Thursday, December 19, 2013

i love it that an indian u.s. attorney is at the center of this indian runaway slave "crisis"


foxnews | U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who made the highly unusual move Wednesday of issuing a lengthy statement addressing the arrest and issues not in a criminal complaint, said diplomat Devyani Khobragade was afforded courtesies most Americans wouldn't get — such as being allowed to make phone calls for two hours to arrange child care and sort out personal matters — after she was discreetly arrested by State Department agents outside her children's Manhattan school.
Khobragade was arrested last week on charges she lied on a visa application about how much she paid her housekeeper, an Indian national. Prosecutors say the maid received less than $3 per hour for her work.

Bharara said Khobragade, who has pleaded not guilty, wasn't handcuffed, restrained or arrested in front of her children. And he said that while she was "fully searched" in private by a female deputy marshal, the move was a standard safety practice all defendants undergo.

Khobragade has been transferred to India's mission to the United Nations, according to her lawyer and a former colleague. It's unclear how such a move might affect her immunity from prosecution, and a U.N. spokesman said it hadn't received a necessary transfer request from her Wednesday evening.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid told reporters on Thursday that Khobragade should never have been arrested, and that the housekeeper should have been arrested instead.
Khurshid said he would speak to Kerry later Thursday.

"This is an extremely distressing and hurtful incident that needs to be addressed," he said.

Earlier Thursday, an official in India's External Affairs Ministry told the Associated Press that Khobragade claimed to Indian authorities in July that the maid had disappeared and was trying to blackmail her. According to the official, the housekeeper said she would not report Khobragade if she agreed to pay her more money and change her visa status to allow her to work elsewhere in the U.S.
Khobragade filed a complaint with New York police and New Delhi police, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly. It was not clear what action was taken in the U.S., but New Delhi police issued a warrant for her arrest if she returned to India.

News that Khobragade was strip-searched has chilled U.S.-Indian relations, and Kerry called India's national security adviser on Wednesday to express his regret over what happened. India has revoked privileges for U.S. diplomats in protest.

Bharara, who was born in India but moved with his family to New Jersey, defended his case.

19 comments:

Dale Asberry said...

I have an Indian (programmer) friend that told me he was making a great salary of $25,000 (he was sending HALF back home, he had just gotten to the states, and, was living with 9 other guys in a one bedroom apt). He then proceeded to tell me how the consulting company had him working 60 hours a week and held his passport and work visa for "safekeeping". I told him how much I was making and his jaw dropped to the floor. I mentioned how it was illegal for the company to use his passport and visa to make him hostage to their work demands. He was terrified of losing his job and simply wouldn't confront them -- $25,000 was a king's ransom in his eyes. After a few months, he followed my advice: go to them and say, "I need my passport and visa so that I can travel to see my cousin." If they refuse, suggest, "maybe I should ask the INS how I can get travel documents." The consulting company, on the spot, doubled his salary, paid him for his overtime, and gave him his documentation.


He also told me a story that while he was attending university he was renting a flat in India with several of his cousins. One day, he was going back into the apt and some thugs beat the holy hell out of him - put him in the hospital for over a month. Come to find out that someone other than the owner had rented the apartment to him and the real owner thought he was trying to steal the property -- adverse possession laws written by the British made it quite easy to steal land through squatting.


Of course, he had dozens of stories how he had to bribe this, that, or some other "official" for any and every small interaction with every government agency.

Dale Asberry said...

So, will the barking chihuahua accept the eventual "treat", or get put out to the kennel?

Dale Asberry said...

"External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid told reporters on Thursday that Khobragade should never have been arrested, and that the housekeeper should have been arrested instead."


This here is EXACTLY their thought processes...

CNu said...

lol, thanks for that Dale. I'm thinking that Preet Bahrara picked his target very carefully with an eye toward maximizing his impact on the south asian human trafficking rackets. Should be dispositive of much else that's wrong with the extractive capitalism whose influence is felt all across the American economy.

CNu said...

Is why I'm pitbulling this topic. This meeting of the minds, clashing of the cultures, and truth-outing was VERY long overdue, and will doubtless prove rich if it's not quickly shunted down the memory-hole.

CNu said...

Things are getting very interesting in the post hoc narrative business..., the 1% don't want or need for us expendable middle-class clingers to keep interrogating what's going on behind the curtain where the sausages are made. Modi an'em bout to bring some hindu fundamentalism and deep Aryan chauvinism to the equation and that's going to be a hard genie to keep in its bottle.

Nakajima Kikka said...

The shunting method will undoubtedly be to try to frame this as an isolated case of a "bad apple" trying to "cheat the workwoman of her wages" that has no wider implications whatsoever. As I recall, something similar happened to one of Clinton's and one of Bush II's nominees for a Cabinet position. They both were cheating their Hispanic and Irish maids of their wages by not paying their Social Security taxes. While they both had to withdraw from consideration, and pay all the back taxes due, neither was charged with a criminal offense. More importantly, the widespread practice itself was never really called into question, and so continues unto this day.
"Just a case of a couple of bad apples. Nothing more to see here..."

