point in the deal, according to Indian officials, was Khobragade's own demand
that she be allowed to return to the US in the future. It does not appear that
this demand has been met. Her husband is a US citizen and her two children were
still in the US last night, officials told the Guardian.
While New Delhi
and Washington stressed the importance of their bilateral relationship during
the crisis, it took weeks of complex wrangling to find a workable solution both
sides could live with.
Earlier this
week Indian authorities ordered the US embassy to close a club for expatriate
Americans there. Security barriers outside the embassy were removed in the days
after the arrest of Khobragade in "a spirit of strict reciprocity",
said one Indian official with direct knowledge of the case.
A trip to India
next week by the US energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, was postponed around the
same time. The US assistant secretary of state for south Asia, Nisha Desai
Biswal, delayed her first visit to the country to avoid the trip becoming
embroiled in the dispute.
Khobragade's
departure removes the focus of current friction between New Delhi and
Washington but it is unclear how long it will take for the anger to subside in
the run-up to national elections in India in May.
Outrage in
India has been fuelled by politicians' unwillingness to seem out of step with
public mood. On Friday opposition leaders accused the ailing administration of
the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, of failing to protect Indian interests.
"Bringing
Khobragade is our defeat, not a win, because a case will be on against her in
the US. The US has decided," Yashwant Sinha, of the Bharatiya Janata
Party, told reporters. The treatment of Khobragade – who was briefly detained
with other criminal defendants and strip-searched – caused particular anger.
Relations between the US and India have long been rocky, though steadily
improving since a nadir in the 1970s. Barack Obama received a warm welcome on
his visit in 2010 when he described the two countries' shared interests as the
foundations of "a defining partnership for the 21st century". However
there remains deep suspicion of Washington in Delhi, and in India more
generally, and many US officials see India as a difficult partner.
Critics accuse
Obama of failing to pay sufficient attention to ties with a country viewed as a
key strategic counterbalance to China and an engine to boost the US economy,
while American hopes of building a more robust business relationship with India
have run into bureaucratic hurdles.
Frustration has
grown among the US corporate lobby. Indian sourcing rules for retail,
information technology, medicine and clean energy products are contentious and
US firms complain about "unfair" imports from India of everything
from shrimp to steel pipes. In June more than 170 US lawmakers signed a letter
to Obama about Indian policies they said threatened American jobs.
Earlier this
week the Indian prime minister cited a 2008 deal with the US on civil nuclear
power as one of the major achievements of his nine-year tenure. However,
implementation of the deal was blocked when Indian lawmakers passed crucial
legislation affecting the liability of overseas firms investing in nuclear
power in the south Asian country.
Khobragade's
arrest touched a range of sensitivities in India. Almost all middle-class
households in India employ at least one, and often several, members of staff
who will undertake tasks from cleaning and cooking to childcare and driving.
With few Indian
diplomats paid enough to legally employ local staff to perform such functions
in postings in the west, the practice has long been to fly out Indian workers
and paid rates that, if low in the US and elsewhere, would be generous at home.
Preet Bharara,
the prosecutor in Khobragade's case, said last month: "In fact the Indian
government itself has been aware of this legal issue and that its diplomats and
consular officers were at risk of violating the law. The question then may be
asked: is it for US prosecutors to look the other way, ignore the law and the
civil rights of victims … or is it the responsibility of the diplomats and
consular officers and their government to make sure the law is observed?"
There have been
several previous incidents involving senior Indian diplomats in the US and
domestic staff brought from India. In 2011 the Indian consul general, Prabhu
Dayal, was accused by his maid of forced labour and sexual harassment, charges
he called "complete nonsense" and that were later dropped.
A year earlier
a US judge recommended that an Indian diplomat and her husband pay a maid
nearly $1.5m in compensation for being forced to work without pay and suffering
"barbaric treatment" in their luxury Manhattan apartment.
Bharara, the
prosecutor, made the highly unusual move of issuing a lengthy statement
addressing the arrest. He said Khobragade was afforded courtesies most
Americans would not get, such as being allowed to make phone calls for two
hours to arrange childcare and sort out personal matters, after she was
arrested by state department agents outside the school that her children attend
in Manhattan.
Bharara, who
was born in India but moved with his family to New Jersey, defended his case.
