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valign="top"> <strong><span
style="font-size:20px"><span
style="color:#ba2025"><span
style="font-family:lato,helvetica neue,helvetica,arial,sans-serif">The
Premises of the
Diplomatic Mission Shall
Be Inviolable: The
Fifteenth Newsletter
(2024)</span></span></span></strong>
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<div
class="single-post--content--media-block single-post--content--image"
style="text-align:center; margin:3em 0;">
<div id="attachment_101110"
class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-101110" decoding="async"
fetchpriority="high"
class="size-full wp-image-101110 img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Afshin-Pirhashemi-Iran-Untitled-2017.jpg"
alt=""
srcset="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Afshin-Pirhashemi-Iran-Untitled-2017.jpg 950w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Afshin-Pirhashemi-Iran-Untitled-2017-300x158.jpg 300w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Afshin-Pirhashemi-Iran-Untitled-2017-768x403.jpg 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 950px) 100vw, 950px"
style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
moz-do-not-send="true"
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<p
id="caption-attachment-101110" class="wp-caption-text"
style="text-align: center;margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><small>Afshin
Pirhashemi (Iran), <i>Untitled</i>,
2017.</small></p>
</div>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Dear
friends,</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Greetings
from the desk of <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=ad6127a8d3&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">Tricontinental:
Institute for Social
Research</a>.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">We
live in dishonest times,
where certainties have
crumbled, and malevolence
stalks the landscape. There
is Gaza, of course. Gaza
above all else is on our
minds. Over 33,000
Palestinians have been <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=99a93dc1f7&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">killed</a>
by Israel since 7 October,
with more than 7,000 people
missing (5,000 of them
children). The Israeli
government has brutally
disregarded the global
public opinion mounted
against them. Billions of
people are outraged by the
stark fact of their violence
and yet we are unable to
force a ceasefire from an
army that has decided to
raze an entire people.
Global North governments
speak from two sides of
their mouths: clichéd
phrases of concern to
ameliorate their own
disheartened populations,
and then vetoes at the
United Nations and arms
transfers to the Israeli
army. It is this two-faced
behaviour that bolsters the
confidence of people like
Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and
enables their impunity.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">That
same impunity allowed Israel
to violate the UN Charter
(1945) and <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=6a68f5d836&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">Vienna
Convention on Diplomatic
Relations</a> (1961) on 1
April 2024 when it bombed
the Iranian embassy in
Damascus, Syria, killing
sixteen people – including
senior Iranian military
officers. This impunity is
infectious, spreading
amongst leaders who feel
emboldened by Washington’s
arrogance. Among them is
Ecuador’s President Daniel
Noboa, who sent his
paramilitary forces into the
Mexican embassy in Quito on
5 April to seize the
country’s former Vice
President Jorge Glas, who
had been granted political
asylum by the Mexican
authorities. Noboa’s
government, like
Netanyahu’s, set aside the
long history of
international respect for
diplomatic relations with
scant regard for the
dangerous implications of
this kind of action. There
is a feeling amongst leaders
such as Netanyahu and Noboa
that they can get away with
anything because they are
protected by the Global
North, which anyway gets
away with everything.</p>
<div
class="single-post--content--media-block single-post--content--image"
style="text-align:center; margin:3em 0;">
<div id="attachment_101121"
class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-101121" decoding="async"
class="size-full wp-image-101121 img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lucia-Chiriboga-Ecuador-Del-fondo-de-la-memoria-vengo-1993.jpg"
alt=""
srcset="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lucia-Chiriboga-Ecuador-Del-fondo-de-la-memoria-vengo-1993.jpg 950w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lucia-Chiriboga-Ecuador-Del-fondo-de-la-memoria-vengo-1993-300x202.jpg 300w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lucia-Chiriboga-Ecuador-Del-fondo-de-la-memoria-vengo-1993-768x517.jpg 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 950px) 100vw, 950px"
style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
moz-do-not-send="true"
width="950" border="0">
<p
id="caption-attachment-101121" class="wp-caption-text"
style="text-align: center;margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><small>Lucía
Chiriboga (Ecuador), <i>Untitled</i>
from the series ‘Del
fondo de la memoria,
vengo’ (‘I Come from
the Depths of
Memory’), 1993.</small></p>
</div>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Diplomatic
customs go back hundreds of
thousands of years and
across cultures and
continents. Ancient texts
written by Zhuang Zhou in
China and his contemporary
in India, Kautilya, in the
fourth century BCE set the
terms for honourable
relationships between states
through their emissaries.
