July 2016

Hotels & Travel Special Section Inside Hotels & Travel

A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

VOLUME 23, NUMBER 7

Caribbean

Cuba’s Ambassador Comes in from Cold, Urging Closer Ties With diplomatic ties between Washington and Havana already a fact of life, Cuban Ambassador José Ramón Cabañas says the urgency now is deepening that relationship through economic and cultural exchange — and ending the trade embargo that has defined U.S. policy toward the island for the last 55 years. / PAGE 7

t

July 2016

JULY 2016

WWW.WASHDIPLOMAT.COM Lofty Ambitions

VENEZUELA

D.C. Aims High with Rise

I

of Hotel Rooftops t BY STEPHANIE

KANOWITZ

n D.C., the places to be are movin’ on up.

For too long, D.C.’s streets all the fun. Now it’s the have had rooftops’ turn. Until recently, most hotels use of the space above didn’t make the top floor, but that’s changing now — and rapidly.

Several hotels are opening their doors this summer with new or revamped Still, setting up shop on rooftop amenities including the top is not simple. For pools, bars, dining and ample, hotels must secure exactivities. The Height of a Summer Garden EndorseBuild- ment from the ings Act, passed in 1899, city capped how tall buildings in the in a private outdoorgovernment to be able to sell alcohol District could be (110 feet), space. Also helpful: approval ing eclipsed city landmarks mainly to ensure that noth- the applicable Advisory from (and Neighborhood Commission. ty concerns over tall buildings). also because of fire safe- ANCs examine policies and programs affecting their amended to 130 feet. Although In 1910, that limit was neighborhoods, including liquor licenses. that act causes consternation in some ways — To stay competitive in this such as not being able to highly aggressive build ket, the rooftop up to make more livable is becoming the “it” thing hotel marspace to have, said — it means many rooftops as D.C.’s population grows Kate Gibbs, domestic offer unobstructed views media relations manager national treasures. of at Des24

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ON THE BRINK

Venezuela is in free fall. Despite its vast oil wealth, basic goods from toilet paper to bread are scarce, inflation is sky-high, as is crime, and Hugo Chávez’s socialist dream is in tatters. But Bernardo Álvarez Herrera, who has personally lived through the ups and downs of U.S.-Venezuela relations, insists that his embattled country will survive this latest bout of turbulence. / PAGE 13

United States

Donald Trump Inspires Immigrants To Cast Their Ballots Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has railed against an entire rainbow of minorities, from Muslims to Mexicans. While his heated rhetoric has struck a chord with conservatives, it’s also inspired immigrants to sign up to vote and battle him at the ballot box. / PAGE 11

Culture

National Geographic Stages Epic Display There’s just one word to describe the new exhibition spanning 5,000 years of Greek history and culture: Epic. / PAGE 30

People of World Influence

Diplomatic Spouses

Smithsonian Chief Sets Sight on World

From Asheville To Afghanistan

David Skorton, the first physician to lead the Smithsonian, is working to expand the institution’s already-sizeable international footprint, which extends to 145 nations around the world. / PAGE 5

“I fell in love with the country,” said 29-year-old Lael Mohib, an Ashville, N.C., native who is as much at home in Afghanistan as she is in America — where she now finds herself as the wife of Afghanistan’s young new ambassador to the U.S. / PAGE 31

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2 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

Contents 9

tHe WaSHiNGtoN Diplomat | July 2016

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NEWS

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31

5

DIPLOMACY vErBATIM Sister Cities International marks 60 years of citizen diplomacy.

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20 EU CANDOr The European Union ambassador talks about the bloc’s migrant and economic woes.

32 ArTISTIC DÉTENTE A new generation of Cuban artists transcends politics at the OAS.

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PEOPLE OF WOrLD INFLUENCE The Smithsonian secretary aims to expand the institution’s global reach.

CUBA’S rAPID THAW Havana’s ambassador embraces warming ties with the U.S.

9

CONvENTION CrAZINESS America’s presidential conventions are anything but predictable.

11 BACkLASH AT BALLOT BOX Donald Trump is inspiring a surge in Muslim and Hispanic voter registration

13

COvEr PrOFILE: vENEZUELA Bernardo Álvarez Herrera, who was twice kicked out as Venezuela’s envoy, is back in D.C.

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GLOBAL vANTAGE POINT Op-ed: President Obama isn’t to blame for the Middle East’s self-inflicted wounds.

MEDICAL The painkiller that killed Prince is part of a dangerous wave of new synthetic drugs.

TRAVEL & HOTELS 23

LIFE ON TOP

D.C. hotels set their sights high with the rise of rooftops.

CULTURE 30

IT’S ALL GrEEk From Agamemnon to Alexander the Great, “The Greeks” is an epic journey.

DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES A North Carolinian fell in love with Afghanistan — and with one Afghan in particular.

ALL-AMErICAN SHOWCASE

A major West Virginia festival gears up for its 26th year of staging American works.

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DINING The Dabney lives up to the hype with its fierce commitment to Mid-Atlantic freshness.

REGULARS 36 CINEMA LISTING 38 EVENTS LISTING 40 DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT 45 APPOINTMENTS / WORLD HOLIDAYS 46 CLASSIFIEDS 47 REAL ESTATE CLASSIFIEDS

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 3

Volume 23

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Issue 7

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July 2016

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ON THE COvEr Ambassador of Venezuela to the Organization of American States Bernardo Álvarez Herrera is photographed at the Venezuelan Embassy in front of a mural depicting late President Hugo Chávez. Photography by Lawrence Ruggeri of Ruggeriphoto.com.

4 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

WD | People of World Influence

Beyond the Mall Smithsonian Secretary Touts Institution’s International Reach

by Michael Coleman

W

hen David Skorton took over as the 13th secretary of the Smithsonian Institution a year ago, he arrived with an impressive resume, a reputation as a prodigious fundraiser and, according to him, not much knowledge about the institution or its global reach.

A board-certified cardiologist and accomplished jazz saxophonist, Skorton had spent the previous decade as president of Cornell University, where he raised $5 billion and led a successful effort to build a new applied sciences campus in New York City. A pioneer in applying computer analysis and processing techniques to cardiac imaging, he is the first physician to lead the Smithsonian.

In a recent Diplomat interview in his office at the famous Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall, Skorton said he’s spent much of his time getting to know the institution better and marveling at the depth and scope of its work in 145 different countries around the globe.

To say Skorton’s job is a big one is an understatement. As secretary, the affable physician oversees 19 Smithsonian museums and galleries, 20 libraries, the National Zoo and numerous research centers, including the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

He’s also in charge of the institution’s $1.3 billion annual budget, as well as 6,500 employees and 6,300 volunteers.

About 60 percent of the Smithsonian Institution’s budget is paid by taxpayers. The rest is generated from private contributions and business revenues.

Twenty-eight million people visited Smithsonian museums and galleries last year alone.

Skorton told The Diplomat he is deeply committed to sustaining and even expanding the Smithsonian’s global outreach, and he encouraged Washington’s ambassadors to contact him about leveraging the institution’s vast resources for potential work in their own countries. The secretary also discussed the Smithsonian’s knack for steering clear of partisan politics, his commitment to the arts, proposals to begin charging admission to museums and the importance of diplomacy around the world.

The Washington Diplomat: How much did you know about the Smithsonian’s international reach before starting the job last year?

David Skorton: I knew very little about the Smithsonian when I was

considering this amazing opportunity.

What I knew about it primarily were these fabulous museums … and having this opportunity to see everything under the sun. I was not aware of the depth and breadth of the international activities. But I’ve had the good fortune to be involved in international activities throughout my academic career in medical projects in places as far away as Russia and Japan, to educational and research partnerships in Asia, Africa, Europe and elsewhere, including South Asia. So I was delighted when I found that, depending on when you take the count, we’re involved in perhaps as many as 145 countries around the world.

TWD: What kind of work could the Smithsonian possibly be doing in that many different places?

Skorton: Most of those are research projects that are initiated or continued by a particular scientist, art historian, anthropologist or archaeologist here, with a counterpart in another part of the world.

“

I knew very little about the Smithsonian when I was considering this amazing opportunity.

What I knew about it primarily were these fabulous museums….

I was not aware of the depth and breadth of the international activities.

David Skorton

”

secretary of the Smithsonian Institution

There is a great interest now in what people call cultural preservation around the world, whether cultural artifacts and heritage, or cultural memories that are endangered by natural catastrophes like the earthquake in Haiti or, unfortunately, purposeful destruction as we’ve seen in the Middle East and elsewhere. Especially since 2010 — since Haiti — we’ve been seen more and more as one of the go-to places by the State Department … in helping not only to directly preserve culture

Photo: Smithsonian Institution

ourselves, as in Haiti, but also training our counterparts and exchanging ideas with people in other parts of the world.

Closely related to that cultural preservation is work that our Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage does….

There is also an increasing desire to work with museum professionals around the world to just trade expertise. If you walk around the museums, you see evidence of these international partnerships.

TWD: How do you prioritize international projects?

Skorton: That’s a great question.

There are really two approaches to this. One is to pound the table and say, ‘We’re now going to turn our attention to region X and we’re going to work there.’ That doesn’t work in organizations like this that are full of creative people and want to follow their hearts and minds where they want to go. The other approach is the let-a-thousandflowers-bloom approach and that’s what goes on here. Individual people are empowered to bring opportunities to the table. We meet regularly

with members of the diplomatic corps.

Right after this meeting, we’re meeting with a delegation that wants to find out opportunities to work with us. I’m a real big believer in allowing a creative local freedom to do things. The way it works is an idea is brought up and support is sought for it. It’s evaluated for the likelihood we could actually do some good.

TWD: Are these decisions affected by international politics? For example, does the mood of Congress, which controls more than half your budget, factor into where international resources are directed?

Skorton: This organization is completely apolitical — you expect me to say that — but it really is. We do run into politics, especially in this area of cultural heritage preservation, but I’ve been hugely impressed … that they’ve stayed very apolitical and therefore they’ve gained the trust of institutions around the world.

It’s a testimony to the board of regents [of the Smithsonian Institution].

See Skorton • page 6

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 5

Skorton Continued • page 5

That’s a board that has nine members of the public on it, six sitting members of Congress, the vice president of the United States and the chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution is the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

TWD: The chief justice’s role probably surprises many people.

Skorton: It’s a little intimidating (chuckles). My last interview was in [Chief Justice John Roberts’s] chamber on a Sunday afternoon. My wife asked me, ‘What are you going to talk about?’ and I said I don’t know. Whatever he says, I’m just going to say yes.

TWD: So, Congress stays out of your way and lets you do your job? That also might surprise people.

Skorton: The congressional part of it is bipartisan.

They really allow us to do this as long as proper process is followed. So many American institutions have

fallen off the curve in terms of the public trust. Forgive me if I mention the Fourth Estate [the media], Congress and so on. One of the highest-ranking areas in terms of trust is museums and libraries. It is way up there in the 70 and 80 percent range.

People trust the information they get and they see museums and libraries as unbiased purveyors of information. We need to use that asset.

people here organized who really know what they’re talking about. We have a wonderful database that if you name a country, it can generate a listing of what collections we have from that country, what objects are in that collection, what research projects we’re doing over there or jointly over here. If you want to give them one piece of advice, tell them to write me directly at skortond@si.edu.

TWD: How so?

TWD: That’s a pretty direct pipeline to the top.

Skorton: One thing I’m going to try to do next year is convene some discussions on difficult topics. We won’t take a position but we’ll act as the convening party to bring folks together to talk about things and make those discussions open to the public for free and webcast it, using whatever technology to disseminate it. I think that will enable us to use that trust in a positive way.

TWD: What would you say to ambassadors in Washington who would like to become more engaged with the Smithsonian or possibly explore partnerships?

Skorton: Send me an email … and I’ll get some

Skorton: People who work with me hate when I do that because they know that I will quickly forward [an incoming email] to them. But I think we are a public-facing institution and we need to be open to the world.

TWD: You’ve developed quite a reputation as a fundraiser. You were prodigious at raising money as the president of Cornell, and in your previous job as president of the University of Iowa from 2003 to 2006. Is that part of your job here?

Skorton: My job is a matchmaking job. My job is to find out what assets we have that would be of inter-

The Smithsonian Institution Building (i.e. the Castle) is seen against an early morning sunset with the Washington Monument in the background.

Photo: Eric F. Long, Smithsonian

est to people with capacity [money] who are patriotic and want to participate.

That’s also what I did at Cornell and the University of Iowa. The whole key to fundraising is finding that concurrence of interest. It’s very hard to sell something to someone if they are not interested.

[Take for instance the new National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opens in September.] When Obama was elected I thought, ‘Well, at the last years of this guy’s two terms — if he goes two terms — we’ll be on a descending level of race problems in this country.’ Unfortunately, we’re not even close. So I think it’s more important than ever to have that museum open. We found people of capacity who wanted to participate and it wasn’t just the African American community, although there was a lot of generosity there. It was corporate America, white philanthropists, raising a quarter of a billion dollars already, and more is on the way.

TWD: You come from a science discipline — medicine — but you have stated that you really want to focus on arts during your tenure as Smithsonian secretary. Why? Skorton: I think it’s im6 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

portant because life and medicine and science have convinced me that our thorniest issues are not going to be solved by science alone. It’s necessary to have great scientific discoveries … but we have not done a good enough job as scientists of explaining to the public how things work. We have to do a better job of understanding communication and the whole breadth of things that come with humanistic disciplines. I think the arts and the humanities are where we understand human nature and what it means to be human.

Understandably, during a recession people want to spend money on things that look like they’ll have economic benefit. School districts across the country when things get tight say, ‘Let’s drop the arts program, the music program,’ because you can’t immediately identify that with a job opportunity five years hence. We do that at our peril. I think the country has to reinvest in it.

TWD: What is your position on the notion of implementing admission fees — even nominal ones — to the Smithsonian museums as a way to raise revenue?

Skorton: It will not happen while I’m secretary.

There is always a concern about raising more revenue to do what we do. Congress has been immensely, astoundingly generous. During a recession we’ve had a flat appropriation in nominal dollars and that’s astounding, right? Given what could have happened, they could have knocked it down a lot, and they haven’t. I think it’s because the American public appreciates what my predecessors have done and what my colleagues are doing now.

TWD: Is there anything else you’d like to say to our readers, many of whom comprise the international and diplomatic community?

Skorton: I just want to say after working so much overseas that all of us in the world owe a debt of gratitude to the diplomatic core around the world at a difficult time when there is tension between societies and government. The professional diplomat is the way we reach out between cultures and try to make things work in ways that are not based on conflict. I am thankful for what they do every day. WD Michael Coleman (@michaelcoleman) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

WD | Caribbean

Cuba’s Rapid Thaw At Meridian Forum, Havana Envoy Embraces Warming Ties with U.S.

by Larry Luxner

T

he United States has “moved beyond” the debate over whether it’s time to improve relations with Cuba. With diplomatic ties already a fact of life, the urgency now is deepening that relationship through economic and cultural exchange — and ending the trade embargo that has defined U.S. policy toward the island for the last 55 years.

So says José Ramón Cabañas, Havana’s man in Washington since 2012.

For most of that time, Cabañas was chief of the Cuban Interests Section, officially an annex of the Swiss Embassy. But on Sept. 17, 2015, Cabañas presented his credentials to President Obama as Cuba’s first full-fledged ambassador to the United States in more than half a century, following the restoration of those ties nine months earlier.

“It’s no secret that most Americans support a better relationship with Cuba. It’s the same thing from our end,” said Cabañas, addressing the Meridian International Center’s half-day Cultural Diplomacy Forum on Cuba. His June 9 speech came roughly a month after the first U.S. cruise ship in 50 years set sail from Miami to Havana, and one day before the Department of Transportation cleared half a dozen U.S. airlines for takeoff to nine Cuban destinations.

“At the diplomatic level, every other day we have something new, or another round of talks. We have so many initiatives from companies large and small that we are thinking of forming an economic steering committee,” Cabañas said. “When you have such a large demand, you have to make priorities. You cannot deal with everything at once.”

Cabañas was the first of 26 speakers at the Cuba Cultural Diplomacy Forum, which focused on economic development through entrepreneurship, tourism, cultural preservation, the arts and educational exchange.

Other speakers included Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security advisor for strategic communications; Peter Schechter, director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center; former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez; and Ambassador Vicki Huddleston, who headed the U.S. mission in Havana from 1999 to 2002.

The fact that Meridian’s Cuba event — underwritten by former banker Adrienne Arsht and agribusiness giant Caterpillar — attracted a standing-room only crowd underscores the intense interest in an island that has fascinated Americans for decades.

Since Obama’s groundbreaking two-day trip there last March, that interest has surged, said Cabañas, who was introduced by Meridian President and CEO Stuart Holliday as “probably the most popular ambassador in Washington right now.”

About 161,000 U.S. citizens of non-Cuban origin traveled to the island in 2015, and arrivals in the first half of 2016 are already up 94 percent, said Cabañas. That follows a significant relaxation of U.S. regulations that for years made it next to impossible for average Americans to visit this tropical paradise only

Photo: Joyce Boghosian

Cuban Ambassador José Ramón Cabañas speaks at the Meridian International Center’s half-day Cultural Diplomacy Forum on Cuba on June 9.

90 miles from Florida’s shores. ments on 18 subjects ranging from law en“How many will go this year, I don’t know. forcement to marine conservation.

But it puts a lot of pressure on agencies, au“We have signed nine memoranda of unthorities and institutions that must respond derstanding on specific areas like civil aviation to their demands,” said Cabañas. “We are do- that we have to implement,” he said, noting ing things the way Cubans do things: the nonstop flurry upside down. It will take awhile, but of Cuban officials after people have waited for so many streaming to Washyears to have that freedom to travel to ington ever since Cuba, we cannot say, ‘Let’s wait until the Cuban flag went we have the infrastructure.’ We welup over the councome visitors now.” try’s mission on This new Yankee invasion still rep16th Street, NW, for resents a tiny fraction of the 3.5 milthe first time since lion tourists expected to vacation in 1954.

Cuba this year, one-third of them CaIn similar fashnadians. Moreover, Americans still ion, the U.S. Intercannot travel to Cuba strictly as tourests Section in Cuba ists; their visit has to fall under one — a six-story buildof 12 categories, such as educational, ing that dominates religious, family or humanitarian Havana’s seaside José Ramón Cabañas purposes.

Malecón esplanade But the U.S. market is by far the — became a fullambassador of Cuba most important one in the world for fledged embassy to the United States Cuba, and once all restrictions are last August during formally lifted, millions of Amerian emotional flagcans will undoubtedly flood the island — lured raising ceremony headed by Secretary of State

by Cuba’s colonial architecture, white-sand John Kerry. beaches, cigar factories, salsa music and a rollSince then, a number of state and municiing museum of colorful, pre-embargo Fords, pal officials including Virginia Gov. Terry Chevys, Buicks and Plymouths from the 1940s McAuliffe and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and 1950s that can be found nowhere else on have brought delegations to Cuba, looking to Earth. expand trade and investment opportunities.

At the moment, said Cabañas, the U.S. and See CUBA • page 8 Cuban governments are negotiating agree-

“

It’s no secret that most Americans support a better relationship with Cuba. It’s the same thing from our end.

”

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 7

Cuba Continued • page 7

While it’s easier than ever to visit the island these days, the trade embargo itself is still very much in place — and because of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, only Congress can revoke those sanctions.

Yet while Democrats and Republicans may not agree on much this presidential election season, one thing both sides seem to support is an end to those anti-Cuba sanctions that have accomplished virtually nothing in the past 55 years, except maybe to shut out U.S. companies from a potential market of 11 million consumers.

“It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to tell a U.S. businessman that the Cuban market is forbidden,” said Cabañas. “People are knowledgeable about the new Cuban legal framework, and they simply want to be part of that. And it’s difficult to tell port authorities in South Florida not to look to the port of Mariel, especially now that the Panama Canal is being expanded.”

Cabañas said that as chief of the Cuban Interests Section and now the Cuban Embassy, he’s had the chance to visit many cities across the United States, including South Florida — home to a thriving community of more than a million Cuban exiles.

“I can tell you that young people have a lot of expectations, and they don’t care about the embargo,” he said, urging Congress to “support the end of sanctions” against his country that have caused untold

8 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

Photo: Joyce Boghosian

The Meridian International Center’s Cultural Diplomacy Forum on Cuba included a dance performance and explored ways the U.S. could improve ties with Havana through economic development, entrepreneurship, tourism, cultural preservation, the arts and educational exchange.

suffering and cost the Cuban economy billions of dollars since its inception in 1962.

Cabañas, a career diplomat, previously served as Cuba’s vice minister of foreign relations and has occupied various highlevel posts overseas. He joined his country’s foreign service in 1984 and moved to the North America Division two years later.

Noting the large numbers of executives from Caterpillar and other Fortune 500 companies in his audience hoping to do

business in Cuba, Cabañas counseled patience: “My only advice to you is don’t be in a rush. We Cubans do business in our own tropical way — a nice mix of mojitos and good cigars — and in many cases it takes awhile.”

Adrienne Arsht, a wealthy businesswomen and philanthropist who encouraged the Atlantic Council to establish a Latin America Center that now bears her name, said her 10 years living in Miami gave her a unique perspective on people’s

changing attitudes toward Cuba.

“What is so exciting today is how Cuban exiles — many of whom were born in Miami hospitals — have changed on a dime and now want to go back,” she said. “They want to make up for lost time.”

