Tuesday, September 28, 2010

David Dreier's Constituent Service-- A Horrifying Report From A Parent Of Two Kidnapped Children

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The other day I had a call from an old friend, Russ Warner, who I know as a family man and as a father as well as the progressive Democrat running for the seat in a neighboring district currently held by David Dreier, aggressively not a family man. Russ introduced me to Andrew Ko, a neighbor and distraught father whose two 10-year old twin sons, Christopher and William, were abducted to Singapore by his ex-wife. Once his sons were spirited out of the country Andrew went to David Dreier, his congressman. Dreier was unhelpful... even insulting, sending him a letter address to Dear "Mr. Yo" and telling him to "have a nice day." Andrew wound up taking out an ad (left) in the L.A. Times. He also talked with Russ who personally delivered his paperwork to Senator Boxer, who is now working on the case. I asked Andrew to write a guest post to explain what he's been through. I mean, he's actually a Republican and that ad must have cost him a few thousand dollars.
My ex-wife, Yuxin Mei Wang, is a Singaporean. She violated the July 2008 Custody Order and disappeared with the boys on August 31, 2009.  A “Find and Retrieve Order” was issued by the Los Angeles County Superior Court on September 4, 2009, just over a year ago. 
 
Yuxin Mei Wang was able to obtain new Singapore passports for the children from the Singapore Consulate in San Francisco without my authorization or knowledge.  When the children first disappeared, I contacted the Singapore Consulate.  A consular officer, Lea Chan, told me in no uncertain terms that they DID NOT issue passports for the children. She will have to check with the authorities in Singapore to see if the passports were issued from Singapore. 5 days later, she called and said San Francisco actually issued the passports. So much for record keeping.
 
There is a 4-count felony arrest warrant from the State of California and an FBI warrant. An Interpol Red Notice was diffused on November 25, 2009 and Singapore is a member of Interpol. A former Singapore Police Commissioner, Khoo Boon Hwee, is current president of Interpol. Repeated inquiries by the Los Angeles County District Attorney on the status of the Red Notice for arrest of the abducting parent continues to go unanswered.
 
I bring you back to the case of American teenager Michael Fay who was sentenced to 5 strokes of the cane in Singapore back in 1994 for vandalism. 24 US Senators and President Clinton appealed to the Singapore Government to spare Fay, claiming the punishment does not fit the crime.  Here is a link to a few Singapore newspaper articles about this case. The response is that the U.S. does not have to agree with Singapore laws, the U.S. only has to respect them.

The Interpol Red Notice was issued because the abducting parent broke U.S. laws.  No one is saying she broke Singapore laws. Singapore does not have to agree with U.S. laws, Singapore only has to respect them.
 
In April of this year, the Singapore Foreign Ministry released this statement regarding a Romanian diplomat involved in a car accident. Singapore requested Interpol to issue a Red Notice for the arrest of the Romanian diplomat. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, George Yeo, said Romania has a "clear moral obligation" to persuade the diplomat to return to Singapore to stand trial.  Why is it when Singapore wants to arrest someone, the country providing safe haven has a "clear moral obligation" to return the fugitive; but when the U.S. wants to arrest a Singaporean wanted for crimes in the U.S. Singaproe tells the U.S. to go "pound salt."
 
At the 78th General Assembly of Interpol held in Singapore in October 2009, Singapore Minister of Law Mr. K. Shanmugam gave a speech commending the progress made by member countries of Interpol. He highlighted the apprehension of Singaporean fugitive lawyer Tan Cheng Yew by the German authorities after Singapore Police issued an Interpol Red Notice.
 
When the U.S. issues an Interpol Red Notice, Singapore ignores it completely and offers safe-haven to a wanted fugitive.
 
The U.S. trains the Singapore Air Force at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona and Mountain High Air Force Base in Idaho. The Luke AFB training costs $325 million dollars and... who pays for this??

Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-4) has a bill in Congress HR 3240 that will put pressure on countries to prevent child abduction and facilitate the children's return.  Let's amend this bill to say that countries like Singapore, Japan, and Philippines who knowingly ignore valid US requests to return the children will have military and economic assistance suspended until the children are returned. If you want to benefit from the relationship with the U.S., you have to respect our laws whether you agree with them or not.
 
Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has written to the Singapore Ambassador but the response was not encouraging. Sen. Leahy then wrote to Secretary of State Clinton. My Congressman, David Dreier, has not done much except to forward my letters to a few parties. Singapore's response is that they did not know. They did not know because they did not check and ask some basic questions when a single parent is applying for passports for minor children.
 
The Department of Justice refuses to issue a formal extradition request to  Singapore citing different "interpretation" of the extradition by Singapore. Treaties are not subject to re-interpretation after they are signed according to the Vienna Convention.
 