These terms appear in almost
every region of the world,
with evidence of conflicts
resulting in agreements that
include the exchange of
envoys to maintain peace.
These ideas from the ancient
world, including Roman law,
influenced the early
European writers of
customary international law:
Hugo Grotius (1583–1645),
Cornelis van Bijnkershoek
(1673–1743), and Emer de
Vattel (1714–1767). It was
this global understanding of
the necessity of diplomatic
courtesy that formed the
idea of diplomatic immunity.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">In
1952, the government of
Yugoslavia proposed that the
International Law Commission
(ILC), set up by the UN,
codify diplomatic relations.
To assist the ILC, the UN
appointed Emil Sandström, a
Swedish lawyer who had
chaired the UN Special
Committee on Palestine
(1947), as special
rapporteur. The ILC, with
Sandström’s assistance,
drafted articles on
diplomatic relations, which
were studied and amended by
the 81 member states of the
UN. At a month-long meeting
in Vienna in 1961, all the
member states participated
in the Convention on
Diplomatic Relations.
Amongst the 61 states that
became signatories were
Ecuador and Israel, as well
as the United States. All
three countries are,
therefore, among the
founding states of the 1961
Vienna Convention.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Article
22.1 of the Vienna
Convention says: ‘The
premises of the mission
shall be inviolable. The
agents of the receiving
State may not enter them,
except with the consent of
the head of the mission’.</p>
<div
class="single-post--content--media-block single-post--content--image"
style="text-align:center; margin:3em 0;">
<div id="attachment_101131"
class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-101131" decoding="async"
class="size-full wp-image-101131 img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Safwan-Dahoul-Syria-Dream-77-2014.jpg"
alt=""
srcset="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Safwan-Dahoul-Syria-Dream-77-2014.jpg 668w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Safwan-Dahoul-Syria-Dream-77-2014-300x269.jpg 300w"
sizes="(max-width: 668px) 100vw, 668px"
style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
moz-do-not-send="true"
width="668" border="0">
<p
id="caption-attachment-101131" class="wp-caption-text"
style="text-align: center;margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><small>Safwan
Dahoul (Syria), <i>Dream
77</i>, 2014.</small></p>
</div>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">At
a <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=b0755751be&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">briefing</a>
in the UN Security Council
about Israel’s recent strike
on the Iranian embassy in
Syria, Deputy Ambassador
Geng Shuang of China
reminded his colleagues that
25 years ago, the US-led
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
resulted in an attack on the
Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
At the time, US President
Bill Clinton <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=df57626f3b&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true">apologised</a>
for the attack, calling it
an ‘isolated, tragic event’.
No such apology has come
from Israel or Ecuador for
their violations of the
Iranian and Mexican
embassies. Geng Shuang told
the chamber, ‘The red line
of international law and the
basic norms of international
relations have been breached
time and again. And the
moral bottom line of human
conscience has also been
crushed time and again’. At
that briefing, Ecuador’s
Ambassador José De la Gasca
condemned the attack on the
Iranian embassy in Damascus.
‘Nothing justifies these
types of attacks’, he said.
A few days later, his
government violated the 1961
Vienna Convention and the
1954 Organisation of
American States’ <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=169b711e08&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true">Convention
on Diplomatic Asylum</a>
when it arrested Jorge Glas
in the Mexican embassy, an
act that was swiftly <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=70aa695cd9&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true">condemned</a>
by the UN secretary-general.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Such
violations of embassy
protections are not new.
There are many examples of
radical groups – from the
left and the right –
attacking embassies to make
a political point. This
includes the 1979 takeover
of the US embassy in Tehran,
when students held 53 staff
hostage for 444 days. But
there are also several
examples of governments
forcibly entering the
premises of foreign
embassies, such as in 1985
when the South African
apartheid regime sent its
forces to the Dutch embassy
to <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=64a9f1c837&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true">arrest</a>
a Dutch national who had
assisted the African
National Congress and in
1989 when the invading US
army <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=d0a8d6da58&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true">searched</a>
the residence of the
Nicaraguan ambassador in
Panama City. None of these
interventions went by
without sanction and a
demand for an apology.