One such exile is Carlos Gutierrez, chairman of the Meridian International Center and former U.S. secretary of commerce. Long a fierce opponent of the Castro regime, Gutierrez today is one of the loudest voices in Washington calling for an end to the embargo — as well as Cuba’s reintegration into the world economy and admission to global financial institutions such as the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and International Monetary Fund.

“Many of us have been involved in trying to take U.S. businesses to Cuba,” said Gutierrez. “But now we need to lift our expectations and have not just a transactional relationship where we sit down and negotiate. Why don’t we shoot for being great friends? It’s hard to have a friendship without understanding history, values and customs. There’s nothing like culture to help each country walk in the other’s shoes.” WD Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

Your Source for Diplomatic News www.washdiplomat.com

WD | United States

Unconventional Politics U.S. Presidential Coronations Can Devolve into Rowdy Circuses

by Mackenzie Weinger

F

rom fistfights between delegates to a parading baby elephant through the festivities, the national conventions of America’s political parties can be a wild ride.

Every four years, each party gathers its faithful in respective conventions to nominate a candidate for president.

This year, the Republicans will hold their presidential nominating convention from July 18 to 21 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. The Democrats, meanwhile, will host their convention in Philadelphia at the Wells Fargo Center from July 25 to 28. If history is any indicator, political observers may be treated to some crazy sights and high drama.

Political conventions are a classic American tradition and integral to today’s democratic process, although they are not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. But the country has moved far from the Founding Fathers’ original distrust of the party system and the early process to nominate candidates in secret caucuses by those in Congress.

There had been some speculation over whether this year’s GOP convention would be a contested convention, in which no candidate wins the majority of delegates in the primaries, or a brokered convention — when no candidate is picked in the first round of voting and then deals are made during a behindthe-scenes free-for-all until a candidate gets the needed votes. But GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump in May secured enough delegates to clinch the party nomination. Democratic contender Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, could upend the party’s gathering by bringing his campaign platform into the convention, even though former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton locked down the Democratic nomination in June.

Given that both Clinton and Trump have the delegates required, there’s likely to be little real drama over who will be each party’s nominee for president at 2016’s conventions. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be any excitement.

Business mogul Trump has pledged to use the skills he honed as a reality TV star to turn the coronation into a mustsee mega-event. He’s flirted with the idea of revealing his vice presidential pick and Cabinet lineup at the convention to build suspense, renting out a sports stadium to deliver his acceptance speech and bringing on “winners” to speak, such as Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. The prospect of turning the convention into a “showbiz” attraction, however, has establishment Republicans nervous, especially after the Orlando mass shooting that killed

Photo: Qqqqqq at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Hillary Clinton speaks at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver that nominated Barack Obama.

“

For there is something about a national convention that makes it as fascinating as a revival or a hanging…. It is vulgar, it is ugly, it is stupid, it is tedious, it is hard upon both the higher cerebral centers and the gluteus maximus, and yet it is somehow charming.

H.L. Mencken journalist (1880-1956)

49 people.

Meanwhile, Sanders is calling for a “fundamental transformation” of the Democratic Party, saying he will push his progressive agenda at the upcoming convention. Among his demands are open primaries and the elimination of “superdelegates,” party officeholders and insiders who can cast a vote for whoever they want.

While it remains to be seen how far Trump and Sanders will go to upend tradition, conventions are still crucial for other purposes. The parties will both present their platforms and feature speeches from top leaders and up-andcoming members — all done within the helpful hours of prime-time TV. One of the key features of a political convention will likely come to the fore in 2016 more than in recent years, as

”

members work to demonstrate party unity and remove any notion in voters’ minds of conflict within the party. No question that will be a hard task after the divisiveness of both the GOP and Democratic primary season, so expect potential fireworks as different players seek to advocate, or in the end subjugate, their visions of American politics.

In the modern era, political conventions serve a crucial role as glorified advertisements for their parties, so watch out for what themes and players emerge on television screens. (In 2004, a then-unknown senator named Barack Obama, who had just been elected to Congress a few months earlier, gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, propelling him to political stardom.)

And along with the potential strife

within both parties after this election’s brutal primary season, expect plenty of other shenanigans at the respective party conventions this summer. Just look back at some of the craziest moments from conventions past for an idea of how wild these events can get.

The GOP took its spirit animal to another level in 1948. The Republicans gathered together in Philadelphia to choose between New York Gov. Thomas Dewey and Sen. Robert Taft, who was backed by a sizable supporter. That would be Little Eva, an elephant who came to town to “throw her weight behind” his presidential candidacy, as the Associated Press wrote on June 19, 1948.

“Backers of the Ohio senator promptly labelled her as the ‘weightiest’ supporter of his drive for the Republican presidential nomination. They hoped she would tip the scales of the GOP convention in his favor,” the AP wrote.

“Little Eva, it should be explained, is a two-year-old 500-pound elephant. She was borrowed from a circus, equipped with campaign regalia and flown here to give the Taft backers a living example of the traditional Republican symbol.”

All that heft, however, proved no match for Dewey, who secured the nomination at the contested convention See C on ven t ion s • page 10 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 9

Conventions Continued • page 9

and then famously lost to Harry Truman later that year.

Jump forward 20 years, meanwhile, for a very different experience that occurred far from the pomp and circumstance of the convention floor. In 1968, a year of riots and civil unrest around the U.S. and the world, the Democrats converged on Chicago. With the Vietnam War, the assassinations of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, and President Lyndon Johnson’s withdrawal from the race weighing over proceedings, there was great unease going into the convention over the future of the Democratic Party.

That drama played out as thousands of protesters took to the streets to show their support for removing U.S. troops from Vietnam. Things quickly spiraled out of control, as police and National Guardsmen beat and gassed demonstrators — along with anyone who was in the way, including media personnel documenting the violence and doctors who had come to provide aid. The Aug. 28, 1968, clashes made their way onto TV screens across the U.S., leaving the nation stunned as the antiwar crowd chanted, “The whole world is watching.”

On accepting the nomination, Vice President Hubert Humphrey told his fellow Democrats: “This moment is one of personal pride and gratification. Yet one cannot help but reflect the deep sadness that we feel over the troubles and the violence which have erupted regrettably and tragically in the streets of this great city, and for the personal injuries which have occurred. Surely we have learned the lesson that violence breeds more violence and that it cannot be condoned — whatever the

Photo: ravedelay at Flickr - Flickr, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Over 80,000 people fill Invesco Field in Denver to hear Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. This year’s Republican nominee, Donald Trump, has floated the idea of renting a stadium for his acceptance speech as well.

source.”

The unruly convention didn’t help the Democrats’ image at the ballot box. In November, former Republican Vice President Richard Nixon defeated both Humphrey and a third-party bid from segregation advocate and former Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

The Democratic Party, meanwhile, overhauled its rules for for selecting presidential delegates to ensure broader participation and a more open nominating process in an effort to avoid the chaos of 1968.

That year wasn’t the only one in which a Democratic convention saw violence. The party’s 1924 gathering was dubbed the “Klanbake” — as in the Ku Klux Klan, the white supremacist movement in the United States.

The party was deeply divided between the Northeastern, urban, anti-Klan Democrats led by New York Gov. Al Smith and the Southern Democrats led by former Treasury Secre-

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tary William Gibbs McAdoo, who refused to condemn the KKK. But there were 13 other candidates at this wild event as well. And with fistfights and scuffles breaking out in Madison Square Garden, the Democrats witnessed the longest brokered convention in history.

The convention lasted from June 24 to July 9, 1924 — unimaginable by today’s standards. Smith and McAdoo both withdrew on the 99th ballot and finally, on a record 103rd ballot, John W. Davis, a dark horse candidate from West Virginia, was nominated. But as a conservative Democrat, many liberals weren’t fans — and in the election they backed a thirdparty campaign waged by a candidate from the Progressive Party. Both lost, and incumbent Republican President Calvin Coolidge emerged victorious.

Perhaps journalist H.L. Mencken, who covered the 1924 debacle, captured the bizarre world of American political conventions best:

Photo: World-Telegram by Palumbo / Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Thomas E. Dewey campaigns with Thomas J. Curran, a Manhattan GOP leader, during the 1948 presidential election. Dewey secured the Republican nomination at a contested convention that year and then famously lost to Harry Truman.

“For there is something about a national convention that makes it as fascinating as a revival or a hanging,” he wrote. “It is vulgar, it is ugly, it is stupid, it is tedious, it is hard upon both the higher cerebral centers and the gluteus maximus, and yet it is somehow charming. One sits through long sessions wishing heartily that all the delegates and alternates were dead and in hell — and then suddenly there comes a show so gaudy and hilarious, so melodramatic and obscene, unimaginably exhilarating and preposterous, that one lives a gorgeous year in an hour.” WD Mackenzie Weinger (@mweinger) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

WD | United States

Battle at Ballot Box Trump Inspires Surge in Muslim, Hispanic Voter Registration

by Karin Zeitvogel

I

t took nine years for Nassir Faqiri to get his U.S. citizenship, but he finally raised his right hand in May this year and swore allegiance to his new country. Becoming an American took seven years longer than it was supposed to have taken for Faqiri, who came to the United States on a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) for Afghans and Iraqis who worked with U.S. forces.

Afghan-born Faqiri started helping American troops in Afghanistan when they first came to the country. He left, with help from the U.S. military, after he was badly beaten up by a group of at least 15 men who called him a traitor to Afghanistan, after constant phone calls threatening his family and after his brother was kidnapped by insurgents.

“The target was me, but when they couldn’t get me, because I had protection, they took my brother,” he told The Washington Diplomat at a restaurant in Warrenton, Va., near where he lives with his wife and three children, one of whom is American-born.

Today, Faqiri is enrolled in college, speaks better English than many Americans and works full-time.

And one of the first things he did when he pledged allegiance to the United States and became a citizen was register to vote.

“They gave me a voter registration application when I became a citizen and I filled it in and turned it into the DMV. They said they were going to mail it to the place where they do registrations, and that I’ll get my voter registration in a couple of weeks. I’m waiting and anxious to get it,” said Faqiri, “because I need to vote against Trump.”

Muslim Backlash Faqiri is not alone in his feelings about Donald Trump, the mogul-reality star who is now the Republican president nominee — or in his eagerness to register to vote. This year, on President’s Day in February, 20,000 new citizens were sworn in at 180 ceremonies around the country — a four-fold increase over the number of new citizens who were welcomed last year on the same day.

In an article in the Washington Post, reporter Ed O’Keefe cites California statistics that say the number of Hispanics — another group that has been targeted

by Trump’s rhetoric — who have registered to vote doubled in the first three months of this year compared with the same period in 2012. In Houston, O’Keefe goes on, citing the Houston Chronicle newspaper, there are about 2,200 naturalization ceremonies a month, compared with 1,200 before Trump.

“More than 80 percent of those naturalized then register to vote, compared with 60 percent previously,” O’Keefe writes.

Trump has shamelessly insulted a range of minorities, from Muslims and Mexicans to African Americans and the disabled. His heated rhetoric on keeping Muslims out of the country and building a wall with Mexico has struck a chord with many conservatives worried about terrorism and unchecked immigration.

In the wake of the Orlando mass shooting last month that killed 49 people, Trump has doubled down on his threat to close the country to Muslims and people from countries linked to terrorism, even though the shooter, who was of Afghan descent, was

Photo: Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School

The Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., held a Community Action Fair in May to teach immigrants about the U.S. voting process.

“

The hateful rhetoric around immigration that we’ve been hearing has galvanized citizens who are immigrants to raise their voices and transmit who they are — hard-working Americans who contribute to our society. Voting is one of the best and most powerful ways to do that.

Allison Kokkoros CEO and executive director of the Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School

”

born in New York and was an American citizen.

Faqiri is opposed to Trump because of “his policies against my beliefs, against immigrants, against the U.S. Constitution.” Trump has called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Previously, he had suggested that mosques in the United States should be under surveillance and that a database should be established for all Muslims living in the country.

While Trump’s fiery rhetoric has appealed to voters concerned about radical extremists infiltrating the U.S., many security experts worry that lumping all Muslims together as potential terrorists or religious zealots will only alienate and possibly radicalize American Muslims, who tend to be more well-integrated than their European counterparts.

Faqiri said that in Afghanistan, he was just “your typical Muslim,” praying at the mosque but certainly not immersed in radical ideologies or even well versed in the Koran.

It’s when he came to the United States that “my knowledge of Islam improved, because people would ask me about the Koran, and I felt ashamed that I didn’t know enough to reply to them,” Faqiri said.

The Afghan, who from the age of 16 risked his life for the United States, was not yet a citizen when Trump made his controversial statements about barring all non-American Muslims from entering the U.S. Had such a policy been enacted, Faqiri could have been prevented from returning to his family and home in Virginia when he traveled abroad for his job, working for a company that is contracted with the U.S.-government.

“Sometimes, I wonder why people support Trump,” Faqiri told The Washington Diplomat.

“He is against what America is about and, because of his policies against my faith, against other races, against immigrants, I would not vote for him. I mean, the U.S. was built by immigrants. Trump’s family came here from Germany, so he’s an immigrant himself. How can he argue that immigrants are bad for See vot er s • page 12 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 11

Photo: Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School

The Carlos Rosario School recently held its first-ever Community Action Fair to promote civic engagement.

Attendees were able to test out a voting machine and learn more about D.C. voting. Three bilingual students from the school were also on hand to answer student questions and walk them through the voting process.

Voters Continued • page 11

this country?” Faqiri pondered.

He noted that the candidate was dialing back his anti-Muslim rhetoric “because he knows the bad impact it could have on his campaign.”

“There are millions of Muslims in the U.S. — that’s a lot of votes against Trump,” Faqiri said.

The Washington-based Pew Research Center has estimated there were about 3.3 million Muslims, adults and children, living in the United States in 2015, or about 1 percent of the total U.S. population. That number is expected to double by 2050, according to Pew. Naturally, Faqiri isn’t the only Muslim who’s offended by Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric. In June, Sameena Usman, the government relations coordinator for the San Francisco office of the Council on AmericanIslamic Relations (CAIR) said: “The Muslim community of California feels offended by certain political candidates who have used divisive rhetoric and demonized our entire community.”

“CAIR-California is working tirelessly to increase Muslim voter turnout so that these and future candidates understand that the Muslim community has a high voter turnout rate, and that this community will use the power of the vote to send a clear message,” Usman said.

A survey conducted by CAIR in six states in January found that 73 percent of registered Muslim voters said they intended to vote in primary elections. Two-thirds of those voters said they would vote for Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

Latino Wave

www.rma.edu 12 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

540-636-5484

Come November, nearly one in three eligible voters will be Hispanic, black, Asian or from another racial or ethnic minority, up from 29 percent in 2012. While Muslims make up just 1 percent of the U.S. population, nearly one in five Americans today is of Hispanic origin. Latinos — who were maligned by Trump when, at the beginning of his nomination campaign, he called all Mexicans rapists and drug-runners, and vowed to build a wall on the southern U.S. border and make Mexico pay for it — are the largest ethnic minority group in the United

States, and their number grows by around 1 million every year. As of 2014, Hispanics in the United States numbered 55 million, or 17 percent of the total population.

According to the Pew Research Center, 10.7 million more people in the United States are eligible to vote in November this year than were in 2012, and more than twothirds of the growth in the U.S. electorate in the past four years has come from racial and ethnic minorities — mainly Hispanics, and particularly young Latinos who were born in the U.S. But this demographic heft doesn’t always translate into votes. According to the Gallup polling organization, Latinos are the least likely of any major bloc of voters to be registered to vote. Just over half of eligible Latinos were registered in 2012, compared with 85 percent of non-Hispanic whites, 81 percent of non-Hispanic blacks and 60 percent of Asians, a poll conducted by Gallup in 2013 shows.

At the Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School in Washington, staff and students were hard at work on one of the few sunny days in May to change that. On a tarmac parking lot, new citizens and aspiring ones could visit voting booths to see how to make their voices heard (although they voted for things like their favorite singer and ice cream flavor). They were also taught how to register to vote and, if they were not eligible to participate in the November elections, were given suggestions on other ways to get involved in the U.S. democratic process.

“We are leading up to a national election and our role at Carlos Rosario is to educate immigrants, provide information and resources to students who are eligible to become citizens on how to do that and, to those who already are, on how to vote. Because a lot of people here have never voted before and don’t know how,” Allison Kokkoros, executive director and CEO of the school, told The Washington Diplomat, which profiled the charter school in its September 2015 issue.

“The hateful rhetoric around immigration that we’ve been hearing has galvanized citizens who are immigrants to raise their voices and transmit who they are — hard-working Americans who contribute to our society.

Voting is one of the best and most powerful ways to do that,” Kokkoros said.

Carlos Rosario is one of many organizations working to mobilize immigrant voters this election season. In addition to civics workshops designed to educate immigrants on the voting process, nonprofits have been See Vot er s • page 18

WD | Cover Profile

Bernardo Is Back — Again Venezuela’s Envoy Insists Embattled Country Won’t Collapse

by Larry Luxner

B

ernardo Álvarez Herrera, who twice served as Venezuela’s ambassador to the United States and was forced out both times under hostile circumstances, is back in Washington once again — this time as his country’s permanent representative to the Organization of American States (OAS).

But the 59-year-old diplomat seems no more welcome at the OAS than he was at the White House, as both institutions lose patience with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whose country is rapidly sinking into economic and political chaos.

The statistics are well known by now.

Despite its 300 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves — which should make it the most prosperous nation in Latin America — the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is by far the hemisphere’s shakiest. Basic goods from aspirin to toilet paper are impossible to find, which has led to mass looting, food riots and fears of hunger-fueled upheaval.

Meanwhile the IMF predicts annual inflation will hit nearly 500 percent this year and a whopping 1,600 percent next year, with GDP shrinking 8 percent in 2016. External debt is estimated at $130 billion, or six years’ worth of oil exports.

Roughly 76 percent of Venezuela’s 30 million people are now living in poverty, up from 66 percent only two years ago, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Yet the Maduro government doesn’t have enough money to print money — the usual way countries battle hyperinflation — so it’s flying in banknotes from abroad.

On the flourishing parallel market, $1 today fetches 1,200 bolívares fuertes, even though the official exchange rate is 10 bolívares. In desperation, the government has shrunk the official state workweek from five days to two and moved clocks forward by 30 minutes to maximize daylight, thereby reducing the need for electricity.

As if that’s not enough, violent crime is surging. Last year, Caracas surpassed San Pedro Sula, Honduras, to claim the title of world’s most murderous city.

Even more ominously, vigilante justice has become commonplace. In late May, an angry mob beat a 42-year-old laborer, dousing him with gasoline and setting him on fire for stealing $5 — an accusation the man quietly denied before dying of his injuries two days later.

Not surprisingly, the populist regime Maduro inherited from his predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, is widely disliked; according to a recent poll, nearly 70 percent of Venezuelans want the one-time

bus driver removed from office. Álvarez doesn’t deny that his country is in trouble, but he blames Venezuela’s problems entirely on the dramatic drop in world oil prices and an “interventionist” U.S. policy that encourages smuggling and discontent with the chavistas ruling from Caracas.

“We are not on the verge of collapse,” Álvarez insisted. “A country that has been able to pay $38 billion of external debt in the last 18 months doesn’t seem to be in a huge economic crisis. But we have to address the problems of oil dependency. In the last year and a half, we have lost 70 percent of our oil income.

Yes, we are suffering a very difficult situation, but there are people interested in aggravating our problems.”

Those “people” include White House officials as well as powerful lawmakers on Capitol Hill — both Democrats and Republicans.

“We have been accused of everything — accused of hosting Iran, helping the FARC, financing terrorism and killing people,” said Álvarez, complaining that last year, the Obama administration signed a nuclear deal with Iran and even restored diplomatic ties with Cuba after a 54-year hiatus — but that it never once mentioned Venezuela’s critical role in bringing the Colombian government to the negotiating table with Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. Those talks, now underway in Havana, could potentially end a civil

“

Photo: Larry Luxner

We are not on the verge of collapse….

Yes, we are suffering a very difficult situation, but there are people interested in aggravating our problems.

Bernardo Álvarez Herrera

”

permanent representative of Venezuela to the Organization of American States

war that has been raging for more than 60 years.

“In Washington, there is no political cost in attacking Venezuela,” said Álvarez. “The problem is that Venezuela, like Cuba in the past, has become almost a domestic issue. When the Obama administration said Venezuela is a threat to the U.S., nobody believed that. But are we really a threat to the greatest military power in the world?” Álvarez told The Diplomat he does not expect U.S. policy toward Venezuela to change any time soon. In that regard, he said it doesn’t really matter much whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump ends up in the White House in

January 2017.

“There’s going to be a lot of pressure on whoever is elected to not engage constructively with Venezuela,” he said, noting that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a former GOP presidential candidate, dropped his opposition to Roberta Jacobson’s recent Senate approval as U.S. ambassador to Mexico in exchange for a guaranteed extension of U.S. sanctions against Venezuelan officials accused of human rights violations.

Ironically, Venezuela’s food crisis could spark some re-engagement. The State Department recently announced that Undersecretary for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon flew to Caracas to

meet with Maduro’s government out of concerns that Venezuela’s turmoil might spill across its borders.

Yo-Yo Ambassador Álvarez spoke to The Washington Diplomat in an exclusive interview at the Venezuelan Embassy in Georgetown. It is no accident that our meeting took place at his office on the second floor, rather than at a similar office on the third floor, which is reserved for the ambassador. Given strained bilateral relations, Caracas doesn’t have an envoy in Washington, making Álvarez — who is also Maduro’s vice minister of foreign affairs for North America — Venezuela’s top diplomat in the U.S. “In a way, I run this building, but you will always see me sitting in the office of the ambassador of the OAS, which is on the second floor,” explained Álvarez, whose surroundings are decorated with portraits of Chávez and his idol, South American liberator Simón Bolívar. “I’m extremely respectful of the rules of diSee Ven ezuela • page 14 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 13

Venezuela Continued • page 13

plomacy.”

