On Tuesday, high-ranking diplomats and officials – including ambassadors from the US, Italy, Germany, Canada, Japan, the EU and the UN – touched down at a paramilitary base in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. Minutes after the first helicopter landed, it came under artillery and mortar fire, injuring soldiers, civilians and the Italian ambassador Pio Marani. The LTTE (Tamil Tigers) claimed that the attack was a mistake, but last year, a bomb targeted Pakistan’s high commissioner in Colombo.
In Afghanistan the same day, Dick Cheney was visiting Bagram Air Base when a suicide bomber detonated himself at the base entrance, killing up to 23 including one US and one South Korean soldier.
The Taliban and the LTTE either control or used to control substantial quasi-states. They have ambitions of statehood. What are the implications of their lack of respect for diplomatic immunity? If they see all diplomats as potential targets, how can any diplomatic relations be conducted with them?
It’s possible that groups of that kind no longer see international diplomatic recognition as desirable or necessary to acheive their aims. Either their ambitions have lowered, or, learning from the example of unrecognised states from Taiwan to Abkhazia, they don’t think recognition is feasible or important.
The latest is that 5 British diplomats and several French tourists have been kidnapped by spearatists in Ethiopia. Anyone know of any stats on attacks on diplomats?
Left by Phil on March 3rd, 2007