Daily Archives: April 27, 2021

US Embassy Kabul Now on Ordered Departure for a “Relatively Small Number” of USG Employees

April 27, 2021 By in chargé d’affaires, Evacuations, Foreign Service, Hotspots, Realities of the FS, Security, State Department, U.S. Missions, US Embassy Kabul Tags: , , , ,
Once a year, we ask for your support to keep this blog and your dedicated blogger going. So here we are on Week #7 of our eight-week annual fundraising. Our previous funding ran out in August 2020. We recognize that blogging life has no certainty, and this year is no exception.  If you care what we do here, please see GFM: https://gofund.me/32671a27.  We could use your help. Grazie!  Merci! Gracias!
On April 27, US Embassy Kabul issued a Security Alert informing U.S. citizens in Afghanistan that the State Department has ordered the departure of USG employees from the capital city:

On April 27, 2021, the Department of State ordered the departure from U.S. Embassy Kabul of U.S. government employees whose functions can be performed elsewhere due to increasing violence and threat reports in Kabul. The Consular Section in U.S. Embassy Kabul will remain open for limited consular services to U.S. citizens and for Afghan Special Immigrant Visa processing.

The Embassy reminds U.S. citizens that the Travel Advisory for Afghanistan remains Level 4-Do Not Travel due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, armed conflict, and COVID-19. Commercial flight options from Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) remain available and the U.S. Embassy strongly suggests that U.S. citizens make plans to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. Given the security conditions and reduced staffing, the Embassy’s ability to assist U.S. citizens in Afghanistan is extremely limited. 

The State Department has also issued a Level4: Do Not Travel advisory for Afghanistan due to COVID-19, crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict. U.S. citizens wishing to depart Afghanistan are urged to “leave as soon as possible on available commercial flights.”
CDA Ross Wilson tweeted that the mandatory evacuation affects a “relatively small number of employees” at post. We’d like to know how many employees are actually affected by this evacuation order.

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@StateDept Mum on US Mission India’s Covid Outbreak: Four FSNs Dead (Not Two), 100+ Positive Cases, What Else? (Updated)

April 27, 2021 By in Consulate General, Coronavirus, Foreign Service, Hotspots, India, MEDical, Realities of the FS, SCA | South Central Asia, Spouses, State Department, U.S. Missions Tags: , , , , , , ,

 

Once a year, we ask for your support to keep this blog and your dedicated blogger going. So here we are on Week #7 of our eight-week annual fundraising. Our previous funding ran out in August 2020. We recognize that blogging life has no certainty, and this year is no exception.  If you care what we do here, please see GFM: https://gofund.me/32671a27.  We could use your help. Grazie!  Merci! Gracias!

 

Update 4/27/21 4:11 PST:  We’ve learned that four FSNs have died at US Mission India due to COVID. One died in November, and three have died in the current second wave. We understand that there’s “a ton of infections” at US Mission India. While most of those ill are locally employed staff, there are some U.S. direct hire Americans who are also sick. There is speculation that most of the infection occurred before the vaccine shots became available. The Mission has now gone back to Phase 1 mostly conducting telework.  We understand that family members are now on authorized departure but we have not seen the official announcement yet. 
CNN is reporting that a COVID outbreak at US Mission India has resulted in the death of two locally employed staffers, and over 100 positive cases “in recent weeks.” The report did not indicate which posts the outbreak occurred.
During the Daily Press Briefing of April 26, one of the reporters asked about the outbreak, and here is the official non-answer:
QUESTION: Can you speak to reports of a outbreak among U.S. diplomatic staff in India, say how many are affected, and if perhaps, considering that, the U.S. might be looking at authorized departure?
MR PRICE: So I’m not in the position to confirm any cases within our staff. Obviously, privacy considerations limit what we can say. But as I have mentioned during the course of this briefing alone, India is enduring a deeply concerning outbreak, and the entire country has been affected. We obviously do have a large diplomatic presence within India. It is tantamount to the deep engagement and partnership we have with India. But I’m not in a position to speak to any cases within our staff or embassy community.
During the COVID outbreak in January at U.S. Forces Korea, USFK reported:
“19 new infections at Yongsan between Jan. 5 and Thursday. It provided no further information about the five late Thursday. Of the remaining 14, four are Defense Department employees, six are contractors, two are spouses, one is a dependent and one is a South Korean taxi driver.”
Unlike DOD, the State Department almost always hide behind “privacy considerations” when asked to account for the welfare of its employees overseas. We can understand if Department officials do not want to talk about a potential authorized departure order but note that the other question asked was for the number of employees affected by the COVD outbreak at US Mission India. The reporter was not asking for identifying information; the question was not an invasion of  an infected employee’s privacy. We want to know how many employees and family members have been affected by the pandemic at US Mission India and wehat is State doing about it. If as reported, medical facilities have been running out of oxygen and ICU beds, are there medevac flights?