At present, the highest-ranking U.S. diplomat in Caracas is chargé d’affaires Lee McClenny. Until recently, McClenny’s counterpart in Washington was Maximilien Sánchez Arveláiz, but after the White House extended U.S. sanctions against Venezuela, Maduro recalled Sánchez in protest.

“We haven’t had an ambassador here since I left [in 2010]. My actions here are restricted to the OAS,” said Álvarez, meaning that he cannot meet U.S. officials as he would have in the past as ambassador, but that he can engage them as vice minister of foreign affairs for North America.

During his seven-year tenure here from 2003 to 2010, Álvarez — an affable man with many friends — became dean of the Latin American diplomatic corps.

“I’ve spent most of my professional life in the United States,” said Álvarez, who was born in the Venezuelan state of Lara and has degrees from both the Universidad Central de Venezuela and the University of Sussex in England. “I like this city. In a way, I feel at home in Washington. Two of my daughters are married here.”

Yet Álvarez’s career of late resembles a yo-yo, with the ambassador involuntarily bouncing between Washington and Caracas as the bilateral relationship worsened, improved slightly and then worsened once again. Now those ties seem to be bleaker than ever. Few could have ever foreseen a time when the United States would have a full-fledged ambassador in Havana and not one in Caracas.

In September 2008, the State Department expelled Álvarez in a tit-for-tat after Chávez accused the U.S. ambassador in Caracas, Patrick Duddy, of conspiring to overthrow his government and ordered him to leave Venezuela.

“I was in fact declared persona non grata and went back to my country. Duddy was also declared persona non grata and had to return,” Álvarez explained. “Then there were talks, and the idea was to re-establish ambassadors in both countries. Venezuela actually was thinking of different names, but it was difficult to get anybody past the Senate. So Roy Chaderton [then Venezuela’s envoy to the OAS] and Tom Shannon [then assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs] said, why not re-establish the ambassadors we had before?”

The result: Álvarez became the first foreign diplomat in U.S. history to be expelled and then welcomed back by the same administration.

The honeymoon didn’t last long. In December 2010 — while Álvarez was back home for Christmas — the State Department retaliated after Chávez personally refused to accept Larry Palmer, President Obama’s nominee as the new U.S. envoy to Venezuela. The reason: Palmer had privately expressed concern — in documents exposed by WikiLeaks — about Venezuela’s plans to acquire massive amounts of Russian shoulder-fired missiles, attack helicopters, fighter jets and Kalashnikov rifles, fearing such weapons would end up in the hands of FARC rebels in Colombia or even Mexican drug warlords.

“Instead of making me persona non grata, they revoked my visa. I knew when I went to Caracas that I was not coming back,” said Álvarez.

But come back he did — and this time around, the State Department can’t do anything about it.

“As ambassador to the OAS, even if I’m declared persona non grata, they had to grant me a visa because Washington is the headquarters 14 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

Photo: By The Photographer - Own work, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons

Caracas, seen above at night, has recently been gripped by looting and food riots, leading to fears that Nicolás Maduro’s government is on the brink of collapse.

Photo: Juan Manuel Herrera / OAS

Organization of the American States (OAS) Secretary-General Luis Almagro, left, sits next to Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Delcy Rodríguez Gómez during a May 5 meeting of the OAS Permanent Council.

Rodríguez recently blasted Almagro for continually criticizing her government, calling it outside interference.

of the OAS, and there is a special agreement between the U.S. government and the OAS,” said Álvarez, who took up his current position in November 2015.

“I’m not accredited here as a bilateral ambassador, but basically I’m the one who handles high-level dialogue with the United States,” said the diplomat. “We are facing a massive political and media campaign against Venezuela — I think because Venezuela has always represented a real challenge to the neoliberal model which they want to disappear.

But we have always found ways of connecting and exchanging views. There are some officials in the administration who still want contact with Venezuela. Part of my job as vice minister is to make sure this dialogue remains open.”

It hasn’t been easy, however. Administration officials and U.S. lawmakers have railed against Maduro’s heavy-handed tactics. Meanwhile, bureaucrats in Caracas are struggling to balance their budgets, food lines stretch for blocks and supermarket shelves are bare. Electricity flickers on and off. (A severe drought has drained a major reservoir that fuels power throughout the country.)

The crisis has extended all the way to Venezuela’s elegant mission in Washington.

“They have cut our expenses almost to the minimum,” said Álvarez, whose bosses have slashed his embassy staff here from 35 to 13 while closing the Miami consulate due to a “very hostile” atmosphere there.

Multifaceted Meltdown To be fair, Venezuela’s meltdown is not all because of economic mismanagement, though there’s certainly no shortage of that in Maduro’s government. The dramatic fall in oil prices, from $145 per barrel back in July 2008 to under $30 earlier this year, has pushed Venezuela to the breaking point. Even though

prices have somewhat recovered to around $50 a barrel, revenue from petroleum exports accounts for half the country’s GDP and roughly 95 percent of total exports.

In that regard, Venezuela is no different from Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria and Russia, all of which are also highly dependent on oil revenues. But in Venezuela’s case, Chávez exacerbated the problem by doling out generous subsidies on food, medicine and other necessities; at one point, gasoline sold for the equivalent of six U.S. cents a gallon. That bought political support for the president’s so-called Bolivarian Revolution when times were good, while raising expectations for millions of slum dwellers desperate for a way out of their poverty.

“This last crisis — the one we’re living right now — has taught us that the oil-dependent mentality is over,” said Álvarez. “We have kept a policy that tries to correct all these imbalances in salary increases and salary decreases, and we’re trying to guarantee to as many people as possible access to basic goods.”

But Maduro has refused to curtail the Chávez-era welfare programs and social spending that won over legions of workingclass voters. Instead, the president has blasted the country’s business elite — along with exiles in Miami and Spain — for purposely sabotaging the economy for their own political gain.

Likewise, Álvarez accepts no government responsibility whatsoever for the economic crisis befalling his country. He prefers to blame falling oil prices and price controls that encourage people to cheat the system — not to mention encouragement from Washington.

“When you face restrictions on oil income, you get bottlenecks in the production of basic goods like food and medicine. So we have concentrated our imports on those goods, and other sectors have been suffering,” he explained. “Our country was spending a stupid rate on imports. So the economy reacted and

became an import economy.”

Removing price controls, he insists, “is like the chicken and the egg. Some people say we have to correct the monetary system, but the government is not going to take the classical decision, which is to forget about price controls. If we liberate everything, we would have an extremely difficult situation.”

The recent impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff — an ally of Maduro — following accusations of corruption was another ominous sign for Venezuela.

“Dilma’s departure was bad because she’s a very honorable woman,” Álvarez lamented.

“There were no reasons to justify putting a leader like her out of office. Not a single media outlet in Brazil tried to present a balanced view. We reject what happened there and we consider it a coup d’état.”

Could something similar happen in Venezuela?

“Under the constitution, the only way [Maduro] cannot finish his term is if there’s a recall referendum,” Álvarez responded. “There are two options. If you get a recall before the fourth year of 10 years and he loses, then he has to resign. If you do that after the fourth year, the vice president will take over and finish the mandate. The only possible coup would be a coup coming from abroad.”

But a coup could come from within, as food protests grow and a campaign to oust Maduro heats up. Late last year, the opposition won control of the National Assembly, handing the chavistas their first legislative defeat since Chávez himself came to power in 1998. But the president’s allies still control the Supreme Court, where they can blunt the opposition’s legislative agenda. Meanwhile, violent protests have stalled a massive referendum campaign to recall Maduro, who has refused to consider the petition drive this year and instead instituted emergency measures to quell the uprising and foil what he says are foreign plots to subvert him. The timing of the referendum is key: If it is held by Jan. 10, 2017, new elections will be called. After that date, however, even if Maduro is kicked out of office, his vice president can take over and remain in power through 2018. Álvarez says he cannot understand the unabashed calls for Maduro’s ouster — or why people seem to hold Venezuela to a higher standard.

“So many other countries are facing economic problems, and nobody is asking for political change or intervention,” he complained, citing an April 12 editorial in the Washington Post that essentially endorsed regime change after the Maduro government refused to negotiate with opposition leaders.

“Venezuela is desperately in need of political intervention by its neighbors, which have a ready mechanism in the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Democratic Charter, a treaty that provides for collective action when a regime violates constitutional norms,” said the editorial. “But the region’s leaders are distracted: Brazil is suffering its

own political crisis, while the Obama administration is preoccupied with its outreach to Cuba. While the White House courts the Castros, they are using their control over Venezuela’s intelligence and security forces, and longtime acolyte Mr. Maduro, to foment his kamikaze tactics. An explosion is probably not far off.”

venezuela at a Glance National Day July 5, 1811 (from Spain) Location northern South america, bordering the caribbean Sea and the north atlantic ocean, between colombia and guyana

Unemployment 8.1 percent (2015 estimate)

Capital caracas

Industries agricultural products, livestock, raw materials, machinery and equipment, transport equipment, construction materials, medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, iron and steel products, crude oil and petroleum products

ShoWDoWn aT oaS

Population 29.27 million (July 2015 estimate)

The D.C.-based OAS has long been criticized as a toothless bureaucracy, although the 35-member institution has recently found itself in the crosshairs of Venezuela’s burgeoning crisis.

OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro is certainly no fan of Maduro. Despite his solid credentials as a leftist when he was Uruguay’s foreign minister, Almagro has emerged as one of Venezuela’s loudest critics — a contrast from his predecessor at the OAS, Chilean diplomat José Miguel Insulza, who was often viewed as too complacent when it came to Venezuela under Maduro, and before him, Chávez.

On May 30, Almagro submitted a 114-page letter to the OAS Permanent Council. In it, he documented Venezuela’s increasing poverty rate and demanded the immediate release of political prisoners, including prominent opposition leader Leopoldo López. In addition, he called for an urgent meeting to discuss whether Venezuela is violating basic democratic principles — paving the way for a vote that could suspend it from the OAS. He also supports calls for a recall referendum against Maduro, something that would have been unthinkable coming from the OAS under Almagro’s predecessor.

Thus far, the council has adopted a resolution encouraging dialogue and opposing

Ethnic groups Spanish, Italian, portuguese, arab, german, african, indigenous people GDP (purchasing power parity) $515.1 billion

Population below poverty line 32.1 percent (2013 estimate)

(2015 estimate)

National flag of Venezuela

GDP per-capita (PPP) $16,100 (2015 estimate) GDP growth -5.7 percent (2015 estimate)

SouRce: cIa WoRlD FacTbook

foreign intervention in Venezuela. It has yet to vote on Almagro’s controversial request to invoke the OAS Democratic Charter, which could lead to Venezuela’s suspension from the body.

Not surprisingly, the four traditional allies of chavismo — Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua — have rallied to Maduro’s defense.

But so has Argentina, which is now led by a center-right administration. “I firmly believe that it is important to give space and pause to the dialogue because I know of no other way to find a solution to the problem of Venezuela,” said Argentine Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra.

Michael Shifter is president of the InterAmerican Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank that on May 26 hosted Álvarez for a roundtable discussion on Venezuela.

No one knows if the way out of Venezuela’s crisis is through dialogue, “but if it is, the process will likely involve government officials

like Bernardo Álvarez,” he told The Diplomat.

Shifter considers him “among the most open and accessible figures in the Venezuelan government,” even though Álvarez staunchly defends the party line.

“He is seasoned and skillful, though it is unclear how much of what he claims can effectively counter the unremittingly negative accounts of the conditions in Venezuela today,” Shifter remarked. “The U.S. government knows that Álvarez is an influential player, not only as Venezuela’s ambassador to the OAS but also as vice minister for North America at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

Shifter said that Álvarez, working in tandem with Maduro, has led the resistance among OAS member states, effectively diluting the approach advocated by Almagro.

“The result has been a notably ‘light’ resolution that many regard as a celebration of the principle of non-intervention,” said Shifter, who warned that “OAS actions could become

stronger if the government is unresponsive to calls for ‘dialogue’ and the situation deteriorates even further.”

The OAS has already gone too far, counters Larry Birns, director of the left-leaning Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). On June 1, Birns hand-delivered a letter to Almagro’s assistant, protesting the OAS chief ’s “relentless attacks” against Maduro and Almagro’s “intervention on behalf of the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) and its allies in Washington.” Álvarez has his own views toward Almagro — and what he derides as a flashy media blitz to bash Venezuela.

“Almagro is not playing any diplomatic role here,” Álvarez told us. “Just to give you an example, he has done almost 200 tweets on Venezuela. I have been very public, but I don’t have the media access he has. In this city, if you hit Venezuela, you might get a prize. So he’ll get a lot of applause from the U.S. media.

But this is not the role of the secretary-general of the OAS. He went beyond his role and has disqualified himself to work on anything regarding Venezuela. Instead of being a diplomat, he became part of the Venezuelan political opposition.”

Despite his bitterness toward the current OAS chief, Álvarez refused to label the institution irrelevant — and he still holds out a glimmer of hope that Washington and Caracas will some day patch up their differences.

“We are promoting a regionalism that represents a new era for Latin America, and this is going to affect the OAS,” he said. “For us, it’s a good place to have a collective dialogue with the United States. It’s important to have a place where we can talk.” WD Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

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THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 15

WD | Global Vantage Point

Mideast Fault Lines Op-ed: Obama Not to Blame for Region’s Failures

by Thomas W. Lippman

P

hilip Gordon, a former Middle East policy adviser in the White House, likes to say that President Barack Obama learned three lessons from the region’s unending turmoil.

From Iraq, Gordon said, the president learned that all-out American intervention to engineer regime change in an Arab country results in disaster.

From Libya, he learned that limited intervention results in disaster. And from Syria, he learned that no intervention results in disaster.

Gordon’s observation was a wisecrack, but it had a ring of truth to it. Added together, the three lessons have led the president to a policy of caution and incrementalism that has been seen in the region as indecisive and weak. It helps to explain why Saudi Arabia and the other Arab sheikhdoms of the Gulf have been so frustrated over the president’s policies in the region during the past few years.

Whether that frustration is justified is irrelevant; Obama’s successor will inherit a relationship with Saudi Arabia and the others that is troubled by mistrust and doubt about the strength of U.S. commitments, even though it is firmly rooted in security cooperation and economic ties. The United States has troops, planes and warships all across the region and is imbedded in the security and military operations of Saudi Arabia and all its neighbors. The Saudis, in particular, have no realistic alternative to their security partnership with Washington, but the Gulf Arabs have found that cold comfort.

The list of Saudi grievances with Washington is by now well known. It includes the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq, which predates the Obama administration, and includes the failure to act strongly in Syria, the perceived abandonment of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and above all the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Beyond those specifics, there is a widespread understanding among Gulf leaders that the world has changed in ways that they cannot control — the transformation of the oil market, the fallout of the Arab Spring — and that relationships established over many decades are in flux as well. It makes them uncomfortable: They want the United States to fix things, to take a firm hand, to bring stability in place of violence and order in place of chaos. They have been unable or unwilling to accept the fact that Obama has wanted to do the opposite and avoid large-scale involvement in any of the region’s multiple crises.

The past seven years have taught him, the president has said, that even if he personally believed that the future of the Middle East was vitally important to U.S. national interests, there is only so much that the United States can or should do to bring about stability there.

Given the scope and durability of U.S. security commitments in the Gulf, much of the criticism coming from the region reflects the mood of the day and cannot stand up to serious analysis. Neither the Saudis nor the other Gulf states have made clear exactly what they think the United States should do in Syria, or in Libya, or what they think Washington could have done to save Mubarak.

It may be fashionable in the Gulf, but it is also unseemly and contradictory to criticize Obama

16 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

Credit: Official White House photo by Pete Souza

“

It may be fashionable in the Gulf, but it is also unseemly and contradictory to criticize Obama for being indecisive and failing to take strong action to bring down a regime in Syria while simultaneously criticizing his predecessor for being decisive and taking strong action to bring down a regime in Iraq.

”

for being indecisive and failing to take strong action to bring down a regime in Syria while simultaneously criticizing his predecessor for being decisive and taking strong action to bring down a regime in Iraq. That criticism reflects Gulf Arab attitudes about Iran more than about the United States: It was wrong to take down Saddam Hussein because he was a bulwark against Iran, but it would be right to take down Bashar al-Assad because the Syrian president is an ally of Iran. And it may be easy to flog the United States for decisions it has made about Iraq and Syria, but there is no way to blame Washington for the war in Yemen, or the rise of the Islamic State or for the internal rivalries among the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which have inhibited unified action against threats to their security.

President Barack Obama waves goodbye from the steps of Air Force One as he departs King Khalid International Airport in Saudi Arabia on his way to Egypt on June 4, 2009. Obama’s famed Cairo speech led to hopes of a renewed period of relations between the U.S. and Arab world, but ties have been strained since the Arab Spring and Washington’s nuclear deal with Iran.

To the Saudis especially, the president has made it clear — or tried to — that the United States will stand by them and will do what it can to ensure regional security, but that support will not include the deployment of large numbers of troops. Even if he were willing in principle to make a major commitment of lives and money, the president would be reluctant to do so because he cannot see how that would solve the Middle East’s problems.

“There’s a playbook in Washington that presidents are supposed to follow,” the president said in his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic. “It’s a playbook that comes out of the foreignpolicy establishment. And the playbook prescribes responses to different events, and these responses tend to be militarized responses. Where America is directly threatened, the playbook works. But the playbook can also be a trap that can lead to bad decisions. In the midst of an international challenge like Syria, you get judged harshly if you don’t follow the playbook, even if there are good reasons why it does not apply.”

Obama campaigned for the presidency on a pledge to end the U.S. war in Iraq. In office, he has consistently demonstrated that he prefers diplomacy to weaponry, reason to bluster and patience to impulse. “I suppose you could call me a realist in believing we can’t, at any given moment, relieve all the world’s misery,” he told Goldberg. “There are going to be times where our security interests conflict with our concerns about human rights.

There are going to be times where we can do something about innocent people being killed, but there are going to be times where we can’t.”

In Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, surrounded as they are by war and chaos in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Libya, fearful of the Islamic State and confronted by an aggressive Iran, those presidential attitudes have been perceived as retreat from the longstanding U.S. commitment to their security. The Gulf Arabs have consistently failed to acknowledge that, except in Iraq, the region’s multiple failures are not America’s fault and that Obama feels justified in asking them to do more to clean up what is partly their own mess.

Whoever becomes president in January may well wish to separate himself or herself from Obama’s policy on this conflict or that in the Middle East, but will find scant constituency for more forceful action.

The president of the next four years will be commander in chief of a U.S. military whose leadership has shown no appetite for greater direct involvement.

“We have an important role to play in providing for the security of the Central Region,” which includes the Gulf, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin, outgoing commander of the U.S. Central Command, said in his final annual report to Congress in March.

“That said, we also recognize that we cannot solve every challenge through direct U.S. military action alone. While supporting and enabling the efforts of partner nations, we must help them build additional needed military capacity. The goal is to empower them to provide for the security of their sovereign spaces and confront regional security challenges such as those posed by Iran. We must also encourage our partners to actively counter radical ideologies and address the underlying currents that contribute in large part to the instability in the region. American efforts, including the U.S. military, can buy time and we may encourage others to do what is necessary. However, we cannot do it for them. Only the people of the region can bring about the needed changes.” That might have been the president himself speaking.

At his Gulf security summit at Camp David in 2015, Obama made clear to the Gulf Cooperation Council leaders that the United States was committed to the agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear weapons capability and would go ahead with it, whether they liked it or not. Facing that reality, and understanding that they had little leverage, the Saudis and the others grudgingly gave their assent. Since then, in official communiqués and most of their public statements, the Saudis — who have more people and a larger defense budget than the five other GCC states combined — have endorsed, or at least accepted, Obama’s broad strategy, which is to help them secure themselves by supplying weapons, training and logistical support.

In their joint statement after meeting in

Riyadh in April, the GCC leaders and the president said they “reaffirmed their support for the common principles decided at Camp David [in 2015], including a shared recognition that there is no military solution to the region’s armed civil conflicts, which can only be resolved through political and peaceful means; respect for all states’ sovereignty and non-interference in their internal affairs; and the need for inclusive governance in conflict-ridden societies as well as protection of all minorities and of human rights.” The GCC leaders “reaffirmed” their endorsement of the Iran nuclear agreement, and the United States declared once again that its “policy to use all elements of power to secure its core interests in the Gulf region, and to deter and confront external aggression against its allies and partners, as it did during the Gulf War, is unequivocal.”

The GCC leaders and the president said that they “agreed to continue close coordination on shared concerns via meetings of foreign and defense ministers, hold an annual summit-level meeting, collaborate on additional security initiatives, and engage in a significant U.S.-GCC military exercise in 2017.”

That is a deeper level of engagement than the United States has with any other partner, except perhaps the NATO allies.

Who else is guaranteed “an annual summit-level meeting with the United States?”

Nevertheless, whether the next president reaffirms that commitment, modifies it or repudiates it, no amount of meetings or “close coordination” will resolve to the satisfaction of the Saudis that one issue that matters most to them: their rivalry with Iran.