"One
wonders whether any government would not take action regarding false documents
being submitted to it in order to bring immigrants into the country," he
said. "And one wonders why there is so much outrage about the alleged
treatment of the Indian national accused of perpetrating these acts, but
precious little outrage about the alleged treatment of the Indian victim and
her spouse?"
Khobragade will
now take up a post in Delhi, a statement from the Indian ministry of external
affairs said.
"At the
time of her departure for India, Counsellor Khobragade reiterated her innocence
on charges filed against her. She affirmed her gratitude to the government of
India, in particular to the external affairs minister, and the people of India,
as also the media, for their strong and sustained support during this
period," it said.
·
© 2014 Guardian News
and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indian
diplomat Devyani Khobragade leaves US under immunity
Indian deputy consul
general is charged in New York with fraud regarding her maid but leaves country
without facing court
·
Jason Burke in Delhi and Dan
Roberts in Washington
·
theguardian.com,
Friday 10 January 2014 08.20 GMT
Devyani Khobragade has left the US after her diplomatic immunity was
confirmed, allowing her to sidestep fraud charges in New York. Photograph:
Mohammed Jaffer/Reuters
A serious row between
Washington and India appeared to move towards conclusion on Thursday after a
high-tension drama resulted in the effective expulsion of a diplomat from the
US hours after she was granted immunity from charges of visa fraud and
underpaying her maid.
The arrest of Khobragade, who
was India's deputy consul general in New York, caused outrage in her home
country and prompted a range of retaliatory measures in Delhi against US
diplomats in the Indian capital.
Though John Kerry, the US
secretary of state, expressed regret shortly after the incident, this fell
short of the apology demanded by Indians.
Khobragade's father, Uttam Khobragade,
a retired bureaucrat, said: "Devyani today left
the US with full diplomatic
immunity, vindicating the stand that whatever dispute being raised in the US is
a prerogative of [the] sovereign country, India, and only can be adjudicated by
Indian courts."
With the always complex
relationship between Washington and Delhi under serious strain, senior US
officials have postponed trips to India while Indian officials have continued
to express their “deep disappointment” against a background of continuing public
anger.
However hours after a grand
jury in New York indicted Khobragade for visa fraud and making multiple false
statements, and with a court appearance due next week, a series of dramatic
last-minute developments saw the US first grant a crucial visa confirming full
immunity to the diplomat, then ask India to waive that immunity and finally ask
the 39-year-old to leave the country.
Indian official sources said
they had applied for the visa, normally a formality, about three weeks ago.
Khobragade flew out of the US on Thursday night, according to her lawyer, with
“her head held high”.
"She looks forward to
assuring that the truth is known," the lawyer said. An Indian official in
Delhi said: "We will take this one day at a time. Today we are focused on bringing
her back and then we will decide. But we have a relationship with the US which
is broad."
Officials in India have not
directly denied US prosecutors' claims that she lied to visa officials about
the salary she would pay her maid, who had been flown over from India, but say
the charges are a "grey area open to interpretation".
The indictment claims she said
she would pay her Indian maid $4,500 per month but actually gave her far less
than the US minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
“The worst that can be said
about her is that she did not comply with the amount that was supposed to be
paid under the law,” Salman Khurshid, India’s foreign minister, told the
Guardian last month.
If found guilty she would have
faced up to a 10-year jail sentence.
Indian authorities had shifted
Khobragade to their mission at the UN after her arrest, a move that should have
guaranteed full diplomatic immunity rather than the limited immunity that comes
with a consular post. However without the crucial visa from US authorities the
possibility remained that Khobragade could still have been open to prosecution.
One sticking point in the
deal, according to Indian officials, was Devyani's own demand that she be
allowed to return to the US in the future. Her husband is a US citizen. It does
not appear that this demand has been met.
"Upon her departure a
warrant may be issued for her arrest and should she seek to enter the United
States she could be arrested," said a diplomatic note issued by the US
mission to the UN.
While both New Delhi and
Washington stressed the importance of their bilateral relationship during the
crisis, it took weeks of complex wrangling to find a workable solution both
sides could live with.
Earlier this week Indian
authorities ordered the US embassy to close a club for expatriate Americans
there. Security barriers outside the embassy were removed in the days after the
arrest of Khobragade in “a spirit of strict recipocity", said one Indian
official with direct knowledge of the case.
