Posted on 05/16/2010 7:16:32 AM PDT by mgist
In the six months since their 22-year-old son, Max, was murdered in Ecuador, John Chamberlin and Ellen Madnick have slowly come to understand just how much of their pain and outrage is shared by the Obama administration and the State Department.
None.
It's nothing personal. In fact, Chamberlin notes, the U.S. government's response has been painfully impersonal: "You can murder an American and nothing will be done about it. It's our national policy not to get involved when people die."
As I wrote in November, Max Chamberlin left his job with AT&T last year and moved to Manta, an Ecuadorean city he loved. He was building an apartment complex when, just before midnight one day, he took a call from someone he knew and drove to a downtown parking lot.
His killer was waiting.
In the intervening months, Madnick has spent 11 days in Ecuador and more than $35,000 in the pursuit of justice, $20,000 of that on local lawyers. "It took me weeks," Madnick said, "to find a lawyer in Manta I could trust."
While officials at the U.S. consulate at Guayaquil have been helpful, the U.S. ambassador to Ecuador, Heather Hodges, has been almost a total no-show. Not until March 24 -- 20 weeks after Max's murder -- did Hodges send a "diplomatic note" to the chief of Ecuador's national police and the Ecuadorean attorney general.
"To date," Madnick and Chamberlin were told April 28, "the Embassy has not received a complete response."
The State Department's detachment is harder to understand, much less defend, given that another American, Daniela Lopez Lema, was brutally murdered in Ambato, Ecuador, on Sept. 9. Lopez Lema, a stunning 26-year-old California State University at Los Angeles student, was raped and decapitated.
"The U.S. Embassy in Quito is monitoring the ongoing investigation," the State Department said in a prepared statement.
That monitoring stands in marked contrast to the proactive stance of other foreign governments, Chamberlin and Madnick say. When a French woman named Charlotte Mazoyer was murdered in Quito last year, the French government didn't resort to diplomatic notes.
Instead, the French Embassy and various foreign ministers immediately pressured the Ecuadorean government to investigate, Bernard Mazoyer, Charlotte's father, told Madnick in an e-mail. They also provided the family with accommodations and security when the Mazoyers traveled to Quito.
Also key, Mazoyer wrote in that e-mail, "has been the start of a judiciary procedure in France. I don't know if this is possible in the U.S., but when a French citizen is killed abroad, our country automatically starts its own investigation. So two French judges are working on Charlotte's murder since last October. In many ways this has put a lot of pressure on the Ecuadorean police and prosecutor and has forced them to be more active."
"The French do it right and we do it wrong," Chamberlin said. "The French put investigators on the ground without asking for permission. We put no one on the ground. It's a 50-year national trend of putting corporate interests first and people second, if they count at all."
When Madnick wrote to President Barack Obama last month, Theodore Coley -- the chief of Western Hemisphere Affairs in the Office of Overseas Citizens Services -- responded, telling her, "To date, Ecuadorean authorities have not accepted our offers of assistance."
When I called for additional comment, a State Department press officer, who would not be quoted by name, underlined that point: "In cases of homicide not related to terrorism, the FBI or another investigative U.S. body may only become involved at the request of the host government."
I'm confused. If the threat of terrorism spurs the U.S. government to intervention and action, why doesn't the reality of murderous violence against U.S. citizens abroad?
How pathetic and overmatched are law enforcement officials in Ecuador? According to LA Weekly, they want Lopez Lema's parents to pay for forensic and DNA tests before they proceed in the investigation.
When Madnick and Chamberlin turned to Oregon's congressional delegation for help investigating the death of their son, the office of Sen. Ron Wyden was particularly responsive, drafting an April 19 letter to Hodges from Wyden, Rep. Earl Blumenauer and Sen. Jeff Merkley.
That letter languished, however, on Merkley's desk until Wednesday when I called his office and asked why he hadn't signed on. ("He was reviewing the issue," said Julie Edwards, Merkley's communications director.) A spokesman in Wyden's office said he hopes the letter will spur the State Department and Ecuadorean prosecutors "to take steps beyond what they've done so far."
Madnick and Chamberlin insist they'll keep the pressure on, but they are baffled and disappointed that the administration is proceeding with such maddening dispassion.
"The message from our government? It's open season on Americans abroad," Madnick said.
"We know there's no justice," Chamberlin said. "Max isn't coming back. The No. 1 thing I'd like to change is how these deaths are handled so that you can't kill Americans with impunity. When you kill an American now, you know nothing is going to happen.
"I hate the idea of Max's murderer not only getting away with it, but profiting by it because no one cares."
I wonder if this has always been the policy? Are there cases of other Americans being killed in Ecuador and the situation was handled differently?
These upcoming elections are essential to saving this country from socialism, ragheads and the phuking pols in D.C.
If the US sends agents to investigate without permission of the host country..we are called arrogant and imperialistic by our own press and the press in France.
Other countries aren’t held to the same standard.
Ecudor turned back towards socialism and I guess Obama and State are happy with that.
However, I thought it was a crime to kill a US citizen anywhere in the world and that a criminal could be extradited or arrested here for it.
There is no question that our foreign relations have been emasculated.
Let me guess...I’ll bet the victim is white.
Virtually no offense is taken by the ZerO administration when a rancher in Arizona is kill by an illegal drug smuggling alien, but, had the rancher killed the drug smuggler there would have been DumBO to pay. American lives are worth less than foreign criminals.
Travel abroad with a U.S. passport, and you share a stamped booklet with thousands whose own U.S. passport is pocketed next to their Mexican, Guatemalan, Pakistani, Indian, Chinese, etc. passport. Since our "nationality" is no longer unique or worse, not recognized, what is there for our despots to secure, protect, or vouchsafe?
I think the article makes a point in noting the stark contrast of the French government’s defense of it’s citizens, as compared to the US.
Ecuador was on my short list of places to relocate to if Obama succeeds in the overthrow of America.
You’re right. When a people stop thinking of themselves as a nation, they stop being a nation. For many decades now, divide and conquer has been the strategy of numerous “ethnic and linguistic entrepreneurs” in politics and education whose invidious workings are now bearing fruit. We as a people need to start asserting our unity, not our diversity, before it’s too late.
Wonder if he voted for obama?
Very sad story. But it is very unwise for Americans to relocate to, or even visit, the great majority of nations in the Third World, including all of Latin America with the POSSIBLE exceptions of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. If you have young people with the urge to travel, encourage them to stay in the First World.
One of the corollaries of "never let a crisis go to waste" is "it's not a crisis until ABCNNBCBS says it is."
Ummmmm, didn’t we lose the war to The Duchy of Grand Fenwick?
(And in a shocking case of historical irony, weren’t we at war with them for years before we found out?)
More americans have been killed by illegals than Have been killed in middle east action. However, most have been blacks.
Think the administration cares? Nope. Such info is not PC
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