Neither Israel nor Ecuador,
however – both signatories
of the 1961 Vienna
Convention – have made any
gesture towards an apology.
Neither Iran nor Syria had
any diplomatic relations
with Israel, and Mexico
broke diplomatic ties with
Ecuador in the wake of
recent events.</p>
<div
class="single-post--content--media-block single-post--content--image"
style="text-align:center; margin:3em 0;">
<div id="attachment_101141"
class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-101141" decoding="async"
loading="lazy"
class="size-full wp-image-101141 img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Graciela-Iturbide-Mexico-Mujer-Angel-Desierto-de-Sonora-Mexico-1979.jpg"
alt=""
srcset="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Graciela-Iturbide-Mexico-Mujer-Angel-Desierto-de-Sonora-Mexico-1979.jpg 950w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Graciela-Iturbide-Mexico-Mujer-Angel-Desierto-de-Sonora-Mexico-1979-300x211.jpg 300w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Graciela-Iturbide-Mexico-Mujer-Angel-Desierto-de-Sonora-Mexico-1979-768x541.jpg 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 950px) 100vw, 950px"
style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
moz-do-not-send="true"
width="950" border="0">
<p
id="caption-attachment-101141" class="wp-caption-text"
style="text-align: center;margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><small>Graciela
Iturbide (Mexico), <i>Mujer
Ángel, Desierto de
Sonora, México </i>(‘Angel
Woman, Sonoran Desert,
Mexico’), 1979.</small></p>
</div>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Violence
traverses the world like a
new pandemic not only in
Gaza, but spreading outward
to this brewing conflict
around Ecuador and the
ugliness of the wars in the
eastern Democratic Republic
of the Congo, Sudan, and the
continuing stalemate in
Ukraine. War breaks the
human spirit, but it also
invokes an enormous instinct
to go the streets and stop
the trigger from being
pulled. Again and again,
this great anti-war feeling
is met with the wrath of
powers that arrest the
peacemakers and treat them –
and not the merchants of
death – as the criminals.</p>
<div
class="single-post--content--media-block single-post--content--image"
style="text-align:center; margin:3em 0;">
<div id="attachment_101151"
class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-101151" decoding="async"
loading="lazy"
class="size-full wp-image-101151 img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Parviz-Tanavoli-Iran-Last-Poet-of-Iran-1968.jpg"
alt=""
srcset="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Parviz-Tanavoli-Iran-Last-Poet-of-Iran-1968.jpg 800w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Parviz-Tanavoli-Iran-Last-Poet-of-Iran-1968-300x300.jpg 300w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Parviz-Tanavoli-Iran-Last-Poet-of-Iran-1968-150x150.jpg 150w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Parviz-Tanavoli-Iran-Last-Poet-of-Iran-1968-768x768.jpg 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px"
style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
moz-do-not-send="true"
width="800" border="0">
<p
id="caption-attachment-101151" class="wp-caption-text"
style="text-align: center;margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><small>Parviz
Tanavoli (Iran), <i>Last
Poet of Iran</i>,
1968.</small></p>
</div>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Iran
has a glorious tradition of
poetry that goes back to Abu
Abdallah Rudaki (858–941)
and then shines in the <i>Diwan</i>
of Khwaja Shams al-Din
Muhammad Hafiz Shirazi
(1320–1390), who gave us
this bitter thought: <i>in
the world of dust, no
human being shines; it is
necessary to build another
world, to make a new Adam</i>.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">In
this tradition of Farsi
poetry comes Garous
Abdolmalekian (b. 1980),
whose poems are saturated
with war and its impact.
But, even amidst the bullets
and the tanks sits the
powerful desire for peace
and love, as in his ‘Poem
for Stillness’ (2020):</p>
<blockquote
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">He
stirs his tea with a gun
barrel<br>
He solves the puzzle with
a gun barrel<br>
He scratches his thoughts
with a gun barrel</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">And
sometimes<br>
he sits facing himself<br>
and pulls bullet-memories<br>
out of his brain</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">He’s
fought in many wars<br>
but is no match for his
own despair</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">These
white pills<br>
have left him so
colourless<br>
his shadow must stand up<br>
to fetch him water</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">We
ought to accept<br>
that no soldier<br>
has ever returned<br>
from war<br>
alive</p>
</blockquote>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Warmly,</p>
<p
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