A trip to India next week by the
US energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, was postponed around the same time. The US
assistant secretary of state for south Asia, Nisha Desai Biswal, delayed her
first visit to the country to avoid the trip becoming embroiled in the dispute.
Khobragade's departure would
remove the focus of current friction between New Delhi and Washington but it is
unclear how long it will take the anger to subside in the run-up to national
elections in India in May.
The outrage in India has been
fuelled by politicians' unwillingness to seem out of step with public mood. The
treatment of Khobragade – who was briefly detained with other criminal
defendants and strip-searched – caused particular anger.
"We have the support of
the entire Indian society on this. We are a country of a billion people with a
reputation for being independent in our world view but we believe in our
relationship with the US and that is why we are genuinely shocked," one
Indian official said earlier this week.
Relations between the US and
India have long been rocky, though steadily improving since a nadir in the
1970s. Barack Obama received a warm welcome on his visit in 2010 when he
described the two countries shared interests as the foundations of "a
defining partnership for the 21st century". However there remains deep
suspicion of Washington in Delhi, and in India more generally, and many US
officials see India as a difficult partner.
Critics accuse Obama of
failing to pay sufficient attention to ties with a country viewed as a key
strategic counterbalance to China and an engine to boost the US economy, while
American hopes of building a more robust business relationship with India have
run into bureaucratic hurdles.
Frustration has grown among
the US corporate lobby. Indian sourcing rules for retail, information
technology, medicine and clean energy products are contentious and US firms
complain about "unfair" imports from India of everything from shrimp
to steel pipes. In June more than 170 US lawmakers signed a letter to Obama
about Indian policies they said threatened American jobs.
Earlier this week Manmohan
Singh, the Indian prime minister, cited a 2008 deal with the US on civil
nuclear power as one of the major achievements of his nine-year tenure. However
implementation of the deal was blocked when Indian lawmakers passed crucial legislation
affecting the liability of overseas firms investing in nuclear power in the
south Asian country.
The arrest of Khobragade
touches a range of sensitivities in India. Almost all middle-class households
in India employ at least one, and often several, members of staff who will
undertake tasks from cleaning and cooking to childcare and driving.
With few Indian diplomats paid
wages that would allow them to legally employ local staff to perform such
functions in postings in the west, the practice has long been for Indian
workers to be flown out and paid rates that, if illegal in the US and
elsewhere, would be generous at home.
Preet Bharara, the prosecutor
in Khobragade's case, said last month: "In fact the Indian government
itself has been aware of this legal issue and that its diplomats and consular
officers were at risk of violating the law. The question then may be asked: is
it for US prosecutors to look the other way, ignore the law and the civil
rights of victims … or is it the responsibility of the diplomats and consular
officers and their government to make sure the law is observed?"
There have been several
previous incidents involving senior Indian diplomats in the US and domestic
staff brought from India. In 2011 the Indian consul general, Prabhu Dayal, was
accused by his maid of forced labour and sexual harassment, charges he called
"complete nonsense" and that were later dropped.
A year earlier a US judge
recommended that an Indian diplomat and her husband pay a maid nearly $1.5m in
compensation for being forced to work without pay and suffering "barbaric
treatment" in their luxury Manhattan apartment.
The US attorney handling the
case, Preet Bharara, made the highly unusual move of issuing a lengthy statement addressing the
arrest and issues not in a criminal complaint.
He said Khobragade was
afforded courtesies most Americans would not get, such as being allowed to make
phone calls for two hours to arrange childcare and sort out personal matters,
after she was arrested by state department agents outside the school that her
children attend in Manhattan.
Bharara, who was born in India
but moved with his family to New Jersey, defended his case. "One wonders
whether any government would not take action regarding false documents being
submitted to it in order to bring immigrants into the country," he said.
"And one wonders why
there is so much outrage about the alleged treatment of the
Indian national accused of
perpetrating these acts, but precious little outrage about the alleged treatment of the Indian victim and her spouse?"
Khobragade will now take up a
post in Delhi, a statement from the Indian ministry of external affairs
said.
"At the time of her
departure for India, Counsellor Khobragade reiterated her innocence on charges
filed against her. She affirmed her gratitude to the government of India, in
particular to the external affairs minister, and the people of India, as also
the media, for their strong and sustained support during this period," it
said.
·
© 2014 Guardian News
and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
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