It did not sit well with the Saudis when Obama said that Riyadh and Tehran should rise above their differences and come to some accommodation. In their view, the region is not big enough for both of them: for an anti-Western, Shiite-dominated theocratic republic that has spread its influence from Lebanon to Yemen, and for a Sunni monarchy that claims supremacy in Islam and is closely aligned with the United States. The Saudis suspect that Washington seeks an easing of tensions with Iran as a prelude to a broader engagement with a country that is potentially a more appealing partner than Riyadh. Iran’s leaders have rejected any such notion, but unless the incoming president repudiates the multinational nuclear agreement with Iran, that cloud of Arab suspicion is unlikely to dissipate. WD Thomas W. Lippman is an award-winning author and journalist and adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute (MEI). This paper is part of a MEI scholar series titled “The Middle East and the 2016 Presidential Elections.”

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3 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 17

Although he can’t vote in November — he’s waiting to find out about the status of his citizenship application — he is working to get more people who are eligible to vote to do so. conTInueD • page 12 “It’s important that people know that Trump is not the best president we could have. We have to get the vote out so that holding naturalization drives throughout the Trump doesn’t win,” Ferrofino said. country, including in key swing states. The Meseret Zegeye has been a citizen for two Pew Research Center has shown that while years and will be voting for the first time in nearly 70 percent of immigrants became natNovember. While many multi-generation uralized American citizens, only 36 percent Americans say their vote doesn’t matter — of Mexicans do the same. and some have threatened to not vote at all While Trump’s unusual candidacy seems because they don’t like either Trump or the to be galvanizing minority voters, Pew data Democratic candidate, Hillary notes that there have been other spikes inNOTE: Although every effort is made to assure your ad is free of mistakes in spellingpresumptive and Clinton — Zegeye, like other new Amerinaturalization applications in non-election content it is ultimately up to the customer to make the final proof. cans, insisted that, “Every single vote, inyears. Reasons for the surges include pendcluding mine, is really important.” ing fee increases and laws encouraging legal The first two faxed changes will be made at no cost to the advertiser, subsequent changes Back in Virginia, Faqiri agreed. Many of residents to become citizens. will be billed at a rate of $75 per faxed alteration.

Signed ads are considered approved. his classmates at college, where he is in his Moreover, recent analysis by the Upshot second year of a bachelor’s degree in intershowed that millions more white, older, Please check this ad carefully. Mark any changes to your ad. national relations, have told him that indiworking-class voters went to the polls on phoTo: caRloS RoSaRIo InTeRnaTIonal publIc chaRTeR School vidual voices don’t matter in U.S. elections.

Election Day in 2012 than exit polls had iniat a community action Fair hosted by carlos Rosario School, hundreds of immigrant students visited But Faqiri thinks otherwise and is applying tially indicated, according to the New York If the information ad is correct sign and faxabout to: (301) 949-0065 needs changes booths to learn more D.c. ward representatives, community volunteer opportunities for his wife to become a citizen, like him, so Times. and to cast their votes in a mock election. that her voice can also be heard in the U.S. “This raises the prospect that Mr. Trump The Washington Diplomat (301) 933-3552 has a larger pool of potential voters than down between a billionaire businessman munity,” he told The Diplomat at the Carlos democratic process.

And contrary to how some Americans may generally believed,” wrote the Upshot’s Nate and the first woman to run for the American Rosario fair. Dessie voted in the Virginia priApproved __________________________________________________________ Cohn. “The wider path may help explain presidency is sure to attract legions of brand maries and plans to vote early in November, think an Afghan husband might treat his wife, Faqiri said, “I don’t tell her what to do. But I why Mr. Trump is competitive in early gennew ___________________________________________________________ voters to the ballot box this fall — many just to make sure his vote counts.

Changes W eral election surveys against Hillary Clinton. of them immigrants.

Although he’s a first-time voter, Dessie has know she won’t vote for Trump either.” D ___________________________________________________________________ And it calls into question the prevailing debeen in the U.S. for other presidential elecmographic explanation of recent elections, tions — in 2008 and 2012. This time, he said, Karin Zeitvogel (@Zeitvogel) is a contributing eveRy voTe counTS which held that Barack Obama did very things are “a little bit different and a bit scary, writer for The Washington Diplomat.

Alelign Dessie will be voting for the fi rst especially for immigrants.” poorly among whites and won only because “Hopefully, we will make our voices young and minority voters turned out in time in November. Originally from Ethiopia, record numbers. This story line led Repub- he won the diversity lottery in 2008 and be- heard,” he said.

Francisco Ferrofino came to the United licans to conclude that they had maximized came a U.S. citizen 18 months ago.

“In Ethiopia, I was unable to vote because States from violence-wracked El Salvador 10 their support from white voters and needed we didn’t have a democratic system. I’ve al- years ago and has overcome the hardship of to reach out to Hispanics to win in 2016.” follow the Diplomat While Republicans may still be able to ways wanted to exercise my rights and here I being in a new country, with a different linconnect at www.washdiplomat.com. count on their white, working-class, rural am. I became a citizen to exercise my rights gua franca, to become executive chef at two base to vote for Trump, the historic show- and be an example for the immigrant com- restaurants in Washington.

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18 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

WD | United States

Bridging Divides Sister Cities International Marks 60 Years of Citizen Diplomacy

by Dave Seminara

D

iplomats can only do so much to bridge the divides between their countries and the rest of the world. Good bilateral relations start with strong ties at the governmental level. But as public servants, diplomats operate under significant restraints and there is always a layer of formality that may or may not ever melt. Average citizens, on the other hand, can sometimes do more to thaw tensions and build partnerships at the grassroots level than governments can.

This Sept. 11 marks 60 years since President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched a citizen diplomacy campaign that was initially aimed at improving ties with Japan and Germany through a sister cities initiative.

The sister cities movement has exploded in recent decades as more and more governments and municipalities recognize the importance of citizen diplomacy in an interconnected world with so many seemingly intractable conflicts. These types of people-to-people interactions range from educational and cultural exchanges to business and trade to humanitarian missions.

Sister Cities International, which will host its annual conference in Washington in mid-July, now has 570 member communities forming 2,300 partnerships in 150 countries spanning six continents.

Mary Kane, a former Maryland secretary of state who was the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in 2010, has been president and CEO of Sister Cities International since 2011. We spoke with the Delaware native to explore what sister cities are, how they work and where the next frontiers of citizen diplomacy will be.

The Washington Diplomat: Where does your interest in foreign cultures stem from?

Mary Kane: I’m the child of immigrants, so I guess it’s natural for me to be interested in other cultures. I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware. I didn’t do any exchange programs unfortunately, but when I was appointed deputy secretary of state in Maryland, and then secretary of state, one of my duties was Maryland’s Sister States and Sister Cities programs. Unlike most secretaries of state in the country, we didn’t handle elections — we handled international affairs. And Maryland is very forward thinking when it comes to building these relationships across the world.

TWD: I know President Dwight D. Eisenhower is credited with founding the sister cities initiative, but was it originally his idea or someone else’s?

Kane: It was his idea. He called for the White House conference on citizen diplomacy. It was on Sept. 11, 1956. He encouraged people-to-people exchanges between citizens. His idea was that we would never be able to get over issues from World War II until we started meeting each other face to face. And being a general, he knew that people on the ground aren’t the same as the leadership of a country.

TWD: The focus in the beginning, at least in the U.S., was on forging partnerships with cities in Japan and Germany, correct?

Kane: I think the first formal sister city relationship was Toledo, Ohio, and Toledo, Spain. There were a lot of town twinning relationships like that, particularly with

Photo: Sister Cities International

Sister Cities International is a nonprofit citizen diplomacy network that encourages people-to-people interactions, including travel abroad experiences for young students and other educational exchanges.

“

We’re here to encourage citizens to talk to each other no matter what their backgrounds are. Because once you do that, you learn a lot more. That was the purpose of this program when it started 60 years ago.

Mary Kane

”

CEO and president of Sister Cities International

Kane: Right and we’re working on it.

TWD: Where are the blank spots on the map? Are these 43 countries that aren’t participating scattered around the world or concentrated in one region?

Kane: I’d say the blank spots on the map tend to be in the Middle East and Africa mostly, but also South America. We formed the first sister city relationship with Myanmar last year, with Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Minneapolis just formed a sister city relationship with a city in Somalia. So we’re slowly but surely trying to spread the word.

TWD: In countries where we have no sister cities, is that often because there is no diaspora from that country in the U.S.?

Europe. And things really took off after World War II when folks were building these sister city relationships with German and Japanese cities but also France and other European countries.

Kane: Right. We just met with the Embassy of Madagascar, for example, and they don’t have any sister cities yet but we’re working on that.

TWD: During the Cold War, were there quite a few sister city relationships with the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc countries?

TWD: Myanmar is a good example of a country that has recently opened up. Are the impediments to forming these relationships often political?

Kane: Eisenhower said in that speech that we need to build relationships with the Russian people in spite of our political differences. Today, we have about 75 sister city relationships with Russia that have been going pretty strong.

Kane: For us, we usually work with governments that are recognized by the State Department. With a country like North Korea, for example, the main thing is the prohibition of travel. The inability to get there is one of the main obstacles. We just had one of our honorary board members run a marathon in North Korea, so there is some hope.

TWD: You have 575 communities in the United States that have 2,300 partnerships in 150 countries. This leaves 43 countries (as defined by the U.N.) who we don’t have sister city partnerships with?

See S ist er C it ies • page 45 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 19

WD | Europe

EU Fortitude Despite Litany of Problems, EU Envoy Says Members Better Off Inside Club Than Out of It

by Larry Luxner

S

teering clear of the two most contentious issues of the day — Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy — the European Union’s top envoy here still found plenty to discuss during The Washington Diplomat’s fourth Ambassador Insider Series (AIS).

David O’Sullivan, who has represented the 28-member EU in the United States since November 2014, captivated his listeners for an entire hour with his witty answers to questions posed by The Diplomat. His audience of about 150 included 30 fellow diplomats — among them the ambassadors of Albania, Hungary, Malta, Serbia and Slovenia — and staffers from 20 members of Congress.

The May 19 interview and dinner at D.C.’s elegant Willard InterContinental Washington hotel — sponsored by Lufthansa, Don Beyer Volvo and Odisea Marketing — follows earlier AIS events with Ambassadors Elin Suleymanov of Azerbaijan, Lukman Faily of Iraq and John Beale of Barbados.

O’Sullivan, 63, began by defining his job title.

“I may represent an institution which represents, in its turn, 508 million people, but of course I don’t represent all 508 million of them,” he explained. “I have 28 ambassador colleagues who do an excellent job representing their countries. My job is to speak on those issues where we have decided the European Union should be the spokesperson — for example, certain aspects of foreign policy, trade, security, high-tech issues, the digital single market, food safety, a whole range of issues. The motto in America is e pluribus unum — out of many, one; the EU motto is ‘united in diversity.’”

But that unity is being sorely tested — ironically by the bloc’s diversity, or more specifically, its immigration policies. O’Sullivan spoke a few weeks before British voters — angry in part over an influx of immigrants — stunned the world and opted to leave the European Union in a June 23 referendum that dealt a significant blow to Brussels. The longtime Irish diplomat, who joined the European Commission in 1979, was candid about the problems the bloc faces, though he preferred to focus on the positive.

“We have a lot of challenges, but Europe is actually a pretty good place to live,” O’Sullivan said when asked how the EU was dealing with its various crises. “We’re the largest economy in the world. I like to joke that when America and China argue over who has the biggest economy, you’re fighting over second and third place. And regarding our

20 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

Head of the European Union Delegation Press and Public Diplomacy Section James Barbour; EU Delegation Senior Press Officer Kasper Zeuthen; EU Ambassador David O’Sullivan; news editor Larry Luxner; First Secretary of Policy and Planning for the EU Delegation Marc Jay; managing editor Anna Gawel; publisher Victor Shiblie; and operations director Fuad Shiblie.

Pakistani Embassy Press Attaché Nadeem Hotiana, Cynthia Brown of Block Advisors and James Brown of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

biggest crisis of the moment — the refugee crisis — forgive me, but it’s actually a sign of our success. Why do people want to come to Europe? Because it represents peace, prosperity, social justice, the rule of law and opportunity. It is still a glorious place to live and work, with a very great future ahead of us — in spite of the current difficulties.”

O’Sullivan said the 19-nation eurozone is still recovering from its 2008 financial meltdown and a near-collapse of the Greek economy, and that the EU is today in sound shape. With a combined GDP of $18.5 trillion, it comprises 29 percent of the global economy and ranks as the top trade partner for 80 countries around the world.

“Yes, we’ve had enormous difficulties following the 2008 crisis. There was a global recession, one of the largest in

Ambassador of Malta Pierre Clive Agius and Ambassador of Slovenia Božo Cerar.

living memory. It exposed flaws in the architecture of economic and monetary union, but I firmly believe that without the euro, we would have had an even worse recession in Europe,” said O’Sullivan, predicting economic expansion of 1.5 to 2 percent this year and in 2017.

“For the last four years, the eurozone has seen positive growth,” he said. “Unemployment has come down from 10 to 8 percent on average, and we have turned the corner, though being competitive in the 21st century is a challenge for all the aging economies of the world.”

O’Sullivan challenged the notion pushed by so-called “euroskeptics” that EU membership has been a burden to its 28 member countries.

“There is no country that has joined the EU that is not significantly better off

economically today than when it joined — in large measure because of joining the EU. We have all benefitted from the single market,” he insisted. “My country, Ireland, is much more prosperous, safe and integrated than when it joined in 1973. Even Greece, for all its difficulties, is a much wealthier country today than when it joined the EU in 1981.”

The same holds true for the bloc of Central and Eastern European countries that were admitted to the EU club in 2004, he said.

“Compare Poland and Ukraine,” he suggested. “In 1990, Ukraine’s income was multiples that of Poland. Today it’s absolutely the other way around. Why? One joined the EU and the other one didn’t.”

O’Sullivan noted the historical significance of holding an EU-focused event

European Union Ambassador David O’Sullivan.

at the Willard. During World War II, the stately hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue housed the ninthfloor office of Jean Monnet, a French diplomat who advised President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the war effort and later became one of the founding fathers of the European Union. In 1997, the hotel unveiled a bronze plaque honoring Monnet.

In keeping with EU policy, O’Sullivan refused to discuss the U.S. presidential elections, and he offered only brief remarks on the landmark Brexit referendum, which had yet to take place at the time.

“This is a sovereign decision for the British people,” he said. “You can hardly expect me, as the ambassador of the EU, to say anything other than that it would be in our benefit, and for the British people themselves, if they remained a part of the EU.” Meanwhile, O’Sullivan — only the second diplomat to represent the Brussels-based bloc in Washington since the position was established in 2009 — has his hands full dealing with Europe’s refugee crisis, the worst since World War II. More than a million migrants, mostly refugees from Syria’s never-ending civil war, poured

into Europe last year alone, and the cumulative total could reach 2 or 3 million by December 2016. Yet the idea that Europe is quickly becoming Islamized is patently ridiculous, O’Sullivan told his audience.

“We are far from overrun by Muslims,” he said, estimating Europe’s average Muslim population at 5 to 6 percent of the total, though that varies widely by country. “This is a very welcome community that contributes enormously to our well-being and our diversity, and long may it stay that way.”

And that welcome mat must remain out there even as European capitals from Paris to Brussels continue to be targeted by Islamic State radicals, he said.

“I don’t think we should conflate the issues of refugees and terrorists. These refugees are fleeing from the very same terrorists who are setting off bombs in Europe,” he said. “Every day, infinitely more terrorist acts are committed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Pakistan than in the Western world. Put this in perspective: These events are horrible, and we should do everything we can to protect our citizens.”

See E U • page 37

Larry Luxner, news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

At left, Patrick Gilgallon of Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams; Danny Kreps of Don Beyer Volvo and Nathan White.

George Apostolakis and Artemis Konti of the Embassy of Greece.

Above, Lajeune Manbury and Ben Beaudoin of the Embassy Suites at Chevy Chase Pavilion talk with Barbara Wegerson of theWillard InterContinental Washington hotel.

Sanna Kangasharju, press counselor at the Finnish Embassy, and her husband David Van Ongevalle of RiPo bvba.

News editor Larry Luxner, right, interviews European Union Ambassador David O’Sullivan.

Wolfgang Köhling of the World Bank and Hussein Hirji of the Embassy of Canada.

The Washington Diplomat publisher Victor Shiblie, Ambassador of Albania Floreta Faber and Nadeem Hotiana of the Embassy of Pakistan.

Amelia Breinig of the Senate Finance Committee and Sarah Meier of Rep. Adrian Smith’s (R-Neb.) office.

Christine M. Warnke of Hogan Lovells LLP and Elizabeth Webster of D.C. Councilmember Vincent B. Orange’s office.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 21

WD | Medical

Lethal High Painkiller That Killed Prince Part of Dangerous Wave of New Synthetic Drugs

by Dennis Thompson

Opioid fentanyl and related street drugs highly lethal, addiction experts say

T

he recent overdose death of rock legend Prince has brought renewed focus on the dangers posed by synthetic opioids, laboratory-created narcotics tweaked by chemists to produce potentially lethal highs while skirting U.S. drug laws.

Prince Rogers Nelson, 57, died April 21 from an overdose of fentanyl, a drug often used to quell pain in cancer patients when traditional opioids prove ineffective.

Despite its legitimate medical uses, fentanyl has acquired a growing reputation as a dangerous street drug thanks to at least a dozen synthetic variants now available to users, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

And fentanyl is only one of numerous synthetic opioids and designer drugs now flooding the illicit drug market in the United States, DEA acting chief Chuck Rosenberg warned during a U.S. Senate hearing June 7.

“We are trying to keep up with a picture that changes almost every day,” Rosenberg testified.

“We’ve identified something like 400 new psychoactive substances over the last four or five years.”

Another synthetic opioid, U-47700, has been connected to at least 50 deaths nationwide, but is so new to the black market that the DEA has not yet moved to control it, according to the Associated Press.

Synthetic narcotics are dangerous because their potency can far outstrip traditional opioids. For example, fentanyl is 25 to 40 times more potent than heroin, and 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, said Dr. Mitra Ahadpour. She is a medical officer with the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment in the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Rosenberg testified that “fentanyl is so dangerous we’ve had to instruct our agents that if they touch it or inhale it accidentally, they can die.”

Several states reported sharp increases in overdose deaths caused by fentanyl and its analogs in 2014, a health advisory from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted. Ohio reported 514 fentanyl-related deaths in 2014 compared to 92 in 2013, while Maryland had 185 fentanyl deaths in 2014 compared to 58 the year before.

Ahadpour explained that “if someone is not opioid-tolerant, and uses either pharmaceutical or illicit fentanyl, you have a very high increased chance of respiratory depression and dying. Their breathing slows down, it goes to shallow breathing and then they stop breathing.”

There’s wide variation in the potency of these synthetic drugs, and often they are cut with other illicit drugs, Ahadpour added. A user might buy heroin not knowing that it has been cut with fentanyl to increase its potency.

Eleanor Artigiani, deputy director of policy and governmental affairs with the University of Maryland’s Center for Substance Abuse Research, said, “They may think they’re getting heroin, or they’re just buying a Xanax pill off the street, when it’s actually one of these other substances.”

22 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

Photo: Alex Brosa / iStock

“

We are trying to keep up with a picture that changes almost every day…. We’ve identified something like 400 new psychoactive substances over the last four or five years.

Chuck Rosenberg

”

acting chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration

Artigiani added: “From what I’ve been hearing recently, sometimes even the people selling these drugs don’t know exactly what’s in them either. It’s like Russian roulette, because you don’t really know what you’re getting or what effect it’s going to have on you.”

Toxicology tests concluded that Prince died from a fentanyl overdose, although the medical examiner’s report did not say whether the fentanyl was prescription or an illicit analog, CNN reported.

Designer drugs are typically based on medications that have been around for decades, Artigiani said.

Fentanyl was first created in Belgium in the late 1950s, the DEA says, while U-47700 was developed in the 1970s by the pharmaceutical company Upjohn as a potential alternative for morphine.

Black market drug makers come across the formula for a drug, and then tweak the molecule slightly so that it has the same effect on people but isn’t technically the same substance, Artigiani explained.

“There’s a journal article or a patent document or

something that gets produced,” she said. “Illicit chemists find it and reproduce it or tweak the molecules to look for other kinds of things that aren’t illegal, that haven’t been scheduled yet.”

Other synthetic opioids on the streets include substances with names like W-18, AH-7921 and MT-45, according to congressional testimony provided by James Hall, an epidemiologist with the Center for Applied Research on Substance Use and Health Disparities at Nova Southeastern University in Miami.

Illicit drug manufacturers also produce other categories of designer drugs besides synthetic opioids, Hall said, including synthetic versions of cannabinoids, stimulants and hallucinogens.

Nearly all synthetic opioids and other designer drugs are manufactured in China, U.S. National Drug Control Policy Director Michael Botticelli testified before the Senate.

The designer drugs enter the United States either through the mail or across the Mexican or Canadian border, he said, and often are sold at head shops and other retail stores.

State and federal lawmakers are reviewing legislation designed to improve response against new synthetic narcotics, Botticelli said, and the United States is leading discussions with international partners to improve the global response to these drugs.

But right now, law enforcement often is several steps behind the traffickers because U.S. laws aren’t flexible enough to quickly outlaw emerging drug analogs, Rosenberg told Congress.

“I almost feel each time I sign an administrative control regulation that I’m simply telling the bad guys, ‘Not this one any more. Move over here.’ And that’s what they do,” Rosenberg said. “For every one substance we’ve controlled, legislatively or administratively, there are 11 more out there that are uncontrolled.” WD Dennis Thompson is a HealthDay reporter.

