US embassy cable - 05DJIBOUTI919

UNCLAS DJIBOUTI 000919 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR CA/VO 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: CVIS, CMGT, PINR, PREL, DJ 
SUBJECT: DJIBOUTI'S PROTOCOL CHIEF THREATENS SUSPENSION 
U.S. DIPLOMATIC PRIVILEGES 
 
 
1. (SBU) Summary.  On September 10, Djama Elmi Darar, Chief 
of Presidential Protocol, accompanied by the head of 
presidential security, expressed to ConOff and Charge 
d'Affaires his displeasure in not being able to procure 
immediately a visa for one of the members of the security 
staff chosen to accompany President Guelleh to UNGA. 
Darar threatened to halt all issuance of any diplomatic 
visas to Americans, refuse American duty-free imports, 
delay American diplomatic vehicle registrations, and 
hold back gasoline coupons until the visa was issued. 
Post's coincidental receipt of SAO clearance around the 
same time permitted issuance, but the issue may reappear 
in future application instances. 
End summary. 
 
2. (SBU) The Djiboutian Protocol Office has repeatedly 
delivered visa requests to Embassy Djibouti with the 
expectation of issuance in an unreasonably short 
time frame.    The last diplomatic delegation to the 
U.S. in May 2005, resulted in three individuals not 
being able to accompany the president because they were 
subject to SAOs, and did not bring their passports in 
time to receive visas when the SAOs cleared. 
 
3. (U) Given the history of last minute applications, 
Embassy Djibouti formally requested, beginning in June, 
that the government's Protocol Office submit 
applications for the UNGA delegation as early as possible. 
When the applications finally arrived at COB on Tuesday 
September 6, more than several were incomplete, lacked 
photographs or had invalid passports.  We managed to 
issue 19 out of 20 visas, but one was delayed by the 
need for an SAO. 
 
4. (U) On Saturday, September 10, a weekend, ConOff 
received word that the Protocl Chief wanted an immediate 
meeting regarding the case of the individual requiring 
an SAO.  (Note:  Although an SAO clearance had been 
accorded overnight, the visa still could not be immediately 
authorized for technical reasons, as Embassy's parser server 
is not normally rebooted on weekends.) 
 
5. (SBU) In the meeting, also attended by the Charge, 
Darar immediately brought up the visa that was still 
unissued.  ConOff and Charge attempted to explain that 
processing, even for diplomatic visas, sometimes takes 
time, and every effort was being made to expedite this 
particular application.  Darar responded that if the 
visa were not issued within the next hour Djibouti would 
cease issuance of diplomatic visas for Americans, refuse 
any American duty-free imports, delay American diplomatic 
vehicle registrations, and hold back coupons for purchase 
of fuel.  Charge said that the threat would need to be 
passed along to Washington and offered Darar the chance 
to retract the threat.   Instead he repeated it with 
emphasis, and agreed that the threat should be communicated 
to Washington. During the course of the meeting, the parser 
was rebooted, so that name check and FR could clear in NIV. 
After Darar left, ConOff was able to authorize and 
print the visa in question.  The passport was picked up 
from the embassy five minutes later. 
 
6. (SBU)  Comment:  While the meeting itself had no impact 
on the timing of the issuance of the outstanding visa, the 
fact that it was issued shortly after the conclusion of 
meeting will probably confirm Darar's belief that verbal 
pressure can facilitate matters regarding visas.  We are 
uncertain if there is substance to Darar's threat to 
withhold diplomatic privileges to the Embassy as a 
general policy for the future.  We will monitor and 
apprise Washington of developments accordingly. End Comment 
 
RAGSDALE