OPM: Under what circumstances should an agency communicate to its employees that there is a confirmed case among one or more of its employees (without identifying the person/specific office)? View

The most recent publicly available information on staffing is from 2018. It indicates that the U.S. diplomatic mission in India which consists of the embassy in New Delhi and consulates general in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata, employed more than 2,500 U.S. and foreign nationals. As with other diplomatic posts, several agencies are represented at the mission, including the U.S. Commercial Service, the Foreign Agriculture Service, and elements of the Departments of Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, Treasury, and Health and Human Services.
The 2018 report also indicates that almost 40 percent of mission staff worked at the four constituent posts, and the Consuls General were in charge of staffs ranging from 183 in Kolkata to 391 in Mumbai. That means Embassy Delhi has about 60% of the total staff or around 1,500 U.S. and foreign nationals. These numbers do not include family members and members of household at Mission India.  However, we estimate that the number of family members/MOH at post could not be over 533. The Family Liaison Office’s data from Fall 2020 indicates that there are 533 family members “at post” for the South and Central Asian Affairs bureau which covers India plus 12 other countries.

Related items:

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Amb. Donald Lu to be Asst Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs (State/SCA)

April 27, 2021 By in Acting Capacity, Ambassadors, assistant secretaries, FSOs, Nominations, Officially In, Regional Bureaus, SCA | South Central Asia, State Department Tags: , , , ,
Once a year, we ask for your support to keep this blog and your dedicated blogger going. So here we are on Week #7 of our eight-week annual fundraising. Our previous funding ran out in August 2020. We recognize that blogging life has no certainty, and this year is no exception.  If you care what we do here, please see GFM: https://gofund.me/32671a27.  We could use your help. Grazie!  Merci! Gracias!

 

On April 23, 2021 President Biden announced his intent to nominate Ambassador Donald Lu  to be the next Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs. The WH released the following brief bio:

Donald Lu, Nominee for Assistant Secretary, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, Department of State

Donald Lu, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, has been U.S. Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic since 2018. Previously, Lu was U.S. Ambassador to Albania. He has also served as Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy New Delhi, India, Deputy Chief of Mission and the Chargé d’affaires, U.S. Embassy Baku, Azerbaijan and Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic. Earlier, Lu was the Deputy Director, Office of Central Asian and South Caucasus Affairs, for the Department of State and, before that, the Special Assistant to the Ambassador for the Newly Independent States. He also held postings in India, Georgia, and Pakistan. Lu earned M.A. and B.A. degrees from Princeton University. He is the recipient of the Rockwell Anthony Schnabel Award for advancing U.S.-European Union relations. Ambassador Lu speaks and reads Albanian, Russian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, West African Krio, Hindi and Urdu.

According to history.state.gov, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993 (P.L. 102-138; 105 Stat. 658) authorized the appointment of an Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs on October 28, 1991. Previous appointees to this position are as follows:
SES William Todd served as Acting A/S for SCA in 2017. On January 3, 2019, Trump nominated Robert Williams, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official for the SCA bureau. The nomination was withdrawn by the president on April 11, 2019.
SFSO Alice G. Wells served as Acting A/S from 2017-June 2020. After Ambassador Wells’ departure, DAS Thomas L. Vajda served as the South and Central Asian Bureau’s “senior bureau official on an interim basis.” SFSO Dean Thompson has been Acting A/S since January 20, 2021.
If confirmed, Ambassador Lu would be the first Senate-confirmed assistant secretary to lead the bureau since 2017.  Also with Ambassador Lu’s nomination, Foggy Bottom now has  one non-career appointee (EUR), one retired FS (NEA), and five active career Foreign Service officers  (WHA, EAP, AF, IO, SCA) expected to lead the State Department’s geographic bureaus.

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Marcela Escobari to be USAID’s Asst Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean

April 27, 2021 By in Nominations, Officially In, Political Appointees, USAID Tags: , , , ,
Once a year, we ask for your support to keep this blog and your dedicated blogger going. So here we are on Week #7 of our eight-week annual fundraising. Our previous funding ran out in August 2020. We recognize that blogging life has no certainty, and this year is no exception.  If you care what we do here, please see GFM: https://gofund.me/32671a27.  We could use your help. Grazie!  Merci! Gracias!

 

On April 12,  President Biden announced his intent to nominate Marcela Escobari to be USAID’s Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean. The WH released the following bio:

Marcela Escobari, Nominee for Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, USAID

For over two decades, the Hon. Marcela Escobari led organizations that help regions chart a path towards prosperity. She served in the Obama-Biden Administration as Assistant Administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean. During her time there, Escobari reinforced U.S. support for Peace Colombia, established a long-term development plan for Haiti, and prepared a proactive strategy to confront the humanitarian and political crisis in Venezuela. In response to Congress’ doubling of funding to Central America, she led changes in strategy, organization and execution to combat root causes of poverty and migration in the region.

Prior to serving in government, Escobari was Executive Director at the Center for International Development at Harvard University. During her tenure, the Center launched projects in 17 countries across five continents focused on unlocking constraints to economic growth. Most recently, as a senior fellow at Brookings, she created the Workforce of the Future initiative and applied international economic development models to map the industrial path of American cities and identify policies to help workers prosper in the face of evolving labor markets. She worked with US local leaders, companies and policy makers, including in Idaho and Texas, to strengthen paths to the middle class.