Copyright © 2016 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Hotels & Travel A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

•

July 2016

The Embassy Row Hotel recently debuted a new 4,130-square-foot rooftop space.

pHoto: gREg powERs

Lofty Ambitions D.C. Aims High with Rise of Hotel Rooftops • by stEpHaniE KanowitZ

I

n D.C., the places to be are movin’ on up. For too long, D.C.’s streets have had all the fun. Now it’s the rooftops’ turn. Until recently, most hotels didn’t make use of the space above the top floor, but that’s changing now — and rapidly.

Several hotels are opening their doors this summer with new or revamped rooftop amenities including pools, bars, dining and activities. The Height of Buildings Act, passed in 1899, capped how tall buildings in the District could be (110 feet), mainly to ensure that nothing eclipsed city landmarks (and also because of fire safety concerns over tall buildings). In 1910, that limit was amended to 130 feet. Although that act causes consternation in some ways — such as not being able to build up to make more livable space as D.C.’s population grows — it means many rooftops offer unobstructed views of national treasures.

pHoto: laRRy luxnER

Still, setting up shop on the top is not simple. For example, hotels must secure a Summer Garden Endorsement from the city government to be able to sell alcohol in a private outdoor space. Also helpful: approval from the applicable Advisory Neighborhood Commission.

ANCs examine policies and programs affecting their neighborhoods, including liquor licenses.

To stay competitive in this highly aggressive hotel market, the rooftop is becoming the “it” thing to have, said Kate Gibbs, domestic media relations manager at DessEE ROOFTOPS • pagE 24

The Beacon Hotel’s Sky-Bar is featuring the work of a local mural artist.

pHoto: bEacon HotEl and coRpoRatE QuaRtERs

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | juLY 2016 | 23

“

There is something particularly appealing about an urban rooftop — it’s very exciting and romantic.

The elevation provides a whole new perspective on the city that you don’t really consider when you’re walking around on ground level all day.

”

Pascal Forotti managing director of Rosewood Washington, D.C.

Photo: Larry Luxner

The Beacon Hotel has been making use of its expansive rooftop space for years in the form of Sky-Bar, which overlooks Rhode Island Avenue.

Rooftops

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Continued • page 23

tination DC. “It’s becoming an expected amenity: that the street-level excitement is available on the rooftop,” Gibbs said.

Here’s a look at how some hotels are aiming high to shatter the limits of traditional hospitality.

Embassy Row Hotel At the recently renovated Embassy Row Hotel, so much happens on the redecorated rooftop that hotel executives felt they needed someone dedicated to the 4,130square-foot space. They hired the hotel’s first rooftop manager, Maurice Moreno, and reopened the Rooftop, as it’s called, May 6.

“This gives people a point person to be referred to,” Moreno said, whereas before, multiple people shared responsibility for rooftop plans. The Rooftop hosts events Wednesday through Sunday ranging from silent discos to sunrise yoga sessions.

During Support a Cause Wednesdays, patrons can schedule a fundraising happy hour and the hotel donates $1 from every house wine, draft beer and Support a Cause cocktail it sells. Partners have included the local Humane Society and Urban Alliance.

On Thursdays through Sept. 29 from 6:30 to 10 p.m. is Art into Dusk, featuring works by local artists plus drink specials.

Hooky Fridays are for people who don’t want to go back to work after lunch, Moreno said. Signature cocktails — typically $12 to $15 – are half off and day passes, which non-hotel guests can buy for $30 to use the pool, are free from 2 to 6 p.m. When the sun starts to set, Silent Disco revs up.

“We have three deejays who play at the same time, but everybody gets a headphone so you can switch back and forth between the different deejays,” Moreno said. “If you don’t have a headset on, you don’t hear any music.”

Sunrise Yoga is offered Saturday and Sunday mornings from 8 to 9 in partner-

ship with Epic Yoga studio. This is free for hotel guests and $19 for everyone else.

Liquid Brunch and a pool party happen Sundays between 12 and 3 p.m.

Open from May to Oct. 1, the pool area and Dupont Deck offer picturesque views of landmarks such as Dupont Circle, the National Cathedral and the Washington Monument. It was voted “one of the best rooftop pools in America” by USA Today and features a heated swimming pool, grill, bar, daybeds and shaded lounge. The pool opens at 7 a.m. daily. It closes at 10 p.m. on weekdays and 6 p.m. on the weekends, although the Rooftop stays open until 11 p.m.

“We want to see people have a good time and keep them entertained and kind of forget that they’re in a city and transport them to a tropical oasis,” Moreno said, adding that one of the signature cocktails is served in a Thai coconut.

Beacon Hotel and Corporate Quarters The Beacon Hotel has been making use of its expansive rooftop space for years in the form of Sky-Bar, but every spring it debuts something new, whether it’s furniture, drinks, menus or something else.

“The Washington, D.C., market is wonderfully fickle so [locals] love things that are new on an annual basis, so we try to create a different sense of excitement every year,” said Hector Torres, the hotel’s general manager.

This year’s new draw is a mural by Eric B. Ricks, a native of Liberia who now lives in Silver Spring, Md. His work can be found nationwide and locally at Busboys and Poets, Ben’s Chili Bowl and other popular area spots.

“We recognized there was a wonderful trend in these magnificent murals throughout the city, and there was this article about this artist turning graffiti into an art form,” Torres said of the inspiration to have a mural painted. “I view this mural as an opportunity to support local artists, while presenting our visiting public a visually striking composition that enhances already beautiful views of our city from above.”

Sky-Bar is open to the public in the eve-

Changes ___________________________________________________________

WELCOMING THE DIPLOMATIC COMMUNITY

pHoto: Joy asico

the donovan’s dnV Rooftop (short for damn nice View) is home to 1,500 square feet of poolside space.

nings starting at 5:30 and available as meeting or luncheon space during the day. The hotel counts organizations such as the World Bank among its daytime rooftop customers.

Sky-Bar can hold up to 125 people and opens April 15. It closes Nov. 1, after a blow-out Halloween party to end the season, Torres said.

Kimpton mason & RooK and donoVan One of Kimpton’s newest properties, Mason & Rook, had its ribbon-cutting last month. The 178-room hotel boasts a rooftop with a pool, grill, firepit, swanky lounge and vistas of the Washington Monument, as well as the bustling 14th Street corridor below.

Soak up the sun poolside while en-

ALSO SEE: Reaching for the stars: sky-high dreams are common in d.c. PAGE 26

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joying some inventive cocktails from the team at Radiator, the hotel’s stylish new bar. Among the offerings: Visible Tan Lines, a concoction of Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Chareau Aloe Liqueur, lime and lemon verbena; On Deck, featuring Beefeater Gin, lemon and basil; and the Full Monte, with Montenegro Amaro Liqueur, coconut crème, pineapple and plantation-aged rum. Then relax and cool off with a post-sunbathing spa treatment to cap off the perfect summer day. sEE ROOFTOPS • pagE 26

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THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | juLY 2016 | 25

Rooftops

SIDEBAR

Reaching for the stars

S

ky-high dreams are common in washington, d.c., and now hotels are sharing them. Rooftop spaces that are not just usable but highly inviting are popping up all over the city, just in time for Fourth of July fireworks displays.

• The Hyatt Place Washington DC/ national mall is a new 12-story, 214room hotel that has a rooftop bar — citybar — and wrapped balcony that offers views of nationals park, museums and monuments.

• The Hampton Inn & Suites Washington dc-navy yard is also brandnew. the 168-room hotel’s rooftop — top of the yard Rooftop lounge, a bar with “natitude,” according to its website — provides views of nationals park and the anacostia River. it’s the only rooftop bar and eatery in the capitol Riverfrontballpark district.

• For the quintessential Washington experience overlooking the white House, the mainstays are poV lounge atop the trendy w hotel and the more refined Hay-adams, whose top of the Hay rooftop is available for private events.

— Stephanie Kanowitz

continuEd • pagE 25

The hotel’s Sip, Sun & Soothe package includes deluxe accommodations plus a complimentary upgrade; two reserved chaise lounges with complimentary sparkling water; two post-sunbathing “soothing body wrap” in-room spa treatments using aloe vera and algae to calm and moisturize skin; and $100 food and beverage credit for rooftop cocktails, room service or dining at Radiator.

The package starts from $689 a night and runs through Sept. 6.

The boutique brand also runs the Donovan on 14th Street, long known for its chic rooftop pool lounge. DNV Rooftop (short for Damn Nice View) is home to 1,500 square feet of dramatic poolside event space that overlooks Thomas Circle and 14th Street and can accommodate 100 guests for a cocktail reception.

The rooftop pool bar opens to the public at 5 p.m. on weekdays and 7 p.m. on weekends.

DNV serves seasonal drinks and dishes from Zentan, the pHoto: Ron blunt Donovan’s Asian-inspired the Kimpton’s newest properties, mason & Rook, boasts a restaurant below.

pHoto: watERgatE HotEl

the recently reopened watergate Hotel includes a rooftop lounge called top of the gate.

fundraiser up there — but it was not formally developed,” Cohen said. “That is something we wanted to add from the very beginning.

Nowhere in D.C. is there an unobstructed 360-degree panoramic view of the D.C. skyline, the Potomac River and the Georgetown Waterfront. Everyone will remember the first time they see a sunset from our roof.”

To make it happen, Euro Capital rooftop with a pool, grill, firepit and swanky lounge.

Properties worked closely with the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts, which gives advice on design tHE watERgatE HotEl and aesthetics as they affect the dignity of the nation’s capital, The iconic Watergate Hotel reopened last month after a and the National Park Service to follow proper protocol in $125 million makeover. Its new look includes the hotel’s first constructing Top of the Gate. rooftop lounge, called Top of the Gate. Amenities include a Programming has not been finalized, but Top of the Gate firepit and bottle service plus signature libations and classic will be available to rent for private events. It will also play cocktails paired with Asian street food, said Rakel Cohen, se- host to hotel events such as fitness classes and pop-ups, Conior vice president of design and development at Euro Capi- hen added. tal Properties, which owns the property.

All the restaurants and bars in the hotel are open to the “The original Watergate Hotel had a usable rooftop space public. Top of the Gate can accommodate up to 350 people — there are photos of [President Jimmy] Carter doing a and will be open seasonally, although heat lamps will be avail-

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Extreme Sports

Beautiful Resorts

Rosewood Hotels and Resorts is opening up the former capella’s rooftop lounge to the public.

PHOTO: ROBERT RECK / RosEwood wasHington, d.c.

able for private events as needed in cooler months, Cohen added.

the sleek rooftop to the public. It’s also available for rent for events and parties.

“The rooftop’s view of the capital city’s skyline, including the iconic WashingRosEwood ton Monument, is truly breathtaking and makes for a stunning backdrop to wasHington, d.c. any special occasion,” said Pascal Forotti, In late April, Rosewood Hotels and the hotel’s managing director. “There is NOTE: Although every effort made to assure your ad is particularly free of mistakes in spelling Resorts became the is new owners of something appealing about and Capella Washington, D.C., in content it is ultimately up Georgeto the customer to make the final proof. an urban rooftop — it’s very exciting and town. Situated along the C&O Canal, romantic. The elevation provides a whole the hotel had will a beautiful rooftatop, new toperspective on thesubsequent city that you The first two faxedalready changes be made no cost the advertiser, changes complete with an indoor-outdoor ni- don’tSigned really consider you’re walking will be billed at a rate of $75 per faxedinfi alteration. ads arewhen considered approved. ty-style pool, a built-in fireplace and the around on ground level all day.”

Rooftop Bar and Lounge. The only other The Rooftop Bar and Lounge offers Please this with ad carefully. any changes to your ad. hotel in check Georgetown a rooftop is Mark light bites, artisan cocktails, wines and the Graham. rare whiskies. It will close for the season If the ad is correct and fax (301) 949-0065 Undersign Capella, theto: rooft op was re- on Sept. 30needs or in changes early October, weather served for guest use only, though some permitting. exceptions were made. But Capella never “Whether you’re dropping in with The Washington Diplomat (301) 933-3552 seemed to gain the type of traction one friends for an after-work cocktail and chef would expect from such a pricey property Frank [Ruta]’s famous Grill Room Burger Approved __________________________________________________________ (rooms went for $600 a night and up); or celebrating a special occasion, the roofChanges ___________________________________________________________ some speculated a lack of event space was top is an ideal venue for saying ‘cheers’ to to blame. the summer season,” Forotti said. WD ___________________________________________________________________ The upscale Rosewood brand, which was reportedly eager to crack into the D.C. Stephanie Kanowitz is a contributing market, quickly announced plans to open writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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WD | Special Section

HOTEL GUIDE

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July 2016 events

DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES

American Falls For Afghanistan North Carolina native Lael Mohib’s fascination with Afghanistan led to a remarkable journey as she worked to rebuild the war-torn country, met a fast-rising Afghan émigré there, converted to Islam, married in London and now finds herself in D.C., where she’s raising awareness of Afghan orphans with special needs. / PAGE 31

ART

Cuban Olive Branch Politically, Cuba and the Organization of American States have not exactly been the best of friends.

Artistically, however, the OAS is showcasing its Cuban roots along with a new generation of Cubans that is transcending political barriers. / PAGE 32

THEATER

All America’s a Stage

HISTORY

EPIC JOURNEY

The newest plays are once again about to descend on the oldest town in West Virginia as the Contemporary American Theater Festival returns for its 26th year this July. / PAGE 33

A replica of the mask of Agamemnon, the mythical king of Mycenae, and a linear B tablet, below, are on display at the National Geographic.

PHOTOS: ©NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM, ATHENS

There’s just one word to describe the new National Geographic Museum exhibition spanning 5,000 years of Greek history and culture: Epic. Magnificent in its ambition and scope,“The Greeks: Agamemnon to Alexander the Great” is a truly blockbuster museum experience that traces thousands of years of history and features 560 objects, many of which have never before left Greece. / PAGE 30

DINING

EVENTS

DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT

No restaurant in D.C. has generated as much buzz as the Dabney, a rustic ode to Mid-Atlantic cuisine. / PAGE 34

Art / Festivals Music / Theater / PAGE 38

The Phillips Gala / March of Dimes Italian National Day / PAGE 40 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 29

WD | Culture | History

Epic Audacity From Agamemnon to Alexander the Great, ‘The Greeks’ Has It All •

The Greeks: Agamemnon to Alexander the Great THROUGH OCT. 10 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MUSEUM 1145 17TH ST., NW

(202) 857-7700 | WWW.NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM/THEGREEKS/

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here’s just one word to describe the new National Geographic Museum exhibition spanning 5,000 years of Greek history and culture: Epic.

A magnificent show that will stun visitors with its ambition and scope, “The Greeks: Agamemnon to Alexander the Great” is a truly blockbuster museum experience. As National Geographic Society archaeology fellow and co-curator Fredrik Hiebert told The Washington Diplomat: “This project was definitely on the high end of the audacious scale.”

That’s no exaggeration — the show traces thousands of years and features 560 objects, many of which have never before left Greece. And 22 different museums in Greece contributed artifacts, offering “some of the finest examples of Greek art anywhere” for Washingtonians to view this summer, according to Hiebert.

“It’s the story of ancient Greece told by the directors of 22 national museums of Greece,” Hiebert said. “What you see are these directors’ favorite pieces. That’s the differentiator.”

For such a massive exhibition, the layout is beautiful and easy to maneuver, and the remarkable pieces of history are interspersed effectively with videos and interactive elements. From the Neolithic period to the age of Alexander the Great, the collection weaves famous stories such as those of Odysseus, Homer, Agamemnon and Pericles with unnamed figures discovered through their burial remains, bringing to life warriors, priestesses, noble women and athletes.

Broad swaths are made consumable and vivid for visitors, highlighting everyday objects such as plates and bowls alongside artifacts of exquisite beauty. And the show does an excellent job of touching on both life and death, with many of the highlights excavated from burials.

There are also fun elements that will appeal to both kids and adults — one object available to touch calls on museumgoers to “grasp the handle of this bronze sword as if you were a powerful Mycenaean warrior, like the mighty Agamemnon,” or you can take a break later on in the show with a round of the “Epic Journey of Odysseus” board game. But it is the hundreds of artifacts that are unquestionably the stars of this exhibition.

The pieces are dazzling. Each feels essential, from the wonderful Cycladic figures, to the striking Mycenaean boar tusk helmet, to the painted vase depicting the blinding of the Cyclops Polyphemus, to the souvenir Olympic coins.

Filling a unique corner of the exhibition space is a set of bronze Bottiaean warrior helmets with gold funerary masks, one of the show’s major highlights. The 10 masks appear as if pressed against the deceased’s visage, giving a fascinating and evocative sense of individuality to the face of war. Each demands a separate look to fully appreciate the different details, geometric motifs, rosettes and heraldic symbols that delicately make up the warrior masks. Hiebert noted that these pieces were previously rela-

30 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

BY MACKENZIE WEINGER

Among the over 560 objects featured in a sweeping survey of Greek history at the National Geographic are, from clockwise top: a lekythos (a type of Greek pottery) depicting Ajax carrying the body of Achilles; a stone human-like amulet; a votive relief offered to Asklepios, the god of medicine; a tragedy mask; and the fragment of a grave stele.

tively unknown outside of Greece, and they have emerged as “a highlight for everybody.”

As visitors wind through the final section, a truly amazing gold piece commands attention.

A gold enamel myrtle wreath worn by Queen Meda, the sixth wife of Philip II, is a stunning showstopper before things wrap naturally with a look at the life of Alexander the Great.

As Hiebert noted, this summer marks an ideal time for the National Geographic Museum’s striking exhibition.

“We think it’s a perfect time. We wanted to pick an election year, an Olympics year — we’ve got an amazing section on the Olympics — we were certainly thinking about those things,” he said.

The show is another successful big national treasures exhibition from the museum, in the line of impressive predecessors such as “Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul.” Hiebert said the diplomatic community in D.C. has been particularly responsive to such national treasures shows like “The Greeks,” with many wondering when their own country will get a similar treatment.

“It’s a great way to tell the story of world cultures,” he said. “We think that National Geographic has taken this genre of national treasures exhibitions to a new forefront.”

This marks the only stop on the East Coast for the show — the largest and most comprehensive survey of Greek culture in 25 years — and serves as the final of its two stops in the U.S. Catch the show before it closes Oct. 10, and be sure to check out some of the events celebrating Greek history and culture that the museum is hosting this summer. WD Mackenzie Weinger (@mweinger) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

PHOTOS: ©NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM, ATHENS

WD | Culture | Diplomatic Spouses

Afghan Ambitions American Wife of Afghan Envoy Works to Rebuild War-Torn Nation •

BY GAIL SCOTT

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he is from Asheville, N.C., and went to college in Boston, but is as much at home in Afghanistan as she is in America.

“I fell in love with the country,” said Lael Mohib, the 29-year-old wife of Hamdullah Mohib, the 32year-old ambassador of Afghanistan. “My best friend in college was Afghan and when she went back home after graduation, I went too. I had done my master’s thesis on Central and Southeast Asia and got a four-month summer internship in the Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.

“I loved my work with the Community Development Council, a part of the country’s National Solidarity Program, where they give small grants to different communities and the community contributes in kind. I found Afghans very hospitable. They are beautiful people.”

Lael not only fell in love with Afghanistan, but with one Afghan in particular. Her and Hamdullah met in Afghanistan through mutual friends. “It was just a random meeting.” She recalled thinking at the time: “He was substantial.”

Lael converted to Islam when they married in London. They were there for two years while her husband worked toward his Ph.D. from Brunel University, which awarded him a research scholarship to pursue his studies, including his thesis on how to deliver 3D video communications over heterogeneous networks.

Hamdullah, an Afghan native, first came to England as a teenager, having spent years in refugee camps in Pakistan — first to escape the Russian occupation of Afghanistan and later Taliban rule.

His family scraped enough money to send HamdulLael Mohib and her husband, Hamdullah Mohib, met in Afghanistan, where she had worked with lah, the youngest of 11 children, to study in England, where he became active local communities help rebuild the country while he had returned to Kabul after studying in England. among the local Afghan community. He founded the largest Afghan diaspora youth association in Europe, the Afghan Students Association of the UK. He Lael is waiting on 501C nonprofit status to have the foundation officially also founded and served as board chairman of the Afghan Professionals Net- established here in the U.S. work (APN). Within APN, he initiated community service programming to “Orphans, children, the disabled don’t have anyone to speak for them. They support special needs orphans in Kabul, and to recognize the achievements of need in-home support, especially with poor and at-risk families,” she told us.

Afghan women — two issues that resonate personally with Lael.

“The kids found me. I don’t claim to be the expert … it snowballed for me.”

