Lid lifted on diplomats in SA behaving badly

FROM wildlife smuggling and assassination to dodging the dentist’s bill — diplomats in South Africa have done it all, hoping their immunity will protect them.

Parliament was this week given a rare glimpse into diplomatic transgressions during a briefing by Lyn de Jong, head of the diplomatic immunities and privileges directorate in the Department of International Relations.

South Africa, with more than 10 000 diplomats and their families, has one of the biggest diplomatic communities in the world.

De Jong said it was the duty of her directorate to regulate this “very large group of people” and that a number of them had over the years been found to be on the wrong side of the law.

Some of those who break the law try to use their diplomatic immunity to avoid the consequences.

In one case, De Jong said, a diplomat tried to smuggle out elephant products, believing that the bag would not be searched by airport authorities.

Diplomatic bags, she said, could not be opened or detained and also did not go through airport X-ray machines.

“Sniffer dogs may not intrude or sniff bags at all,” De Jong said.

“Once our customs officials at OR Tambo phoned me to say there is this suitcase that somebody is claiming is a diplomatic bag. It didn’t really have any marking on it and I asked the official to send me a photo.

“They said to me that the sniffer dog had reacted positively to this suitcase.”

She instructed the customs official to open the bag.

“Inside they found elephant skin and elephant tusks, so it was a complete violation. The personal baggage of a diplomat shall be exempt from inspection . . . but inspection of suspect baggage with irregular or illegal content must be done in the presence of the diplomat,” said De Jong.

She would not name the diplomat nor the country he or she represented because doing so would be “undiplomatic”.

She told MPs of one diplomat who refused to pay for rent and other services, and of others who sold duty-free

products at a profit.

“We had a case of someone going to the dentist and refusing to pay. But they are compelled to adhere to the terms of the Vienna conventions. We have actually kicked out a number of diplomats who have transgressed,” De Jong said.

“We have a case where we called in that ambassador and said to them, ‘Your conduct is unbecoming.’ We told them, ‘We are going to report you directly to your foreign minister.’ ”

She said the son of a former diplomat who had been accused of rape could soon be charged in South Africa after his country of origin agreed to waive immunity for him.

Previously, authorities had not been able to arrest the suspect as he had full diplomatic immunity. Again, she would not identify the man or give his nationality.

Media reports, however, have said that the son of former British High Commissioner Paul Boateng was accused of raping an 18-year-old woman on a Cape Town beach after a New Year’s Eve party in 2006.

The victim told police she felt strange and disorientated, “worse than drunk”, after the younger Boateng allegedly spiked her drinks, plying her with beer and spirits.

“In the case of rape by an ambassador’s son, we have requested that country to waive the immunity of that son. In one example, that country agreed, and we’re now going to charge that boy,” De Jong said.

“We are going to hopefully convict him of rape. So he’s not going to get away with raping a South African national.”

She said it was a misconception to think that anyone with a diplomatic passport became “untouchable”.

“We have summoned a number of ambassadors into the office to say, ‘Ambassador, this is unacceptable.’ You will remember recently we had the Rwandan case where we declared them personae non gratae. Now there are persons posing as diplomats. It’s not a diplomatic function to assassinate somebody,” said De Jong.

She was referring to the expulsion last year of four Rwandan diplomats who were accused of masterminding attacks on dissidents in South Africa.

She said other challenges were the “abuse of privileges when diplomats purchase items duty-free and resell the items at a profit”.

There are now 330 foreign missions in South Africa — the second largest diplomatic corps after that in Washington, DC.