Her career has spanned the private sector, government and academia, with a common thread of producing growth that is inclusive and sustainable.  She began her career as an investment banker at J.P. Morgan and worked across the globe on export competitiveness projects as a strategy consultant.  The World Economic Forum named her a Young Global Leader in 2013. She co-authored the book “In the River They Swim: Essays from around the World on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty,” holds a B.A. in economics from Swarthmore College and an M.A. in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.

 

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SFRC’s Jessica Lewis to be Asst Secretary for Political-Military Affairs (State/PM)

April 27, 2021 By in assistant secretaries, Functional Bureaus, Nominations, Officially In, Political Appointees, State Department Tags: , , , , ,
Once a year, we ask for your support to keep this blog and your dedicated blogger going. So here we are on Week #7 of our eight-week annual fundraising. Our previous funding ran out in August 2020. We recognize that blogging life has no certainty, and this year is no exception.  If you care what we do here, please see GFM: https://gofund.me/32671a27.  We could use your help. Grazie!  Merci! Gracias!

 

On April 23, 2021 President Biden announced his intent to nominate Jessica Lewis to be the next Assistant Secretary of State for Political Affairs. The WH released a brief bio:

Jessica Lewis, Nominee for Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Department of State

Jessica Lewis currently serves as Democratic Staff Director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Previously, from 2007 – 2014, she was the National Security Advisor and Foreign Policy Advisor, and then Senior National Security Advisor, to Senate Majority/Minority Leader Harry Reid. Earlier, Lewis was the Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to Senator Robert Menendez and, before that the Democratic Staff Director for the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee, Ranking Member Robert Menendez. She also worked as Manager, New Initiative Development, and as Manager, Net Corps America, at the Organization of American States. Lewis received an MPA degree from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, an MA degree from Johns Hopkins University, and a BA degree from Haverford College.

The last career appointee to the Pol-Mil bureau was Ambassador Thomas Edmund McNamara who served from 1994–1998. If confirmed, Ms. Lewis would succeed R. Clarke Cooper who served from 2019-2021.
Ambassador Tina Kaidanow served as Acting A/S prior to Cooper’s confirmation.  Senior FSO Timothy Betts has served as Acting A/S since the beginning of the Biden Administration.

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Why ‘Lack of Candor’ Can Get Federal Employees in Real Trouble

April 27, 2021 By in Diplomatic Security, Foreign Service, Grievance, Realities of the FS, Regulations, State Department Tags: , , ,
Once a year, we ask for your support to keep this blog and your dedicated blogger going. So here we are on Week #7 of our eight-week annual fundraising. Our previous funding ran out in August 2020. We recognize that blogging life has no certainty, and this year is no exception.  If you care what we do here, please see GFM: https://gofund.me/32671a27.  We could use your help. Grazie!  Merci! Gracias!
According to OPM, “lack of candor”  focuses on an employee’s duty to be forthcoming in responses with regard to all facts and information in their possession. Frederick v. Justice, 52 MSPR 126, 133 (1991); Fargnoli v. Dept. of Commerce, 123 MSPR 330 (2016). 
Federal Times/Legal Matters cited the 1998 case of Lachance v. Erickson, 118 S.Ct. 753: “…. a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decided that a federal agency may discipline an employee who lies or lacks candor to the agency regarding alleged employment-related misconduct, including falsely denying the offense, such that the agency can discipline the employee not only for the underlying act of misconduct, but also for the lie or lack of candor. It’s the latter (the lie) that almost always results in a more severe penalty than if the employee simply admitted the underlying wrongdoing.” Read in full here.
A most public “lack of candor’ case that made relatively recent news is here.
Below is an excerpt from FSGB Case No. 2014-049. This case is notable because the grievant is a tenured DS agent who got in trouble, among other things, for not being “entirely forthcoming,” the fact that the agency has access to private emails, and how each instance of not being forthcoming becomes a specification in the charge.
HELD: The Department of State carried its burden to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that grievant, a tenured Diplomatic Security Officer, committed the acts with which he is charged. The Board found that a 10-day suspension without pay was reasonable. The grievance appeal was denied.
OVERVIEW: Grievant, a tenured Diplomatic Security (DS) Agent, appeals the Agency’s denial of his grievance in which he sought a reduction of a 10-day suspension, the penalty he received for multiple disciplinary charges. The original charges included: (1) improper personal conduct; (2) misuse of government resources; (3) lack of candor; (4) poor judgment; and (5) failure to follow regulations. Although the deciding official declined to find grievant liable for Charge 4 and although grievant takes responsibility for Charges 2, 3, and 5, he denies the misconduct alleged in Charge 1 and the reasonableness of the penalty. The deciding official determined that the 10-day suspension originally proposed remained reasonable even though one charge was not sustained. The Board concluded that agency satisfied its burden of proving that grievant committed the improper personal conduct as charged, i.e. groping a female, subordinate employee (grabbing her buttocks) at a Marine House toga party in The Board also concluded that the 10-day suspension was reasonable under the totality of the Douglas analysis and that the agency was not obligated to reduce the penalty originally proposed merely because one of the charges was not sustained.

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