Despite his success in England, Hamdullah felt the constant pull of his Hamdullah’s diplomatic career also snowballed. In 2009, he joined the preshomeland and decided to return, he told Roxanne Roberts in a recent Wash- idential campaign of former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani. Although Ghani ington Post profile. “The minute I landed in Kabul,” he said, “it felt like a big lost to Hamid Karzai, he would go on to win the presidency in 2014 — and weight off my shoulder was lifted.” make Hamdullah his deputy chief of staff before apThere, he used his tech savvy to become dipointing him ambassador to the U.S. in 2015. rector of information technology at the AmeriMeanwhile, Lael joined BBC Media Action’s Afcan University of Afghanistan, where Lael was ghanistan team, where she worked on educational working at the time as director of communicaand media development programs. She later became tions. chief of staff at the American University of AfghaniShe had earned her master’s degree from Bosstan shortly before coming to Washington with her ton University in international relations and a husband. bachelor’s in communication and media studies Now, the young couple has found themselves at Mary Baldwin College. “I have never really in the spotlight as they work to rebuild a country LAEL MOHIB worked as a journalist, although I taught jourwracked by decades of war and poverty. wife of Afghan Ambassador Hamdullah Mohib nalism at the American University of Afghani“I’ve always been quiet and serious,” Lael told us and founder of the Enabled Children Initiative stan in Kabul and I love to write,” Lael told us. as she sat in the living room of their modest CleveIn 2014, she contributed a chapter on speland Park residence, gently rubbing her stomach and cial needs children in Afghanistan to “Children of Afghanistan: The Path to looking out over their backyard, where a small, brightly colored plastic slide Peace,” published by University of Texas Press. awaits their 3-year old daughter Miriam. The couple is expecting their second It is an issue close to her heart. Her father, a surgeon, became deaf in the child this summer. “In fact, my friends used to tell me that I needed to lighten middle of his career and her aunt was intellectually disabled. But Lael also up a bit. I wouldn’t call myself ‘ambitious,’ but I do like to keep busy and to credits her interest in helping people with special needs to her experiences in make things happen,” she said.

Afghanistan.

“We have a great team at the embassy. I don’t do anything on my own but “It was 2009 and everyone in the Afghan government had only a one-day sometimes I initiate a program. I am in a rare role. It’s not an official role but weekend — Friday. I knew I wanted to do something outside my work,” she I’m not there to have an official role,” she explained. “I am a full-time volunrecalled. “A friend who volunteered in an orphanage for the disabled invited teer focusing on social, cultural, educational and women’s empowerment prome to join her. I immediately became emotionally invested and decided to grams. I am usually there from nine to five every day, but now I am starting help them with their fundraising.” my maternity leave. It is also the beginning of Ramadan.”

Soon Lael started her own foundation, the Enabled Children Initiative, Despite embracing the duties of diplomacy, both Lael and Hamdullah are which advocates for Afghan orphans with special needs. “The charity goes still unaccustomed to the spotlight. pretty much where I go. We are all volunteers. You might call us global volun“We’re not used to having a public aspect to our lives. We still don’t conteers. Now, in Kabul we have access to a doctor, a physical therapist, a hospital sider ourselves to be public figures. We are very private people,” she said. “You and a school for the children. However, I’m the worst promoter and fundSEE DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES • PAGE 35 raiser,” she quipped.

“

I found Afghans very hospitable. They are beautiful people…. I fell in love with the country.

”

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 31

WD | Culture | Art

Cuba Comes In From Cold New Generation of Cuban Artists Transcends Politics at OAS •

BY KATE OCZYPOK

(Art)Xiomas - CUBAAHORA: The Next Generation THROUGH AUG. 7 OAS ART MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAS 201 18TH ST., NW

(202) 370-0147 | WWW.MUSEUM.OAS.ORG/

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uba and the Organization of American States (OAS) have not exactly been the best of friends. Even though Cuba was a founding member of the OAS, the country was effectively suspended from the bloc for much of its existence after Fidel Castro took power and relations between Washington and Havana tumbled.

While President Obama has made historic strides to end the Cold War estrangement between the U.S. and the communist island, Cuba’s relations with the D.C.-based OAS remain strained. Even though the OAS unanimously voted to readmit Cuba in 2009, Havana has said it has no interest in rejoining the bloc — a sentiment Cuban President Raúl Castro recently reiterated after the OAS called for sanctions against Venezuela (also see cover profile).

But a cutting-edge show this summer celebrating Cuban art at the OAS Art Museum of the Americas (AMA) demonstrates the ability of art to transcend politics. “(Art)Xiomas - CUBAAHORA: The Next Generation,” organized with SPAIN arts & culture, brings together 15 young Cuban artists whose creativity showcases their cultural expression of Cuba, both yesterday and today, through painting, engraving, photography, sculpture, design and video art.

“These artists promote the next generation,” said curator and Cuban art historian Gabriela García Azcuy. “This organization has an interest and a vision committed to defining democracy, human rights and social change.”

The show, in fact, is part of AMA’s centennial celebration of the birth of José Gómez-Sicre, the museum’s founding director. Gómez-Sicre was a noted Cuban lawyer, art critic and author who established one of the finest collections of modern Latin American and Caribbean art in the world. “(Art)Xiomas” continues Gómez-Sicre’s legacy of bringing fresh new artistic talent to the OAS exhibition space.

“Many of these artists are young but very well accomplished,” said Andrés Navia, director of the AMA. “They are sensitive to concepts and detail as well as quality.”

PHOTO: KATE OCZYPOK Artists such as Osmeivy Ortega Pacheco Above, visitors gather to admire the work of 15 young Cuban artists touch on environmental interests, using bits at the Art Museum of the Americas, including Grethell Rasúa’s of animals, plants and nature. Adislén Reyes striking photograph “Slippers and blood of Estheysis Menendez Pino incorporates a traditional Cuban cus(solo dancer of National Ballet of Cuba).” tom from the late 19th-century elite who decorated their homes with fine china that is accompanied with the description: “The best way to be en showcased the family’s monogram. She adds a pointe is giving it all.” It is both horrifying and reflective, forctwist by using dispensable cups and plates and ing viewers to stare at the image despite its rawness and consubstituting the original monogram for those template the ugly sacrifices behind the otherwise seemingly of various anonymous, working-class Cuban elegant profession. families to reflect on Cuba’s relationship with The turbulent political landscape that dominates Cuban hisits past. tory is woven into many of the pieces — sometimes literally.

Alex Hernández Dueñas, meanwhile, deJorge Otero’s straw-wrapped bodies from his “War Hero” series picts a series of eagles from different countries evoke the anonymous peasant workers who fought for Cuban to demonstrate how one unifying symbol can independence against Spain in the late 1800s. convey many different meanings. Adriana Beyond these obvious political and historical undercurrents, Arronte uses moths to elevate the everyday however, the overarching purpose of the show is to highlight insects and let viewers ponder the myths and the breadth of Cuban creativity and talent, from Gómez-Sicre’s superstitions behind living creatures. groundbreaking work decades ago to the artists emerging toPHOTO: ART MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAS Perhaps the most breathtaking section of day. the exhibit is a room punctuated by red, white and blue thread cascading from In addition to the exhibit, AMA is hosting a symposium on Sept. 15 that will the ceiling. One of the featured artists (who studied at elite art schools in Cuba) juxtapose Gómez-Sicre’s promotion of Cuban art — beginning with the 1944 put herself into a glass-enclosed cage and weaved red thread in and out around publication “Cuban Painting of Today” — with the efforts scholars, art museums her while she walked back and forth completely nude. The vulnerability and visu- and other institutions to support contemporary Cuban art. WD als harkened to the phrase “what a tangled web we weave.”

In another striking image, Grethell Rasúa trains her camera lens on the blood- Kate Oczypok (@OczyKate) is a contributing writer tipped pointe slippers of a ballerina from the National Ballet of Cuba. The photo for The Washington Diplomat.

32 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

WD | Culture | Theater

All-American Effort CATF Gears Up for Its 26th Year of Staging Contemporary American Works •

BY LISA TROSHINSKY

The Contemporary American Theater Festival JULY 8 TO 31 SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.VA

(800) 999-2283 | WWW.CATF.ORG

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he Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) will return to Shepherdstown, W.Va., for its 26th year this July, and its organizers are brimming with excitement.

The newest plays in America are once again about to descend on the oldest town in West Virginia, CATF founder and producing director Ed Herendeen excitedly told The Washington Diplomat.

“Our mission is to produce and develop new American theater — world premieres, as well as first and second productions of recently produced plays — plays where the playwright is still working on the script,” he said.

Herendeen said the festival, scheduled for July 8 to 31 on the campus of Shepherd University, gets bigger every year. Nearly 15,000 people attended from 37 states last year and even came from overseas.

“One of our goals is to increase international visitors,” he said. “In March, CATF was listed in World Guide [a publication based in Munich, Germany] as one of 10 best theater festivals this summer. Of the 10 listed, only three are festivals in the United States.”

Inclusive of the 2016 season, CATF will have produced 115 new plays, of which 43 were world premieres, by 80 different writers. About 42 percent of the plays are by women — nearly twice the national average of other theaters.

“We have a very specific mission: We’re one of a handful of theaters that focus solely on new work. I read over 100 submissions a year, narrow them down to about 125 and then choose five scripts out of those to produce,” Herendeen explained. “All the plays we choose have been written in the last year.”

The five chosen plays are performed in rotating repertoire, which means that over the course of two days, a theater-goer can see all five productions.

“This allows you to immerse yourself in new American theater,” he said.

Although the plays are unrelated to each other — “the plays are what’s on the minds of five different writers,” he said — some common themes tend to run through the five scripts.

One contemporary issue that resurfaces in a number of the plays this year is the idea of what it means to be “the other,” Herendeen said.

For example, the play “Second Girl,” written by Ronan Noone and directed

by Herendeen,” is set in 1912 New England and is an inventive take on Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey into Night” told through the eyes of the play’s servants. A cook and a maid, both Irish immigrants, as well as a chauffeur search for love and belonging while working for the play’s main characters, members of the Tyrone family, a wealthy, deeply disturbed family in Connecticut.

“The play is an exploration of what it means to be ‘home,’” Herendeen explained.

“What does ‘home’ mean to an immigrant? Home is a multifaceted word. This play looks at this current issue in today’s society; it references the turmoil around immigration.”

Another play to run this summer is “The Wedding Gift,” a comedy-drama and world premiere written by Chisa Hutchinson and directed by May Adrales. This play also explores the notion of being an outsider to a community, of being “the other.”

In the play, average man Doug finds himself at a wedding, not as a guest — but as a gift. He is surrounded by people who speak a language he’s never heard, and he then realizes he’s little more than a pet. The play is about a culture set in the future,

PHOTOS: SETH FREEMAN

Past productions at the Contemporary American Theater Festival include “North of the Boulevard,” above, and “Everything You Touch.”

where all the characters are people of color except for Doug.

By reversing roles and making the majority racial group in the U.S. — white people — the minority, “The Wedding Gift” flips what it means to be the other, Herendeen said.

“I don’t pick themes, but I see how the plays are related to each other in different ways,” he said. “I believe these five writers are listening to America, have their ears to the ground, and are telling America’s stories. The plays are a snapshot of the American landscape today.”

Also this summer, CATF is producing “pen/man/ship,” written by Christina Anderson and directed by Lucie Tiberghien, about an American surveyor in the late 1800s engaged by the government to survey land in Liberia to create a penal colony for African American offenders.

“Not Medea,” written by Allison Gregory and directed by Courtney Sale, is an explosive take on love and motherhood as a woman hijacks a theater play — and the audience.

Lastly, “20th Century Blues,” a world premiere by Susan Miller that’s directed

by Ed Herendeen, dissects time, memory and friendship. It tells the story of four decades of four strong women, who were arrested together in the 1970s and meet every year at a reunion of sorts amid the vagaries of love, careers, children, lost causes and tragedy.

“You hardly ever see plays with four leading ladies in the ’60s,” commented Herendeen.

While the five main plays are full productions that usually run two hours, the festival also offers supplemental programs that complement the full-length plays.

“One of the hallmarks of CATF is that we have a lot of auxiliary programs like staged readings of scripts we’re considering to produce in the future, scholarly sessions and late night salons where people can discuss the plays they’ve seen,” Herendeen said. “The experiences break down the barrier between artist and audience by unifying the two halves.” WD Lisa Troshinsky is the theater reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 33

WD | Culture | Dining

Local Obsession The Dabney Lives Up to Hype with Fierce Mid-Atlantic Focus •

BY MICHAEL COLEMAN

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ver the past year, no restaurant in Washington has generated as much buzz as the Dabney, chef Jeremiah Langhorne’s rustic ode to Mid-Atlantic cuisine.

The day after we dined at the funky-yet-elegant eightmonth-old eatery in the Shaw neighborhood in June, Food & Wine magazine named it one of the 10 best restaurants in America. Earlier, it ranked number eight on the Washington Post’s list of 10 best new restaurants. It’s easy to understand why. From the warm ambience, to the service, to the intriguing menu, to the dramatic flair of the kitchen, to the dazzling flavors bursting off the plates, the Dabney consistently hits impressive notes.

But first: Plan ahead to get a table. Last we checked in midJune, the Dabney’s 55 seats were booked solid almost three weeks in advance. We managed to snag a reservation at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday — not an ideal booking — but we took what we could get. We’re immensely glad we did.

Langhorne, a 31-year-old D.C. native who honed his culinary chops on the inventive and competitive food scene in Charleston, S.C., is fiercely committed to local ingredients.

In fact, he says an impressive 90 percent of everything on his menu is sourced from local and regional farmers, or from the small garden on the roof of his restaurant. Indeed, much of what arrived at our table tasted almost freakishly fresh.

Take, for example, a bowl of strawberry gazpacho with Maryland blue crab and lime topped with “anise hyssop,” or a few leaves of locally grown, glistening green mint.

Beautiful to behold and equally impressive on the palate, the chilled soup had a slight crunch, rendering it almost as more of a compote than a soup. The combination of organic strawberries (none of those genetically engineered, store-bought berries here), lime and mint was tart and sweet, without being cloying. Delicate slivers of white crab meat added a subtle, briny complexity.

The gazpacho was a terrifically flavorful and perfectly seasonal start to an early summer dinner.

Next up was lightly smoked Atlantic mackerel with a confit potato salad, parsley, dill and egg. This dish was also beautifully presented, with chunks of mackerel resting on a pinwheel of potatoes and greens centered by a sliced, soft-boiled egg whose yolk was still a bit gooey.

A touch of smoky-tangy mustard hid subtly in the mix, accentuating the mackerel’s rich flavor.

Diners at the Dabney can take one of two approaches to their meal. Either order two or three (or four if you’re really hungry) small plates apiece, or share one of the main entrée selections and order a couple of smaller plates and maybe a side dish or two to round out the meal. We opted for the latter approach.

Our final small plate order — a dish of Chesapeake rockfish — was perhaps the only misstep of the meal. It’s not that the rockTHE DABNEY fish was bad; on the contrary, it was quite tender and flavorful.

122 BLAGDEN ALLEY, NW But for $17, the portion size — barely the size of half a deck of (202) 450-1015 cards — was absurd. The delicate chunk of fish was scattered with butter-poached leek, snap peas, a small dollop of meyer lemon WWW.THEDABNEY.COM custard, lettuce and tarragon. Again, it made for a lovely presentation, prompting my friend to note that it felt as if we were “eating a work of art.” Indeed. Unfortunately, this culinary picture wasn’t worth the price.

Our main entrée — an order of roasted pork loin from Whistle Pig Hollow farm in Reisterstown, Md. — put us back on track. The meat was plentiful and tender, served with smoked potatoes and grilled green garlic, radish and broccoli rabe. While the pork was delectable, especially those charred ends of the loin, we both raved about the smoked potatoes lightly dressed in a tangy, creamy hollandaise-style sauce.

L8 We note that the potatoes were smoked, not tradition- 727 15TH ST., NW ally baked or roasted as in so many kitchens. Langhorne relies on an old-school hearth to fire his kitchen instead of (202) 506-7006 fancy modern stoves and ovens, and it gives him inspira- WWW.L8LOUNGEDC.COM tion to do things normal kitchens don’t. Long sticks of oak and hickory stacked into a box burned ferociously in the center of the kitchen throughout our meal, with the embers heating a grill, griddle and other cooking devices. A giant — and somehow quiet — ventilation system sucks the smoke and heat up and away from the dining room.

On the night we had dinner at the Dabney, Langhorne was front and center in the open kitchen, announcing orders, directing his cooks and occasionally confer34 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

PHOTO: ANDREW CEBULKA

Above, chef Jeremiah Langhorne works in an open kitchen at the Dabney, his rustic ode to Mid-Atlantic cuisine in the Shaw neighborhood. At left, the Ivy Room is a new cocktail lounge that opened along a formerly dilapidated stretch of New York Avenue in Northeast.

ring with servers and even diners. In fact, one of the most enjoyable elements of our meal was watching an accomplished and busy chef and his team work their magic. In D.C., at least for the moment, the Dabney is as close to culinary magic as you’ll find.

LATE-NIGHT LIBATIONS PHOTO: JOHN ROBINSON

Diplomat readers, many of whom enjoy Washington’s varied and ever-evolving nightlife, have two intriguing and sophisticated new choices for enjoying a libation on the town: Ivy Room and L8.

The Ivy Room is a new cocktail lounge that opened in June as part of the booming brewing and distillery scene underway along a formerly dilapidated stretch of New York Avenue in Northeast. Real estate magnate Douglas Jemal has bet big on the small neighborhood known as Ivy City and his gamble is starting to pay off. Jemal converted the old Hecht’s warehouse into stylish — and rapidly filling — luxury apartments, and major national retailers such as Nike and Petco have also opened stores in the area, with more on the way.

The neighborhood is also home to Atlas Brewing Works, the Green Hat Gin distillery and Re- IVY ROOM public Restoratives Distillery, where the new Ivy 1369 NEW YORK AVE., NE Room is situated.

On June 8, co-owners Rachel Gardner and Pia (202) 733-3947 Carusone, a former chief of staff for Arizona Con- WWW.REPUBLICRESTORATIVES.COM gresswoman Gabby Giffords, welcomed Giffords and her astronaut husband Mark Kelly, as well as Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and a couple hundred other stylishly clad Washingtonians to a grand opening party. We were impressed by the room’s minimal but warm décor — a modern combination of wood, glass and dark steel, and even more impressed by the cocktails.

The 800-square-foot space serves up a classic and refreshing Moscow Mule made with the bar’s own in-house ginger beer, a vodka tonic using a housemade tonic and Ivy Room’s signature Ivy City Swizzle, accentuated with fresh mint.

L8 is another newcomer to the D.C.’s lounge/club scene. The nightclub is situated in an underground space near the White House that has seen a succession of clubs come and go over the past decade and a half. D.C. nightlife impresario Antonis Karagounis, who also owns Ultrabar, Soundcheck, Barcode and the live music venue SEE DINING • PAGE 35

WD | Culture | Dining

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DIPLOMAT DINING GUIDE Diplomatic Spouses CONTINUED • PAGE 31

PHOTO: TANIA HAUYON

L8 nightclub is situated in an underground space near the White House.

Dining CONTINUED • PAGE 34

Echostage, is hoping L8 will have staying power. Our first glance suggests strong potential.

The 3,000-square-foot venue can accommodate 220 patrons under shimmering chandeliers and atmospheric lighting that reveals exposed brick, lighted mirrors, polished concrete flooring and white leather walls against a color scheme of dark blue, crimson, regal purple and black. A turbo-charged sound system pumps top 40 favorites, mash-ups, Latin, international, EDM and hip-hop spun by a live deejay.

If you’re looking for a high-energy night out, L8 provides an appealing new option, while the Ivy Room offers a nice place to kick back and chill with friends over cocktails. Both are welcome additions to D.C. nightlife. WD Michael Coleman (@michaelcoleman) is the dining reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

could be at something every night but we always look for family time. I like my time with my daughter, alone.

“Even though we have a chef at the embassy, I cook for my husband,” she added.

“Sometimes, my daughter and I cook together. I make Afghan food only for him but we eat a mixture of cuisines, including American.”

As far as relaxing, Lael said she is very low key. “I read a lot. I’m reading ‘War and Peace’ right now but I am a very slow reader so that will take awhile. I like [Leo] Tolstoy too. I love to take walks, which is one thing you don’t get to do in Kabul. You can go outside and go to a shop or something, but you wouldn’t just go for a walk.”

Despite 15 years of American nationbuilding efforts, Afghanistan remains a dangerous place, especially as U.S. troops continue to draw down by the end of the year.

Poverty, endemic graft and relentless attacks by the Taliban are among the seemingly intractable problems facing this tribal nation of 31 million. But Afghanistan has made tangible gains in areas such as education and women’s rights since the U.S. invaded the country after the 9/11 attacks, and Lael is eager to dispel some of the myths surrounding her adopted homeland.

“There are a lot more similarities between Afghanistan and the United States than people think. Both countries are traditional with strong family values and strong love of country.” She added that Afghans, like Americans, work hard. “Afghans just get on

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with daily life. They are very resilient people.

They do amazing things with very little … when you see this, you need fewer materialistic things in your life.”

Lael pointed out that 75 percent of Afghans are under the age of 35. “Very few are over 50,” she said. “Afghans grow up much faster. My husband is one of those. He is not unique. Age is relative. These young Afghans were born into war. They had to deal with loss and replacement. They don’t take anything for granted. It’s not how many years you’ve lived but what you have done with those years.

“Afghanistan is not a failure,” she stressed.

“Unfortunately, too often Americans see or hear negative stories…. People deserve to see the big picture.”

To that end, Ghani, a former World Bank technocrat, has his work cut out for him.

“President Ghani has declared this the ‘Decade of Transformation.’ Everyday progress is hard to see. You have to be patient,” Lael counseled, applauding the president’s focus on improving the lives of women, particularly rural women.

“It is a new day for women in Afghanistan. President Ghani has launched a women’s empowerment agenda. There are more women in politics and education and a very active first lady.”

She noted that the country’s first public women-only university will break ground this year and that more women serve in gov-

ernment than ever before. Still, Lael admits major challenges remain in a patriarchal society where child marriage and honor killings sometimes command global headlines.

“It is unfortunate that negative antidotes about domestic abuse and women killed get the most attention. There is no denial that they still exist, but the country is addressing that. American people deserve to know [the positive stories], particularly the American military who have helped us so much.”