CNu said...

lol, but now that Narendra Modi has gone on the record saying "round up teh gey" in the U.S. Diplomatic Corps, John Kerry's state-to-state shunting of Bahrara's scab picking on this 300lb tumor may not be so easy to hide. Hell hath no fury like the teh gey disrespected. http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/duck-dynasty-s-phil-robertson-suspended-for-anti-gay-comments-1.2470041

Dale Asberry said...

I'll narrow it even further... Aryan Brahman chauvinism. Part of the reason I brought this up is that Brahmans have no sense of their "real" place in the world. As dirty and ratfking as the Koch brothers are, they at least know they have to earn their place at that table. If Donnie wants to know about brown skinned people that really do have self-righteous entitlement issues, he need look no further than Brahmans.

Nakajima Kikka said...

That is an interesting twist...

CNu said...

Revolutionary religious movements do not survive for very long, for obvious reasons, either.

Cardinal Bergoglio went toe-to-toe the Argentine military junta, and is at odds with the Kerschners (Argentina's present rulers) - so in my book, he's established his bona fides and is going about as hard as it's possible for him to go on setting the moral and ethical bar for a very large and influential congregation worldwide.

Nakajima Kikka said...

To the extent that the Argentine military junta and Peronism interfered with the Church's spiritual and religious mission (part of which is offering some kind of protection for the poor and oppressed), the Cardinal had a duty to oppose them. I have no particular beef with him as a religious leader. He performs the duties of his office well enough. But in the end, the Church is not about transforming Earth into Heaven, but about taking people away from Earth to Heaven. Even in its best moments, the Church will always be about reform, not revolution. "My kingdom is not of this world."
Buddhism is no different in this regard, btw. It's pretty much the same with all anthropocentric religions. It goes with the territory.

CNu said...

Spiritual athletes who take up even as modest a cause as self-defense - tend to make the most dangerous adversaries of all. I can't think of a major crime syndicate or right-wing authoritarian movement which wasn't forged - at least in part - in the furnace of some highly unusual self-discipline/denial/transcendence.

ken said...

I wonder how flakey a chuch is that has as it's centerpiece William Branham?

makheru bradley said...

The Catholic Church survived before capitalism within the context of the Roman Empire (Constantine), and after the failure of The Crusades, feudalism. It was then expanded by the slave trade and genocide, colonialism, capitalism, imperialism and neo-colonialism (Houphouët-Boigny, etc.)

[The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro is a Roman Catholic minor basilica dedicated to Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, the administrative capital of Côte d'Ivoire. The basilica was constructed between 1985 and 1989 at a cost of $300 million. Guinness World Records lists it as the largest church in the world, having surpassed the previous record holder, St. Peter's Basilica, upon completion.]

The Catholic Church has grown fastest in areas which are former colonies of Spain, Portugal, Belgium, France, and Britain. The Church's survival is inextricably linked to the aforementioned systems of global domination. The people in these geographies clearly were not Catholic prior to European conquest and domination.

Now, if Francis is planning on mobilizing his flock to transform these systems of oppression and domination, you might have something worthy of discussion. Otherwise, just let the soup flow. It does fill a void.

http://wapo.st/1eurKXs

CNu said...

Now, if Francis is planning on mobilizing his flock

Francis has to respond to factions, forces, and factors within his flock. There isn't a single remaining viable black institution for progressive social change in the U.S. That's not because the need isn't there, it's not because the talent doesn't exist, it's because black institutions have been parasitized at their top levels by incompetent, self-serving imbeciles who don't know anything and can't do anything.

I'll cast my lot with the Catholic Church which proves daily its institutional knowledge, skill, ability, and durability, and the simple fact that for the first time in 1300 years it's installed a non-European national and Jesuit (knowledge/skill/ability) soldier at the top. I'll be kicking it over the holidays with some of my best friends, Jesuit-educated African brothers who like me, have enrolled their sons in Catholic schools because of necessity. The discussion will inevitably turn to the questions of "what must/can we do to operate effectively within these parish and diocesan precincts"? The first thing is to show up at mass and in social and fraternal contexts.

BigDonOne said...

"The first thing is to show up at mass and in social and fraternal contexts...." and demand strong family values and personal responsibility among the flock....

CNu said...

lol, your story's so touching BD, but we both know it's a lie, steeped as you are in R/K Game and associated racist HBD narrative, The only church you'd ever be caught at is a "christian" identity church http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Identity

BigDonOne said...

BD prefers to concern himself with what is Real, not mythology, especially not PC Mythology.
For example, .today's HBD item----> only 3 students out of 882 in Camden scored as 'college ready' http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20131221_A_look_at_what_SAT_report_on_Camden_means.html
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/34/3410000.html Camden is 48% Black, 47% Hispanic, and 5% White.......