Recolhido numa matéria de imprensa, por uma agência que tem ampla aceitação e credibilidade entre países em desenvolvimento.
Cachorros sofrem, imerecidamente, discriminação, em certos edifícios, basicamente por problemas de limpeza e para não assustar outras pessoas.
Não se tinha notícia, até aqui, que diplomatas pudessem sofrer as mesmas dificuldades.
Vejamos a matéria primeiro:
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 25 2014 (IPS) - Addressing a closed-door meeting of the Group of 77 (G77) developing countries last week, a visibly angry Latin American delegate recounted the growing new hostility towards foreign diplomats in New York city.
In some residential buildings, he said, there were covert signs conveying an unfriendly message: “Pets and diplomats not welcome.”
It is bad enough for U.N. diplomats to be lumped together in the company of dogs and cats in the city’s high-rise buildings, he bluntly told delegates, but now “the banking sector is treating us as criminals.”
At a meeting of the 132-member G77, the largest single coalition of developing countries, speaker after speaker lambasted banks in the city for selectively cutting off the banking system from the diplomatic community, describing the action as “outrageous”.
Their anger was directed mostly at JP Morgan Chase (formerly Chemical bank) which was once considered part of the U.N. family – and a preferred bank by most diplomats – and at one time housed in the secretariat building.
Chase also handles most of the accounts and money transfers of the United Nations and its agencies, running into billions of dollars.
The U.S. treasury apparently has informed all banks that every single transaction of some 70 “blacklisted” U.N. diplomatic missions, and even individual diplomats, be meticulously reported back to Washington (perhaps as part of a monitoring system to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing).
The banks have responded that such an elaborate exercise is administratively expensive and cumbersome. So as a convenient alternative, they have closed down, or are in the process of closing down, all accounts, shutting out the diplomatic community in New York.
As one diplomat warned, if this situation continues, “we may have to request cash in diplomatic pouches from our home countries, and bank our money under mattresses.”
(...)
When the dispute first erupted in 2011, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations sent a letter sent to all member states in which it said that JP Morgan Chase is a private sector bank and its decisions are made for 'business reasons alone'.
"The government of the United States has no authority to force banks to continue to serve their customers or to open or close any accounts," it said.
Comento agora:
A delegação americana não deveria ter dito que as decisões dos bancos são tomadas apenas por razões comerciais. Deveria ter ficado com apenas a primeira parte: o governo americano não se mete nas decisões comerciais, privadas, de bancos privados.
Quanto aos prédios que anunciam que "diplomatas não são bem-vindos", devem existir razões.
Quem sabe os diplomatas discriminados não organizam manifestações pacíficas em frente a tais prédios.
Eventualmente com cachorros...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