To show Americans a different side of Afghanistan, Lael has been busy volunteering for several projects.

“We did the Embassy Adoption Program with the fifth grade at John Eaton Elementary. The students learned to sing the national anthem in Pashto,” she said. “We also had a job opportunity conference where we had Afghans here and elsewhere calling in on Skype from the U.K., Bangladesh and Kabul, among other places. They were interested in upgrading their jobs at home. We were sending them a message: Afghanistan needs you.”

She has also been spreading the word about the “Turquoise Mountain: Artists Transforming Afghanistan,” which will be on view at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery through January 2017 (also see “Turquoise Mountain Rebuilds Afghan Artisan Heritage” in the April 2016 issue of The WashSEE DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES • PAGE 39 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 35

WD | Culture | Film

Cinema Listings *Unless specific times are listed, please check the theater for times. Theater locations are subject to change.

Cantonese Happiness Directed by Andy Lo (Hong Kong, 2016, 113 min.)

A woman suffering from Alzheimer’s takes under her wing an aimless young man who has come to Hong Kong to look for the father who abandoned him.

Together these wounded souls make a family of their own in this touching drama.

American History Museum Fri., July 15, 7 p.m.

Ip Man 3 Directed by Wilson Yip (Hong Kong, 2015, 105 min.)

In the third installment of this popular franchise, Donnie Yen reprises his role as the real-life kung fu master best known for having trained a young Bruce Lee. In this edition, Ip is settling into life as a family man, but he’s soon called to protect Hong Kong from a ruthless American businessman (Mike Tyson) who is trying to make a land grab.

American History Museum Sun., July 31, 2 p.m.

My Young Auntie Directed by Lau Kar-Leung (Hong Kong, 1981, 100 min.)

Kara Wai won her first Hong Kong Film Award for her effervescent performance in this delightful kung fu comedy in which she plays a young student who marries her dying teacher to keep his inheritance away from his untrustworthy relatives.

American History Museum Sun., July 17, 2 p.m.

Office Directed by Johnnie To (Hong Kong/China, 2015, 117 min.)

“Office’ depicts the ups and downs — romantic and financial — of a financial firm’s staff during 2008’s global economic turmoil (Cantonese and Mandarin).

American History Museum Sat., July 30, 2 p.m.

Ten Years Directed by Ng La-leung (Hong Kong, 2015, 104 min.)

See the micro-budget sci-fi omnibus that beat “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” at the Hong Kong box office. Made for the equivalent of about $70,000, this collection of five short films, each by a different director, speculates darkly on what Hong Kong will look like in 2025.

American History Museum Sun., July 24, 2 p.m.

English Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie Directed by Mandie Fletcher (U.K./U.S., 2016) Edina and Patsy are still oozing glitz

and glamour, shopping, drinking and clubbing their way around London’s trendiest hotspots. Blamed for a major incident at a fashionable launch party, they become entangled in a media storm. Fleeing penniless to the glamorous playground of the super-rich, the French Riviera, they hatch a plan to make their escape permanent.

AFI Silver Theatre Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., July 22

and foster care, gets a fresh start in the New Zealand countryside, where he quickly finds himself at home with his new foster family. When a tragedy strikes that threatens to ship Ricky to another home, both he and his cantankerous Uncle Hec go on the run in the bush and a national manhunt ensues.

AFI Silver Theatre Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., July 1

Arabesque

Directed by James Schamus (U.S., 2016, 110 min.)

Amidst the conformity and political conservatism of 1950s America, a young Jewish man from New Jersey avoids the Korean War draft and joins a Christian college in Ohio instead, but finds himself at odds with everyone from classmates to the dean, especially in matters of religion, or lack of it.

Washington DCJCC Tue., July 19, 7:30 p.m.

Directed by Stanley Donen (U.S., 1966, 105 min.)

Asked to crack a hieroglyphic code, American-at-Oxford professor Gregory Peck becomes embroiled, along with mystery woman Sophia Loren, in a plot to assassinate a Middle Eastern politician.

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., July 3, 2 p.m.

A Bigger Splash Directed by Luca Guadagnino (Italy/France, 2016, 124 min.)

A sensuous portrait of desire, jealousy and rock ‘n’ roll under the Mediterranean sun, “A Bigger Splash” stars Tilda Swinton as a rock legend who’s recuperating on the volcanic island of Pantelleria with her partner Paul. When iconoclast record producer and old flame Harry unexpectedly arrives with his daughter and interrupts their holiday, he brings with him an A-bomb blast of nostalgia from which there can be no rescue.

Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema

Birth Directed by Jonathan Glazer (U.S./U.K./Germany/France, 2004, 100 min.)

After a decade of grieving the death of her young husband Sean, Anna (Nicole Kidman) is ready to move on and marry her boyfriend. Then a mysterious boy arrives, also named Sean, claiming to be the reincarnation of her dead husband — and he knows things only Sean could know.

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., July 3, 4:20 p.m., Wed., July 6, 9 p.m.

Eat that Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words Directed by Thorsten Schütte (France/Germany, 2016, 90 min.)

Iconoclastic composer and musician Frank Zappa was an unforgettable character, aggravating and fascinating, whose music never became “popular,” but who had an enthusiastic worldwide following, including in Lithuania where fans erected a statue of him. This engaging, intimate portrait reveals a 20th-century musical genius.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., July 1

Hunt for the Wilderpeople Directed by Taika Waititi (New Zealand, 2016, 93 min.)

Defiant city kid Ricky, raised on hip-hop

36 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

Indignation

Les Cowboys Directed by Thomas Bidegain (France, 2015, 104 min.)

Country and Western enthusiast Alain is enjoying an outdoor gathering of fellow devotees with his wife and teenage children when his daughter abruptly vanishes. Learning that she’s eloped with her Muslim boyfriend, he embarks on an increasingly obsessive quest to track her down. As the years pass and the trail grows cold, Alain sacrifices everything, while drafting his son into his efforts (English and French).

Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema

The Lobster Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (Greece/Ireland/Netherlands/U.K. France, 2016, 118 min.)

In this highly imaginative, absurdist comedy, Colin Farrell stars as a man who has just been dumped by his wife.

To make matters worse, he lives in a dystopian society where single people have 45 days to find true love, or else they are turned into the animal of their choice and released into the woods.

Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Love & Friendship

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | July 2016 created by acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Blending performance footage, personal interviews and archival film, the documentary follows this group of diverse musicians as they explore the power of music to preserve tradition, shape cultural evolution and inspire hope.

Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Our Kind of Traitor Directed by Susanna White (U.K./France, 2016, 108 min.)

While on holiday in Marrakech, an ordinary English couple, befriend a flamboyant and charismatic Russian, who unbeknownst to them is a kingpin money launderer for the Russian mafia.

When he asks for their help to deliver classified information to the British Secret Services, the couple gets caught in a dangerous world of international espionage and dirty politics (English, Russian and French).

Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., July 1

Seoul Searching Directed by Benson Lee (South Korea/China/U.S., 2016, 105 min.)

During the 1980s, the Korean government created a special summer camp for “gyopo” or foreign born teenagers where they could spend their summer in Seoul to learn about their motherland. While the intentions of the program were honorable, the activities of the teens were not (English, Korean and German).

Angelika Pop-Up at Union Market Opens Fri., July 1

Sing Street Directed by John Carney (Ireland/U.K./U.S., 2016, 106 min.)

Dublin in the 1980s is seen through the eyes of a 14-year-old boy who is looking for a break from a home strained by his parents’ relationship and money troubles, while trying to adjust to his new inner-city public school where the kids are rough and the teachers are rougher. Trying to impress a beautiful classmate, he forms a band with a few lads, and the group pours their heart into writing lyrics and shooting videos.

Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema

Directed by Whit Stillman (Ireland/Netherlands/France/U.S., 2016, 94 min.)

Beautiful young widow Lady Susan Vernon takes up temporary residence at her in-laws’ estate to wait out colorful rumors about her dalliances and to be a matchmaker for her daughter Frederica — and herself too, naturally.

Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Tickled

The Music of Strangers

What We Do in the Shadows

Directed by Morgan Neville (U.S., 2016, 96 min.)

Named for the ancient trade route linking Asia, Africa and Europe, the Silk Road Ensemble is an international collective

Directed by Taiki Waititi (New Zealand/U.S., 2015, 86 min.)

An endearingly unhip quartet of vampires (ranging in age from 183 to 8,000 years old) squabble over household

Directed by David Farrier and Dylan Reeve (New Zealand, 2016, 92 min.)

Journalist David Farrier stumbles upon a mysterious tickling competition online. As he delves deeper, he comes up against fierce resistance, but that doesn’t stop him getting to the bottom of a story stranger than fiction.

Atlantic Plumbing Cinema

chores, struggle to keep up with the latest trends, antagonize the local werewolves and deal with the rigors of living on a very, very strict diet.

AFI Silver Theatre July 1 to 3

Zero Days Directed by Alex Gibney (U.S., 2016, 114 min.)

For the first time, a film tells the alarming complete story of Stuxnet, a piece of self-replicating computer malware that was apparently unleashed by the U.S. and Israel to destroy a key part of an Iranian nuclear facility, and which ultimately spread beyond its intended target (English, Farsi, German and French).

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., July 8

French The Innocents (Les innocents) Directed by Anne Fontaine (France/Poland, 2016, 115 min.)

In 1945 Poland, a young French Red Cross doctor who is sent to assist the survivors of World War II German camps discovers several nuns in advanced states of pregnancy during a visit to a nearby convent. Fearing the shame of exposure, the hostility of the new anti-Catholic Communist government and facing an unprecedented crisis of faith, the nuns increasingly turn to the worker as their belief and traditions clash with harsh realities (French, Polish and Russian).

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., July 8

Japanese Our Little Sister (Umimachi Diary) Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda (Japan, 2015, 128 min.)

Three sisters live together in their late grandmother’s house ever since their father left home for another woman.

After the death of their father, the trio learn about the existence of a 13-yearold half-sister, who comes to live with them.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., July 15

Korean My Love, Don’t Cross That River Directed by Mo-young Jin (South Korea, 2014, 86 min.)

A couple who have lived together for 76 years faces the last moments of their marriage.

Angelika Pop-Up at Union Market Opens Fri., July 8

Mandarin The Mermaid Directed by Stephen Chow (China/Hong Kong, 2016, 94 min.)

When an island development threatens their habitat, a mermaid family sends one of its number to assassinate the greedy entrepreneur. But instead of using her sack of weaponized sea urchins to kill him, she falls in love.

American History Museum Sat., July 23, 2 p.m.

Spanish

Microbe and Gasoline (Microbe et Gasoil)

Academy of the Muses (La academia de las musas)

Directed by Michel Gondry (France, 2015, 103 min.)

Microbe, a shy, aspiring artist, has trouble making friends at school until he meets Gasoline, a likeminded outcast.

Together they hatch a plan to build a car and spend their summer on an epic road trip across France.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., July 15

Directed by José Luis Guerín (Spain, 2016, 92 min.)

When he returns from teaching class, a professor of philology is interrogated by his wife, who distrusts his pedagogical approach, and his Academy of the Muses, which, inspired by classical references, is intended to regenerate the world through poetry (Spanish, Catalan and Italian).

National Gallery of Art Sun., July 17, 4 p.m.

Phantom Boy Directed by Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol (France/Belgium, 2016, 84 min.)

A super-powered boy helps a wheelchair-bound policeman in his attempt to bring down a mob kingpin in this animated film.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., July 29

Pierrot Le Fou Directed by Jean-Luc Godard (France/Italy, 1965, 110 min.)

An existentially conflicted husband and father, inspires the latter to run off with babysitter/former girlfriend/gangster Anna Karina on a road trip to the South of France, but murder and mayhem shadow their frolic.

AFI Silver Theatre Mon., July 4, 7:15 p.m.

Tamil Dheepan Directed by Jacques Audiard (France, 2016, 115 min.)

Dheepan is a Tamil freedom fighter who flees his native Sri Lanka when the civil war is reaching its end. At a refugee camp, he joins a woman and a little girl, both strangers, to pretend to be a family, hoping that they will make it easier for him to claim political asylum. Arriving in Paris, Dheepan finds work as the caretaker of a run-down housing block in the suburbs, where he works to build a new life and a real home for his “wife” and his “daughter,” but the daily violence he confronts in his new neighborhood quickly reopens his war wounds (Tamil, French and English).

Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema

EU Continued • page 21

But European terrorism has been around since at least the 1960s, said O’Sullivan, recalling that as a boy growing up in Ireland, bombs were an everyday occurrence.

“Terrorism is not a new phenomenon,” he said, ticking off the Irish Republican Army, Germany’s Baader-Meinhof gang and the Basque separatist group ETA. “We’ve overcome it in the past, and we’ll overcome it in the future.

But the thing we must not do is fall into the trap set by the terrorists — of allowing them to divide our societies or to provoke us into excessive reactions which actually turn us into recruiting centers for those very same terrorist organizations.”

O’Sullivan said the solution ultimately lies in stopping Syria’s civil war and getting urgent help to Syria’s neighbors, “which have borne the brunt of that crisis.” That includes overcrowded Lebanon, where Syrian refugees comprise a fourth of the country’s population, and Jordan, where one in seven inhabitants is now a Syrian refugee — as well as Turkey, which is home to 2.5 million refugees.

“These people don’t want to leave their country. They’re being driven out of their country,” he said. “We have an obligation to show understanding for their situation and to respect our international obligations under the Geneva Conventions to protect and offer asylum to those people who are fleeing conflict and persecution. They don’t see a future for themselves as long as this conflict continues, so they turn to the next most attractive place, which is Europe.”

Absorbing even 2 million refugees for a wealthy continent of 508 million inhabitants would not be too difficult on a continental scale, he said. “But unfortunately, we don’t manage refugees and asylum-seekers on a continental scale.

We manage it at the level of each member state. Germany alone has had to absorb 1.2 million asylum seekers, which is equivalent to 5 million in the United States.”

Far more dramatic is the case of cash-strapped Greece, whose 11 million people have absorbed 1 million Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi and other refugees; this is equivalent to the United States taking in 32 million desperately poor people.

“If faced with a challenge on that scale, the U.S. would also have to struggle to find an immediate answer,” O’Sullivan said, adding that these refugees and asylum-seekers have legal rights.

“When these people knock on your door, you cannot simply open the door and close it again, or give them a piece of paper and tell them to come back in a few years,” said the ambassador. “We are legally required to bring them in, look after them, house them, offer them shelter, medical needs and process their application for asylum in accordance with international law. We cannot pretend this is not happening.”

But human rights critics say that

Ndumiso Mngadi of the Embassy of South Africa and Lungelo Mngadi.

under a new EU pact with Turkey, that’s precisely what is happening.

Turkey has offered to swap refugees traveling the Mediterranean route to Greece for Syrian refugees already vetted in Turkey in a controversial deal that promises Ankara visa-free travel to the EU and sped-up talks on joining the bloc in return for clamping down on migration. Despite the criticism, O’Sullivan said that Turkey is key in the current attempt to slow down the exodus of asylumseekers.

“Our objective is not permanent migration, but to create a peaceful situation in Syria to which they can return and build a future.

We’re asking the Turkish authorities to help us block the cynical exploitation of these refugees by smugglers,” he explained. “We have said we will provide additional resources to help refugees already in Turkey. This money is not for Turkey or the Turkish government, but for the refugees. We’re trying to break the grip of smugglers and put in place a much more efficient and humane way of dealing with the refugee crisis.”

What about Eastern European countries like Hungary, which have no tradition in general of taking in outsiders — and particularly Muslims — and have erected barriers to keep migrants out?

“Some member states feel it is not fair to ask them to accept refugees who were not looking to go to their countries but who have landed elsewhere,” said O’Sullivan. “If you manage this on a continental scale, then 2 or 3 million refugees would not mean a very heavy burden for any one country. But if you don’t, then you necessarily push the responsibility onto the frontline states like Italy and Greece, or those countries that have announced a willingness to accept refugees, such as Germany or Sweden.”

The dilemma, he admitted, has led to unprecedented disagreements following the European Council’s November 2015 decision to relocate 160,000 refugees throughout Europe. But some leaders, notably Hungarian Presi-

John Boothroyd of Rep. John Moolenaar’s (R-Mich.) office and Katherine Zublin of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

dent Viktor Orbán, oppose the mandatory quota plan and have called for a national referendum on the subject.

“We have, for the first time in the EU’s history, a situation where some member states have said that, ‘Well, that may be a legal decision, but we don’t feel very comfortable implementing it.’ This is a very serious situation and we have to deal with it,” said O’Sullivan — though he added that ultimately, the EU itself is built on solidarity.

“All of our member states come to Brussels at some point looking for help from other member states. That’s how we function,” he said. “We cannot ignore the pressure on frontline states, particularly Italy and Greece. We have to share this burden equitably or it will become unsustainable — but we cannot abandon our very important European commitment to humanitarian values. We have to show an example to the world.” WD

European Union Ambassador David O’Sullivan talks with news editor Larry Luxner.

The Embassy of Albania’s Eni Juca and Daniela Kristo Nesho, Lendita Haxhitasim of the Embassy of Kosovo and Mamica Toska of the Embassy of Albania.

Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

Maria Martinez of Border Federal Credit Union, Carlos Calderon of the OAS Federal Credit Union and Natalie Martinez of the European Union Liaison Office to Congress.

Stephanie Misar, Stephanie Fassier of the World Affairs Council and Daniel Siegeltuch of the World Affairs Council.

Rocio Velluttini of the Peru Trade, Tourism and Investment Office, Yaprak Servi of the World Bank and Luis Change of the Peru Trade, Tourism and Investment Office.

Wolfgang Köhling of the World Bank, Cristina Gospodin and Jennifer Logsdon of the Sofitel Washington, D.C.

Susan Kelly of Absolute Travel, Olivier Behra, Rebecca Martin and Losang Ragbeq.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 37

WD | Culture | Events

Events Listings *Unless specific times are listed, please check the venue for times. Venue locations are subject to change.

ART July 1 to 30

Flesh + Bone II Hillyer Art Space presents its second bi-annual exhibition that focuses on contemporary figurative art, providing a fresh look at the familiar subject of the human figure from artists across North America. Also on view is a solo exhibition of new abstract paintings by local artist Kayla Plosz Antiel.

Hillyer Art Space July 2 to Sept. 5

ICEBERGS Designed by James Corner Field Operations, the installation opens as part of the annual “Summer Block Party” series. “ICEBERGS” is built from re-usable construction materials, such as scaffolding and polycarbonate paneling, a material commonly used in building greenhouses. The 20-inch-high “water line” allows panoramic views from high above the ocean surface and down below among the towering bergs.

National Building Museum July 2 to July 9, 2017

Perspectives: Michael Joo Inspired by the migration patterns of Korean red-crowned cranes, Brooklyn-based artist Michael Joo has created a monumental installation specifically for the Freer|Sackler. The birds’ movements are visualized as lines in space in this combination of painting, sculpture, photography, digital scanning and printmaking.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery July 3 to Jan. 2

Recent Acquisitions of Dutch and Flemish Drawings “Recent Acquisitions of Dutch and Flemish Drawings” encompasses landscapes, seascapes, portraits, still lifes and history subjects that demonstrate the originality of Dutch and Flemish draftsmanship and its stylistic evolution.

National Gallery of Art July 8 to Aug. 1

POP of Kolor In this electric mashup of American pop art with Korean traditional art, Kwang Nyun Song and Kungjoo Park re-envision this iconic American art style with unique techniques and motifs to create an irresistible Korean twist on a signature genre. Park’s “The Fantastic Play” expresses the complexity of human beings, who are each filled with different sides to their personality, simultaneously capturing the beautiful, precious side that we often want to reveal, as well as the immature, superficial nature we hide in our hearts. Meanwhile, Song

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | July 2016 delineated world.

House of Sweden

inserts peony blossoms or butterflies — a central motif of Korean traditional folk paintings — into Korean embroidery techniques and infuses portraits of symbolic figures with the concepts of American pop art.

Korean Cultural Center

Through Aug. 31

Escape Routes Currently, 60 million people worldwide are fleeing civil wars, persecution and poverty. Immigration and travel restrictions at the borders of wealthy European countries or on the U.S.-Mexican border, for instance, cannot stop the flow of refugees searching for a better life. In “Escape Routes,” a project by the group REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT, digital drawings and pictures made from lace depict migration movements and their causes. The stylized narratives focus on the topic of mutual interdependence in a globalized world undergoing rapid transition.

Goethe-Institut Washington

Through July 24

America’s Shakespeare “America’s Shakespeare” reveals how Americans have made Shakespeare our own using a fascinating selection of rare letters, costumes, books and more.

Folger Shakespeare Library Through July 24

Three Centuries of American Prints from the National Gallery of Art Since opening in 1941, the gallery has amassed an outstanding collection of American prints representing the history of American art from the early 18th century to the present.

Timed to coincide with the gallery’s 75th anniversary, this first comprehensive exhibition of American prints to encompass three centuries will highlight some 160 works from the gallery’s collection National Gallery of Art Through July 29

Caribbean in Motion: Improving Lives through Artistry and Animation This video-based exhibit by Caribbean artists pays tribute to the Bahamas, host of the 2016 annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank Board of Governors. “Caribbean in Motion” explores the multifaceted social and economic benefits generated by the animation industry, underscoring the importance of nurturing a vibrant creative economy.

Animation, the art of illustrating video sequences, has huge potential as both a business and an art form that supports sustainable social and economic development in the Caribbean.

