Quote: Maybe diplomats are more like mice than cats...

“The point about diplomacy is that life goes on. Host governments have the hearty but fleeting pleasure of looking tough by heaving supposedly errant diplomats and their policies overboard but, after an interval, the public dust settles and diplomatic business needs to be done. Maybe diplomats are more like mice than cats: you chase them away but they always quietly move back in to your house.”

Charles Crawford
Read “Kick the Cat: Going, Going, Gone”
Three-times British Ambassador on Diplomatic Expulsions
Diplomat Magazine │ May 2009
Charles Crawford’s Blogoir

Do Politicians Dream of Electric Sheep?

Perhaps in Bolivia ...

Photo by Luca Galuzzi - www.galuzzi.it
Licensed under CCA-SA2.5

In June last year, folks working for USAID in the Chapare region, a key drug-trafficking area, were expelled from the country. Apparently they had some success with farmers growing alternative crops to coca. The problem was they reportedly kept asking the question “Do politicians dream of electric sheep?” Eventually somebody suspected that they were up to no good; working on growing “off-world colonies” for green men smoking green coca. Green aliens smoking pot, c’mon, what can be scarier than that?

In September, the ambassador was asked to leave the country. He was in a meeting inside the ministry when he was PNG’ed; a diplomatic blitzkrieg if there ever was one. Some idjits were convinced that the embassy has now been infiltrated by Nexus-7 replicants spying for their home world Saturn.

Of course, those guys involved in the $450,000 bribery-murder scandal must also be space aliens from Saturn, in cahoots with the spies! Geez, now I’m wondering if the pro-president mob who stormed the home of a political rival in a town on the shore of Lake Titicaca and beat members of the man's family were actually part of the illegal Nexus-6 Saturnite replicants? If they were, could the blade runners be far behind? Because surely – you want them caught, right?

Recently, the embassy's second secretary, Francisco Martinez was also PNG’ed because he "was in permanent contact with opposition groups." If they keep at this, before long there won’t be any real earthlings left at that mission.

This must be a real troubling development that Senator Lugar of the Senate Foreign Galactic Relations Committee finally spoke up. Yesterday he released a statement condemning the expulsion of one more diplomat saying "It certainly does not bode well for efforts to solve our differences through honest dialogue and positive actions.”

Oh my goodness! I could write a whole series of books on this – aliens, politicians, replicants, money, bribery, murder, spies, blade runners, png’ed diplomats, coca, sex -- oops, er-- that last one is for a future news cycle.

Okay – but there’s one great formula for entertainment!

Diplomatic Snub Over

It looks like Honduras' diplomatic snub concluded last week. After a one-week delay to show its support for Bolivia, Deputy Foreign Minister Eduardo Rosales said Honduras would formally receive the credentials of the career diplomat Hugo Llorens on Friday (September 16). AP reports that Ambassador Llorens told reporters after meeting with Rosales on Tuesday that "relations between the U.S. and Honduras are excellent." He said he looks forward to a face-to-face meeting with President Zelaya.

Meanwhile, Ambassador Philip Goldberg, most recently the President's personal representative to Bolivia is now back in Washington and has recently given an interview to Mac Margolis of Newsweek. Below is a brief excerpt of the interview. You can read the entire piece here.

Newsweek: There's been a lot of media on your expulsion from Bolivia. What was the official reason and how did it happen?
Ambassador Goldberg: I was in a meeting [on Sept. 10] with the Bolivian foreign minister. I had gone to see him after receiving a call from the Bolivian government informing me that our D.E.A [drug enforcement agency] personnel had to leave immediately from the Chapare region, where president Evo Morales is also the president of the coca growers federation. During that conversation, Morales called the minister's cell phone to say that he had just announced—at a public event, not through the normal diplomatic channels—that he was declaring me persona non grata. The official notification arrived the following day.

Newsweek: The State Department talks about pursuing a positive agenda in the region. Has that agenda been damaged?
Ambassador Goldberg: In Bolivia, certainly. Our main activities in the country are assistance programs, which have been demonized in many ways. They've targeted our alternative development programs in the Chapare region, where coca (the raw material of cocaine] is grown. They decided to virtually expel DEA without any kind of explanation. These are not cooperative gestures.

Newsweek: I see you have been described as the former ambassador to Bolivia. Is this final or do you hope to go back to La Paz?
Ambassador Goldberg: I'm not going back. I am the former ambassador to Bolivia.

Hugo the Gladiator Also Wants Attention

The first thing that caught my eyes this morning was news of Hugo Chávez of Venezuela ordering the US ambassador Patrick Duddy to leave Caracas within 72 hours. It would be interesting to know if the the foreign ministry's official notice would be as colorful as their president's public rhetoric.

