From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok,
Monday February 15 2010
The British Foreign Office has issued a diplomatic note to the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs covering a letter expressing fears that an attempt made be made to abduct an 11-yr-old pupil at an international school in Bangkok.
The move followed a complaint by John Goodman, 50, the Bangkok based ASEAN Regional Director of Ogilvy & Mather and Asia-Pacific President of Ogilvy Action, that British High Commission officials in Malaysia did nothing last month, after his daughter was abducted by his mother and held inside the Embassy of the Republic of Guinea in Kuala Lumpur
Mr. Goodman had won custody in the British High Court last October with the agreement of the mother, Guinean born Kaissa Traore, 40. However she ran off with her daughter during a visit to Singapore authorised by the High Court in London, and then crossed the border to Malaysia.
Mr.Goodman, from Liverpool, flew to Kuala Lumpur on January 10th to get his daughter back. He said he had received a letter from Kaissa Traore’s London lawyer stating: “ My client will not return ***** to your client unless there is a financial settlement, and if there is no financial settlement before the end of January she will take ***** to the Republic of Guinea”.
It was followed by emails from Kaissa Traore stating: “The new President of Guinea will inform the UK authority that any UK court is invalid. The lawyers are colonial, support apartheid , are limited mentally, and cannot understand slavery has now become a crime”.
Mr. Goodman claimed that when he went to the British High Commission officials told him there was nothing they could do.
Mr. Goodman said he was left alone to deal with the threat that his daughter would taken to the impoverished and corrupt country and he would never see her again, unless he paid out the equivalent of US$1million.
Armed guard in Thonglor Bangkok
At a meeting on January 21 at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton Hotel overseen by the Republic of Guinea’s Commercial Attaché he agreed to pay. He put down the first US$10,000 and fled back to Bangkok with his daughter where he put her under armed guard. He does not intend to pay any more.
Speaking at his home in Thonglor, Bangkok, Mr. Goodman said: “I regret to say the assistance I was given by the Foreign Office and its staff in Kuala Lumpur was less than useless.
“At the end of the day an 11-yr-old British girl was held for ransom in a foreign embassy against her will. The threat was that she would be taken to West Africa and never be seen again by her father and grandparents and friends unless I paid the equivalent of US$1million.
“This threat was enforced by diplomats of a West African country, which is almost a failed state, and where corruption is rife. Yet not one British diplomat was prepared to help or could make a decision.
“My lawyers had to go back to the High Court and secure an order that they did so. But even then officials told me they could not get a letter to the Guinean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, because the Guinea Embassy fax was down.
“I wonder if these people have heard of messengers.
Kaissa Taore, the mother
Kaissa Traore said: “It was not a kidnap. I told the father where his daughter was. I do not accept the High Court judgment. I did not go to the High Court. The British government refused me a visa, can you imagine? I’m a Mandingo and we are proud people and I’m the wife of a President of one of the world’s foremost companies. The matter is now in the hands of the government of the Republic of Guinea. My daughter is a citizen of Guinea”.
Traore’s father, a politician, was one of the founding fathers of the troubled post French-colonial Guinea, currently run by a military junta.
Guinea, though rich in natural resources is one of the poorest countries in the world and most corrupt in Africa. It has been ruled by a series of military juntas which have been accused of committing widespread atrocities on the people.
On January On 21 January 2010 the military junta appointed Jean-Marie Dore as Prime Minister of a six-month transition government, leading up to promised elections.
Possibly in breach of Articles 31.c & 41.3 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations?
Up to the receiving state to consider and frankly, given the urgency of the poor guy’s predicament, none could have been expected to move quickly enough to meet his needs.
That’s the trouble when rights are awarded indiscriminately to tin pot states with monkeys for leaders, they’re only interested in the peanuts they can get without a thought for the position they are meant to fulfil.
Africa should have been excluded from the Convention but then their proxy votes at that dreadful repository of the absurd, the UN, would have been lost to the detriment of failed states like China and the like….
fair points Westerby but would you really classify the soon-to-be second largest economy on the planet as a failed state? Morally failed, sure as is the US imho but then we are not even in the same league as the African states are we?
At the very at leased you would have thought the high commission, who clearly need to grow some balls, could have got in touch with the malaysian authorities, because they might not be too happy about these games being played in their country and more importantly its going to be though their country that the girl would be taken.
The foreign office just seem to be thoughtless and lazy when compared to the help I have seen thai, Swedish and American embassies have given to their citizens.
From the “thoughtless & lazy” FCO…
http://ukinthailand.fco.gov.uk/en/help-for-british-nationals/when-things-go-wrong/child-abduction
Rick Flare: Well the rules do state that they cannot get involved in an abduction and they certainly have not.
Ronseal
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/when-things-go-wrong/child-abduction
http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/2855621/3069110
(does exactly what it says on the tin)
What made this case different, and an opportunity for the FCO to shine, is the involvement of the Guinean embassy. we have a british citizen who is being held for ransom in an foreign embassy, clearly in an attempt to evade the malaysian law.
It was reasonable for the father to expect, the british high commission to put pressure on both the Malaysian foreign ministry and the Guinea embassy to stop this abuse of diplomatic privilege and hand the case over to the Malaysian courts to deal with the issue.
So its a real shame that the father had to get a court order to force the FCO to do the right thing;
I have know many people from university who have applied to get in to the FCO and a few of them made it though the recruitment process. Non of them were idiots and I firmly believe that the only idiots in the FCO are the ones that for whatever reason choose to be.
The inability of the high commission to work around the broken fax machine says more about the attitude of the FCO rather than the mental capacity of the staff.
I stand by my assessment of “thoughtless and/or lazy”
Rules are there to cover every eventuality. My favourite one, and also of General Pinochet is:
“We cannot interfere with the justice system of a foreign country”.
That one’s been broken a few times, but rarely for Brits in trouble below the rank of KCMG.
The facts (if i’ve understood correctly) are:
a) Non-resident parent (NRP) failed to return child from an agreed international contact visit, crossed an international boundry & consulted her embassy.
b) Parent with care (PWC) recovered the child & returned to Thailand where they live.
c) A UK Court (with no juristiction in Asia) issued a court order (ie a request)to the FCO who relayed the matter to the authorities in the country where the child lives.
d) PWC bleats of failures in the system which were outside the control of those he’s trying to blame.
Well if would have been safer all around if the PWC stayed within the jurisdiction of the court - but that is not always possible.