8/6/2019 Why Do Diplomats Defect
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the other issue, the Colombian Government claims that Peru was
obliged to guarantee the safe conduct of the refugee in order
to enable him to leave the country.
The Court relied upon the Havana Convention on Asylum and the
Montevideo Convention on Political Asylum and came to the
conclusion that, asylum being based upon extra-legal factors,
the only applicable legal rules were those laid down by the
Convention and accepted as binding by the disputing states left
the dispute over Haya de la Torre at an impasse. The Court
suggested that the only means to resolve this dispute was for
Peru and Colombian to reach and agreed solution. Haya de la
Torre spent five years in the Colombian Embassy until finally
Peru agreed to allow him a safe- conduct to leave Peruvian
territory.
As far as the status of diplomatic asylum is concerned, the
Australian response of June 1975, to the General Assemblys
invitation showed a more favorable attitude than that adopted
towards the events in Chil e in 1973. In the aftermath of the
coup
detat in Chile, Australia felt obliged to refuse requests for
asylum in its embassy; the most that it has done was to arrange
for
asylum to be granted in the embassy of states that were parties
to the various South American conventions.
The three diplomats stationed in Canberra lodged their claims
for asylum in the aftermath of the crack down and massacres
followed by the military coup in Burma during September 1988.
Their claims for asylum were refused; however, they and their
families were allowed to stay in Australia on humanitarian and
compassionate grounds. That was the short and sweet part
but to get resettled in a country in which one was an alien it
took a long hard road. There were times one would reflect on
how
life would have been if one were to go back and live within a
lie. In the end it was like in Frank Sinatras song, For what is
a
man, what has he got; if not himself then he is not , to say the
things he truly feels, and not the words of the one who kneels;
the
record shows I took the blows and did it my way
With the Arab Spring in full swing not only dictators were
dropping like flies but also diplomats were too. There may be
various
reasons and under various circumstances which diplomats chose to
defect and seek asylum. Like any other citizen they are
entitled to vote with their feet. As Harvel said in his essay,
Living with Truth, If every day a man takes orders in silence
from
an incompetent superior, if everyday he solemnly performs ritual
acts which he privately finds ridiculous, if he unhesitating ly
gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real
opinions and is prepared to deny his own self in public, if he
sees
no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in
fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it still does no t
mean
that he has entirely loss the use of one of the basic human
senses, n amely, the sense of humiliation. One can choose to
live
within the system permeated with hypocrisy and lies or chose to
live with truth.
As Professor Gene Sharpe describes in one of his lectures on
non-violence for the people to overthrow authoritian regimes
their non-violent form of action must be based on
non-cooperation, therefore When people refuse their cooperation,
withhold
their help, and persist in their disobedience and defiance, they
are denying their opponent the basic human assistance and
cooperation which any government hierarchical system requires.
If they do this in sufficient numbers for long enough, that
government or hierarchical system will no longer have power.
There is no freedom without equality before the law and if one
is
to be free and regain his or her dignity as a human then one
must be true to oneself. One must be among those small and
isolated minority who dare to speak out when everyone else can
only dare to think. One must dare to revolt if one is to live
within the truth. END