The darn thing is - he's kicking Ambassador Duddy out of Venezuela and the guy is not even in country! I just hate it that folks don't know how to properly expel diplomats anymore. Excuse me, I have to say something loud to his ears here :: Hugo, dear, the next time you expel somebody, make sure the guy is in town so you can publicly drive him out of town. Because that's what gives flavor to this exercise, you twit! And please - listen to your professional diplomats in the ministry, they know how these things are done:: Ok, done with the loud part.

* * *

Chávez is alleging an American-sponsored coup plot by his military officers but elsewhere has explained his action as taken in solidarity with Evo Knievel's moves in Bolivia. And oh yes, he never did like Ambassador Duddy's ties. I'm sure other reasons will be announced later based on polling numbers, stay tune.

What Hugo the Gladiator really wants is attention, big attention in the international arena. He waded into the puddle earlier this year with Ecuador and Colombia, and got miles of press. If Georgia and South Ossetia were not in the other side of the world, he would have jumped up and down on that too (he's hosting the Russians; he's catching up). I don't think he does his antics because his whole ambition in life is to be a pesky fly. I think the real reason has more to do with political self-preservation and expediency.

By taking away his people's attention from the real ball, he could be entertaining in the "man of the people" kind of way. His fiery rhetoric provides entertainment in the great Venezuelan coliseum of political theater. And who can blame him? Hugo the Gladiator is a great practitioner of the politics of detraction.

With municipal and regional elections coming soon in November, who wants to talk about the country's violent crimes and 30% inflation (the highest in Latin America). Or how about that suitcase with $800,000 discovered in Buenos Aires, allegedly a clandestine payment from Caracas to help Argentina's president, Cristina Kirchner, win an election last year? So, instead he talks about American sponsored coups, paper-kicks the American Ambassador out, delivers some fiery speeches against the "empire," and hope that he has provided enough fodder to get him by until after the next election.

What I have yet to figure out is whether he exported his Detraction Doctrine to our shores this year (moose, lipstick, pigs, stinky fish, blah, blah, blah) or if we are simply looking at a copycat.

Bolivian Melt-down

U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg, had just been declared persona non grata by the Bolivian Government under Evo Morales. The ambassador, a career member of the Foreign Service has been in Bolivia since 2006. Being PNG'ed means he will be expelled out of the country probably within the next 48-72 hours but I won't be surprised if Evo Knievel will order him out of there by sundown tomorrow.

While the mainstream media has been pre-occupied with lipstick and pigs and stinky fish, and as Russia thumbs its nose on us with its military exercise with Venezuela in our neighborhood, another melt-down is threatening to happen, this time in the western hemisphere.

Apparently armed clashes and protests against the Morales Government has been steadily escalating. Some people have reportedly died. So on Wednesday, Evo Knievel blamed it all on who else but Ambassador Goldberg. "The ambassador of the United States is conspiring against democracy and wants Bolivia to break apart," said Morales, who took power in 2006. Huh?

It seems to me that Old Bob in Zimbabwe had used an excuse along that line when things got really hot there earlier this year. Must be part of the playbook they all learned somewhere. Scare folks with the big, bad wolf. What good is a super power if you can't blame it for everything that ails you, hmmn? I'd like to know who wrote that playbook because frankly, it's getting old.

Bloomberg reports: "A deterioration of ties with South America's poorest country may weaken U.S. support for renewing trade preferences for Bolivian imports. It could also undermine U.S. efforts to reduce cultivation of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine. Bolivia is the world's third-biggest producer of coca, after Colombia and Peru." Now, that last part is not good.

The ball is in Foggy Bottom's court now. There should be some fireworks, remember Belarus? My sympathy to Ambassador Goldberg. Do doubt it's a bummer - not just getting yanked out of work but being unable to say proper goodbyes to friends in La Paz (not to mention 7200 lbs of household stuff that must be packed). But this is part of diplomatic life; things will go on at the embassy and his number 2 person will quickly assume chief of mission responsibilities.

His official bio indicates that he served from January-June 2001 as acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs. He came to that position after having been a senior member of the State Department team handling the transition from the Clinton to Bush Administrations.

Mr. Goldberg also served as Special Assistant (1996-1998) and then Executive Assistant (1998-2000) to the Deputy Secretary of State. From 1994-1996 Mr. Goldberg was the Department’s Bosnia Desk Officer and a Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. In the latter capacity, he was a member of the American negotiating team in the lead-up to the Dayton Peace Conference and Chief of Staff for the American Delegation at Dayton.

Mr. Goldberg has served overseas as a consular and political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, and political-economic officer in Pretoria, South Africa.

Before joining the Foreign Service, Mr. Goldberg worked for several years as a liaison officer between the City of New York and the United Nations and consular community. Mr. Goldberg is a native of Boston, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Boston University.