Another interesting response is from the Singapore Ministry of Education.  They refuse to provide me information regarding the children.  The latest letter asks for a court order. My name is on the birth certificate and the Ministry of Education accepted this as an enrollment document but refuses to provide me information on my children. My lawyer in Singapore has now gone back to the Education Ministry to ask what aspect of law are they basing the requirement that a parent needs a court order before obtaining information on their children. Is this a requirement for all parents or just the left behind parent when their children have been abducted to Singapore? 
 
None of the elected officials I contacted called me regarding my case. I ran the ad above on the 1 year anniversary of the abduction on August 31, 2010 in the L.A. Times.  I even wrote the People's Republic of China Ambassador in Washington DC and their Consulate in Los Angeles asking if they might be able to help as they have a good relationship with Singapore. Guess what? I received a call from a consular officer, Mr. Yang from Los Angeles, within 10 days of my letters. He listened and offered some advice. But at least someone from the Chinese Consulate called; unlike my own elected officials.

Another compelling reason to Dump David Dreier, whose too busy working for Special Interests and galavanting around the globe with his lover/chief of staff to give proper assistance to an American citizen/constituent. Interpol Red Notice:

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4 Comments:

At 5:52 PM, Anonymous Al Swearengen said...

Singapore can be a weird place. I've spent some time there, and there's this weird attitude they have about the US. They don't hate us, but they definitely don't love us.

There's still some hurt Singaporean feelings from the outrage over here over that kid's caning. In some ways, they're like China, and are very sensitive about any criticism from the West. (Not surprising considering how many Singaporeans are ethnic Chinese. Singapore is the only place I've ever gotten into a heated argument over Tiananmen Square outside of China.)

Good luck with getting the kids back.

 
At 4:43 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

I'm a friend of Andrew Ko. When he contacted me asking if I'd contact my legislators in New Mexico for help I was happy to oblige.

I first contacted Gov. Richardson. His response was that he couldn't get involved since this was a Federal matter. This, just a couple of months after he had helped get some balloons out of China, I believe, Two 9 year old boys, however, he couldn't bothered with.

So I went to Sen. Tom Udall (Dem. NM). He ran so fast the other way that it sucked the air out of the room. He gave excuse after excuse to not help. 'Any particular action by our office would likely duplicate the efforts already undertaken by Sen. Feinstein and would result in the same response.' Sen. Feinstein's office had done nothing to that point, and has yet to do anything. Udall cited Senate Rules as prohibiting their acting on behalf of someone who is not their constituent. So I read the Senate Rules, the word constituent appears only in the section on whether or not a Senator can accept gifts. The relevant section XLIII 'Representation by Members' uses the word PETITIONER, unqualified by state, legislative region or anything else. Sen. Udall sits on the Rules Committee, you'd think he'd at least have read the rules.

Sadly, this refusal by our legislators is endemic. Feinstein (Ca), McCain (Az), Bingaman (NM), Udall (NM) and Lujan (NM) all refused. And they are only the ones I know about. The only Senator willing to act was Leahy of Vermont.

I used to think that I shouldn't run of office because I wasn't courageous enough. Turns out I'm not enough of a coward.

 
At 11:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It does sound like Congressman Drier and the others mentioned above. Since basically, if there isn't any political reward in it for themselves they don't care. And just like a previous blogger has suggested, it's most likely that Drier is more interested in cultivating the kind of political interests that will help him to get him reelected. Which is not uncommon, but then again, you would also expect that since politicians are elected by the people that they would also try and serve those people in some capacity.

 
At 10:00 AM, Blogger Left Behind Parent said...

Just want to give you an update on the children and their kidnapper mother.

Boys returned to the US 3 years ago. They continue to suffer the effects of the kidnapping and have been in therapy the past 3 years.

The boys' mother returned to the US in May 2011 and was arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to 180 days for felony kidnapping, but released after 10 days or so due to jail overcrowding. She is under 5 years felony probation which she violates but the underqualified LA County Probation officer Manuel Rueda refuses to acknowledge. Conditions of probation include obeying all orders of the Family Court. Yuxin Mei Wang refuses to do this but Probation Officer Rueda continues to write that Wang is in full compliance of all probation conditions. I have written to Chief Probation Officer Jerry Powers but he doesn't get it either.

Yuxin Mei Wang is now in Homeland Security ICE Removal Proceedings for immigration document fraud. She has had 4 hearings in from of Immigration Judge Tara Naselow-Nahas during the past 18 months with another hearing set for Dec 2, 2014. We have immigration laws, we just need to enforce them.

I ask readers to write Judge Tara Naselow-Nahas (606 S. Olive Street, 17th Floor Courtroom T, Los Angeles, CA 90014) and ask her to deport a convicted Felon (Yuxin Mei Wang A055170469)at the next hearing on December 2nd, 2014.

 

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