Global Policy Forum

By Gersh Kuntzman

"Diplomatic immunity" can shield foreign emissaries from everything from shoplifting to murder. But it's no escape from the wrath of a New York City landlord. The Liberian Mission to the United Nations found that out when its electricity was unceremoniously turned off on Nov. 26. Seems there was the small matter of an unpaid rent bill.

Sources say the Liberians -- whose homeland is still devastated from a seven-year civil war that ended in 1997 -- owe five months in back rent, or $50,000. Yesterday, Mission secretary Michelle Cruz made do with a dim, battery-powered lamp that turned simple tasks like filing and answering phones -- which still work, for now -- into annoying chores. "This is no way to work," Cruz said from the darkness of the windowless office suite at 820 Second Ave., a building named "The Diplomat Centre."

Landlord-tenant disputes are nothing new in a city so mad for real estate that people have been known to marry someone they hate just to get a rent-controlled apartment. But when the tenant is a foreign government and the landlord also houses the Peruvian, Nicaraguan, Nepalese and Croatian missions, that makes it an international incident. "I'm not saying anything at all!" said a spokesman for the landlord before hanging up.

The building's other missions had no complaints -- but of course, they pay their bills on time. Even the Democratic People's Republic of Korea pays its bills. And that made local Liberians even angrier. "This is a disgrace," said Thelma Smith, who stopped by the mission to pick up her passport. "The war is over," added Sampson Jumbo Sr. "We had an election. Charles Taylor promised to rebuild the country. This is shameful." "Our government is under certain restraints," said Liberian spokesman Edwin Sele, ever the diplomat. "But they have told us that it will all be taken care of this week."