Inter-American Development Bank Cultural Center Through July 31

Heart of an Empire: Herzfeld’s Discover of Pasargadae Located in southwestern Iran, Pasargadae was the first capital of the ancient Achaemenid Persian Empire (circa 540 B.C.) and the last resting place of Cyrus the Great. Impressed with its ruins, German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld (1879–1948) briefly surveyed the site for the first time in 1905, returning to conduct more extensive excavations. Featuring selections from the Freer|Sackler Archives’ rich holdings of Herzfeld’s drawings, notes and photographs, this exhibition illuminates one of the most important sites of the ancient world.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

38 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

Photo: Francisco Guerra

The 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall featured programs on China and Kenya.

This year’s festival focuses on the Basque region and sounds of California.

Through July 31

She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World This landmark exhibition of more than 80 photographs and a video installation challenges stereotypes surrounding the people, landscapes and cultures of Iran and the Arab world.

National Museum of Women in the Arts Through Aug. 6

Masterworks from the Hirshhorn Collection Joseph Hirshhorn, whose 1966 gift to the nation of nearly 6,000 works led to the creation of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, was a passionate and knowledgeable collector. Since its opening in 1974, the Hirshhorn has carried on its founder’s legacy through an active and ambitious program of acquisitions. Its highly regarded collection charts the development of modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century to the present, across the world, and across media.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Through Aug. 7

(Art)Xiomas – CUBAAHORA: The Next Generation This contemporary Cuban art exhibit, organized with SPAIN arts & culture, is also part of a larger cooperative effort to celebrate contemporary Cuban art and the centennial of the Art Museum of the Americas’s founding director, José Gómez Sicre. The featured artists favor fresh aesthetics while recognizing historical contexts, whose discourses are more autobiographical than politically contextualized. Exhibition participants shy away neither from committing themselves to projects with cultural institutions nor to working independently. Thus

they penetrate and overcome barriers that for too long have characterized the timeline of Cuban cultural cooperation.

Art Museum of the Americas Through Aug. 14

Bandits & Heroes, Poets & Saints: Popular Art of the Northeast of Brazil During the slave trade, 10 times more Africans were brought in bondage into Brazil than into the United States, and Northeast Brazil has the largest population of those of African descent outside Africa. This exhibit explores how the ancient cultures of Africa blended with indigenous and colonial Portuguese traditions to form the vibrant and complex cultural mosaic of modern Brazil.

American University Museum Katzen Arts Center Through Aug. 14

Contemporary North Korean Art: The Evolution of Socialist Realism Does art exist in North Korea? For many, this has been an open question. This exhibit, the first of its kind in the United States, seeks to broaden understanding of North Korean art beyond stereotypes of propaganda and kitsch to show sophisticated and nuanced expressive achievements. It investigates previously unrevealed evidence of North Korean artistic experimentation, and the nation’s particular evolution of socialist realism within its own culturally homogeneous context. Coinciding with the exhibition of North Korean art, the show “Examining Life Through Social Realities” documents and examines life and the social realities of people living on the Korean peninsula through the realist paintings of 10 South Korean contemporary artists.

American University Museum Katzen Arts Center

Through Aug. 14

The Looking Glass: Artist Immigrants of Washington The Alper Initiative for Washington Art presents this exhibit featuring the work of 10 artists who left Latin America for many different reasons over the last 60 years — primarily for safety, freedom and opportunity — and made their homes, and their artistic careers and contributions, in the Washington region.

American University Museum Katzen Arts Center Through Aug. 26

Inside Tracks This photographic exhibition documents the extraordinary journey of Robyn Davidson, a 27-year-old Australian woman who set off to cross the desolate outback, accompanied only by four camels and a dog. Rick Smolan, the American photographer assigned by National Geographic to document her journey, had his own adventure tracking Robyn down in the desert. The outback of Australia, seen through Robyn’s eyes and Rick’s camera, is an ancient, awesome landscape swept by rain, heat and dust.

Embassy of Australia Through Aug. 28

Mats Ek - A Dance Rebel on the Move for 40 Years Theatrical and wild, with a robust, physical humor and a highly personal movement style — those are some landmarks of Swedish choreographer and director Mats Ek. Since his debut in 1976, his works have stirred and captivated audiences and his reworking’s of ballet classics such as “Giselle” and “Swan Lake” have become classics themselves. This exhibition showcases the insight and sensitivity with which photographer Lesley Leslie-Spinks has captured Mats’s highly personal and precisely

Through Sept. 4

Stories of Migration: Contemporary Artists Interpret Diaspora In this juried and invitational exhibition, 44 artists share personal and universal stories of migration — from historic events that scattered communities across continents to today’s accounts of migrants and refugees adapting to a new homeland. The artists explore: historic events that scattered people and cultures across continents; today’s accounts of migrants from Syria, Latin America and Africa adapting to new homes; and personal experiences of family members. The exhibition will feature works by artists such as fashion designer Hussein Chalayan, Mexican-American fiber artist Consuelo Jiménez Underwood, French-Togolese artist William Adjété Wilson and American artists Faith Ringgold and Penny Mateer.

The George Washington University Museum Textile Museum Through Sept. 11

William Merritt Chase: A Modern Master William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), a renowned figure in the international art circles of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was a brilliant observer of contemporary life, an innovative painter and an influential teacher. Presented on the centennial of his death, this retrospective — the first in over three decades — will explore the interrelationships in Chase’s work across subject and media, from portraits and figurative paintings, to urban park scenes, domestic interiors, still lifes and landscapes.

The Phillips Collection Through Sept. 16

Murals from a Great Canadian Train In 1953, Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) purchased 173 brand-new stainless steel rail cars from the Budd

WD | Culture | Events Company of Philadelphia.

With the glass ceiling design in its Vista Dome cars, “The Canadian” became the quintessential crosscountry train experience. To highlight the natural beauty along the route and to promote tourism, CPR decided that Canada’s national and provincial parks should be the inspiration for the interior design of “The Canadian” rail cars. In 1954, the Royal Canadian Academy was asked to coordinate the selection of leading Canadian artists to paint murals for each of the 18 Vista Dome cars. The murals are of parks from every province and three are by members of Canada’s famed “Group of Seven” artists: A.Y. Jackson, A.J. Casson and Edwin Holgate. The Embassy of the Canada is delighted to showcase these murals and the everlasting beauty of Canada’s national and provincial parks.

Embassy of Canada Art Gallery Through Sept. 17

The GM de Mexico Collection of Drawings and Graphic Art General Motors de Mexico and the Embassy of Mexico present this exhibit of 100 works on paper that highlight the evolution of Mexico’s artistic narrative during the 20th century through renowned Mexican and foreign-born artists, including Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, Dr. Atl, Elizabeth Catlett, Pablo O’Higgins, Leonora Carrington, Roger Von Gunten and others. “The GM de Mexico Collection of Drawings and Graphic Art” was created in the late 1960s and provides a vast exploration of 20th-century Mexican art. Shown abroad for the first time since 1969, this exhibition is divided into five thematic segments that illuminate the evolution of Mexican art from muralism to modernity.

Mexican Cultural Institute Through Sept. 18

In Celebration of Paul Mellon Paul Mellon was one of America’s greatest art collectors and remains one of the gallery’s leading benefactors. Timed to coincide with the gallery’s 75th anniversary, a special exhibition features 80 of the finest pastels, watercolors, drawings, prints, and illustrated books selected from his donations.

National Gallery of Art Through Sept. 18

Symbolic Cities: The World of Ahmed Mater Born in 1979 in southern Saudi Arabia and trained as a medical doctor, Ahmed Mater has been a practicing artist since the early 1990s, creating works that offer an unparalleled perspective on contemporary Saudi Arabia. Now based in Jeddah, Mater has focused primarily on photography and video since 2010.

From abandoned desert cities to the extraordinary transformation of Mecca, “Symbolic Cities” presents his visual and aural journeys observing economic and urban change in Saudi Arabia.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Through Oct. 2

Through Jan. 2

Alison Saar in Print

Senses of Time: Video and Film-Based Works of Africa

Alison Saar uses dynamic printmaking techniques to explore themes of feminine, racial and cultural identity. The artist’s hand-wrought woodcuts combine strong color and bold forms, while her central figures hold evocative objects — snakes, knives, fry pans, plants or bottles — that allude to a range of myth, lore and legend.

National Museum of Women in the Arts Through Oct. 2

Hubert Robert, 1733-1808 One of the most prominent artists of his era, Hubert Robert loved and depicted ruined structures of all types, whether real or imagined, and not just those of ancient Rome (he lived in Italy for eleven years).

He also drew inspiration from scenes he encountered in his native France, including urban renewal projects, Gallo-Roman antiquities and natural disasters. At the core of his success was his brilliance as a master of the architectural capriccio, in which random monuments from different locales were artfully brought together to create new, completely imaginary landscapes.

National Gallery of Art Through Dec. 31

Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920-1945 The style that came to be known as art deco, which flourished from the 1920s to 1940s, was a vivid reflection of the modern era and the vitality of the machine age. Between the wars, as normalcy returned to politics, jazz music blossomed and the flapper redefined the modern woman, art deco left its mark on every form of visual art. This exhibit explores how the Japanese interpreted the style and transformed it through their own rich art and craft traditions.

Hillwood Museum, Estate and Gardens Through Jan. 2

Intersections: Photographs and Videos from the National Gallery of Art and Corcoran Gallery of Art Nearly 700 photographs from Eadweard Muybridge’s groundbreaking publication “Animal Locomotion,” acquired by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1887, became the foundation for the institution’s early interest in photography. The Key Set of more than 1,600 works by Alfred Stieglitz, donated

by Georgia O’Keeffe and the Alfred Stieglitz Estate, launched the photography collection at the National Gallery of Art in 1949. Inspired by these two seminal artists, Muybridge and Stieglitz, the exhibition brings together highlights of the recently merged collections of the Corcoran and the National Gallery of Art by a range of artists from the 1840s to today.

National Gallery of Art

This exhibition features six internationally recognized African artists and examines how time is experienced and produced by the body. Bodies stand, climb, dance and dissolve in seven works of video and film art by Sammy Baloji, Theo Eshetu, Moataz Nasr, Berni Searle, Yinka Shonibare and Sue Williamson, all of whom repeat, resist and reverse the expectation that time must move relentlessly forward.

National Museum of African Art Through Jan. 29

Turquoise Mountain: Artists Transforming Afghanistan Decades of civil unrest nearly destroyed Afghanistan’s vital artistic heritage. Over the past decade, Turquoise Mountain, an organization founded in 2006 at the request of the prince of Wales and the president of Afghanistan, has transformed the Murad Khani district of Old Kabul from slum conditions into a vibrant cultural and economic center.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

danCe Tue., July 5, 10:30 a.m.

Serendibdance Company: A Single Cycle of the Sun Celebrate the heritage of Sri Lanka with SerendibDance Company as they present intricate movements, rhythmic sounds and exquisite costumes to tell the story, “A Single Cycle of the Sun,” a folktale about community, culture and harmony. Tickets are $8.

Wolf Trap July 14 to 16

American Ballet Theatre: Romeo and Juliet A masterful interpretation of Shakespeare’s enduring romantic tragedy comes to dramatic life in a production

by America’s National Ballet Company, whose work has been hailed as “the most spectacular dancing in the world” (The New York Times). Tickets are $20 to $95.

Wolf Trap

FestiVaLs June 29 to July 4; July 7 to 10

Smithsonian Folklife Festival The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, held every summer on the National Mall, celebrates U.S. and foreign cultures each year with music, crafts, food and demonstrations of local traditions.

This year the Folklife Festival celebrates resilient communities around the world. Discover how the Basque region in Spain and southwestern France sustains its culture, drawing on traditions to innovate in a rapidly changing world. Learn renowned cooking techniques and phrases in the Euskara language. Experience bertsolaritza poetry competitions and stone-lifting matches. And drink a refreshing glass of cider or rioja wine while meeting master artisans.

National Mall

MUsiC Fri., July 15, 7:30 p.m.

Evermay Chamber Featuring Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras of Strathmore Led by S&R Washington Award Grand Prize winner and violinist, Tamaki Kawakubo, Evermay Chamber is an ensemble of world class musicians renowned for their exceptional artistry.

In this debut collaboration, Evermay Chamber soloists partner with the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras of Strathmore in Beethoven’s majestic Triple Concerto in C Major, Op. 56.

Mozart’s Divertimento in D Major, K.136, and Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-flat Major, K.449 form an invigorating first half program.

Music Center at Strathmore Fri., July 29, 7:30 p.m.

Trio Alba Youthful vigor, passion on stage and compelling playfulness, all based on a profound knowledge of sound perception and chamber music structures — this is how critics have described the musical trinity that has been known since 2008 as the Trio Alba. To reserve a ticket, visit http://acfdc.org.

Austrian Cultural Forum

theater Through July 3

District Merch ants Love and litigation, deep passions and predatory lending are taken to a new level in this uneasy comedy, which wades fearlessly into the endless complexities and contradictions of life in America. Set among the black and Jewish populations of an imagined time and place — simultaneously Shakespearean, post-Civil War D.C., and today— “District Merchants” is a remarkable tale of money, merchandise, and mercy

brought to the stage by four-time Helen Hayes Award-winner Aaron Posner. Tickets are $35 to $75.

Folger Shakespeare Theatre Fri., July 8, 8 p.m.

Salvatrucans Once Again GALA Hispanic Theatre celebrates “Verano en GALA,” a series of summer presentations of local and international artists that kicks off with “Salvatrucans Once Again.” In this evening of mixed media, which includes an art exhibit, handmade books, poetry, live performance and a dance party, Quique Avilés brings together a group of Salvadoran artists to honor the 25th anniversary of the 1991 Mount Pleasant Riots. Tickets are $10; cash bar.

GALA Hispanic Theatre Through July 10

Kinky Boots With songs by Grammy- and Tonywinning pop icon Cyndi Lauper, this Tony-winning musical celebration is about the friendships we discover, and the belief that you can change the world when you change your mind. Tickets are $49 to $199.

Kennedy Center Opera House July 11 to Aug. 9

Twelfth Night Set in the roaring 20s, Synetic’s “Twelfth Night” tells the tale of fraternal twins, Viola and Sebastian, separated in a strange new land.

Having survived a shipwreck and believing her brother Sebastian has been lost, Viola falls hopelessly in love with Duke Orsino and disguises herself as a man to enter his services.

Tickets start at $35.

Synetic Theater July 13 to Aug. 20

The Phantom of the Opera Cameron Mackintosh’s spectacular

new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” comes to D.C. as part of a brand-new North American tour, with critics raving that this breathtaking production is “bigger and better than ever before.” Tickets are $25 to $149.

Kennedy Center Opera House Fri., July 15, 8 p.m., Sat., July 16, 8 p.m.

Miss Cuarenta In “Miss Cuarenta,” a woman celebrates her 40th birthday by recalling her many failed dates, romances and marriages. Colombian actress Paula Arcila’s sharp and insightful delivery will have audiences laughing from beginning to end as she explores society’s obsession with beauty and aging through a hilarious look at certain moments in a woman’s life.

Tickets are $30.

GALA Hispanic Theatre Through July 17

The Bridges of Madison County Winner of two Tony Awards including Best Score by Jason Robert Brown, this “gorgeous, powerful, and rapturous” (New York Magazine) new Broadway musical based on the bestselling novel centers around an Iowa housewife and her life-changing romance with a traveling photographer.

Tickets are $49 to $129.

Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater July 27 to 30

Shakespeare’s Globe on Tour: The Merchant of Venice Starring Jonathan Pryce as Shylock, one of the most memorable outsiders in all of theater, this new production of Shakespeare’s play dramatizes competing claims of tolerance and intolerance, religious law and civil society, justice and mercy. Tickets are $69 to $120.

Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

Diplomatic Spouses Continued • page 35

ington Diplomat). The British NGO, founded 10 years ago at the request of Prince Charles and President Ghani, has transformed the Murad Khani district in the Old City of Kabul from a virtual landfill into a vibrant cultural and economic center.

Lael is also involved in a 2017 conference on the disabled. “A delegation from Kabul will be coming. We’ve made a lot of progress on paper … but after the Soviet [occupation], the country was heavily mined and a lot of children and Afghan fighters were seriously hurt. It’s a visual issue because you can see it,” she said of the country’s disabled. “Our hope is to look at how the U.S. has handled this population, moving from paper to program.

We will also have a delegation from the State Department. We hope this conference will help to elevate the issue at home and here.

Other embassies will be involved; the Nordic and European countries are leaders [in this field]. They have good models for integration into society.”

Lael herself has had good role models,

Lael Mohib, second from right, poses with fifth-grade students from John eaton elementary, the afghan embassy’s “adopted” D.C. school as part of Washington performing arts’s embassy adoption program.

including a father who continued to perform surgery after 40 when he was almost completely deaf and a developmentally challenged aunt who worked in a bakery and attended community college.

“I want to help human beings reach their full goals, their potential,” Lael said. “People with disabilities are entitled to support networks. They can reach their high potential if they are uplifted by the people around them…. The holistic, community-based rehabilitation model throughout their lifetime works.”

Gail Scott is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 39

WD | Culture | Spotlight

Diplomatic Spotlight

July 2016

The Phillips Collection Annual Gala The Phillip’s Collection 2016 gala, “Arabesque: Patterns of Beauty East-West, A Salute to Qatar,” paid homage to the impact of the arabesque on modern art and celebrated artistic exchange between Qatar and the U.S. The annual gala attracts 500 cultural, political, diplomatic and business leaders to dine among the museum’s masterworks. Following the black-tie event, more than 700 of the city’s young professionals converged on Dock 5 at Union Market for the “Contemporaries Bash: Dreaming of Doha,” a dazzling night of cocktails, music, food, fashion and dancing.

Lynne N. Horning of the Phillips Board of Trustees Education Committee and David C. Driskell of the University of Maryland Driskell Center were honored for their education work.

Photo: Paul Morigi

Ambassador of Qatar Mohammed Jaham Al Kuwari was the evening’s diplomatic chair.

Photo: Paul Morigi

Trish and George Vradenburg; gala host Kay Kapoor of AT&T; Thomas Krähenbühl; Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.); Director of the Phillips Collection Dorothy Kosinski; and gala host Sunny Kapoor.

Photo: Pepe Gomez

Photo: Pepe Gomez

Debrah Dunner, Eric Dunner of Glassman Wealth Services and Maggie Michael of G Fine Art. Photo: Pepe Gomez

Sen. Thomas Udall (D-N.M.), Jane Cafritz, Jill Cooper Udall and Calvin Cafritz.

Maggie Lubinski, orchestra director for Fairfax County Public Schools; Frances Holuba, director of social enterprise at Politico; and Karina Carlson of Politico.

Photo: Paul Morigi

Holly Knowlton and former CIA Director David Petraeus.

Photo: Pepe Gomez

Amaryllis did the décor and flowers.

Jesse Phillips of Updata Partners, Ginger Wells of Accenture, Sara Bracken and Kirk Marshall of Deloitte.

Photo: Pepe Gomez

The Contemporaries Bash featured an interactive air sculpture.

Photo: Pepe Gomez Photo: Paul Morigi

Live calligraphy muralists.

Guests enjoyed falconry demonstrations at the Contemporaries Bash.

40 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

Katie Billingsley of Total Wine & More, Chris Paddock of TMG Construction Corp., Meghan Drueding of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Tim O’Rourke.

Dalal Hasan of Crowell Moring and Lara Alameh of the Safadi Foundation USA.

DJ Ben Chang provided the music at the Contemporaries Bash.

WD | Culture | Spotlight

March of Dimes 2016 National Ambassador Ismael Torres-Castrodad, who was born five weeks early, talks to the audience.

March of Dimes Gourmet Gala The 34th annual March of Dimes Gourmet Gala brought together 55 U.S. senators and representatives for a bipartisan cook-off as members of Capitol Hill dished up their favorite hors d’oeuvres, desserts and drinks. Their recipes were judged by locally acclaimed chefs with awards given for six categories.

The event at the National Building Museum drew over 90 corporate sponsors, more than 650 guests and raised over $1 million for the March of Dimes, which funds lifesaving research and programs and works to end premature birth, birth defects and infant mortality. Every year, 15 million babies are born prematurely worldwide, and 1 million will die before their first birthday.

House Minority Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), right, shares her family’s chocolate mousse recipe.

Sen. Roger F. Wicker (R-Miss.) and Gayle Wicker won “Best in Show” for their Ole Miss Tailgate Chess Squares.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Myrna Cardin, along with their corporate sous chef from Quicken Loans, prepared Maryland-style crab balls.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) shares the stage with local March of Dimes ambassadors.

March of Dimes President Jennifer L. Howse joins 2016 Gourmet Gala co-chairs Sandy Cornyn, Sen. John Cornyn III (R-Texas), Janet Thompson, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), Amy Hawkins of BNSF Railway Co. and Bobby Koch of the Wine Institute.

Vivian Bishop and Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) won the “Health and Happiness” recognition for their Southern Delight with Indian Bite dish.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) made Marjorie Standish’s lobster stew for guests.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) prepared green chili country-style potatoes.

Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.) cooked sweet potato soup with nutmeg and maple syrup.

Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) prepared pulled pork in California endive.

Rep. Jared Huffman (DCalif.) made smoked salmon with cream cheese capers.

Marie Royce, wife of Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), samples Michigan cherry barbeque meatballs from Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.).

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) prepared his Scott family succotash on cornbread tarts.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) dishes up some of her mom’s quick tomato sauce.

Sen. Shelley Moore (R-W.Va.) plates up chocolate soufflé pudding.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 41

WD | Culture | Spotlight

Diplomatic Spotlight

July 2016

Italian National Day

Liechtenstein Farewell A balmy spring evening at the residence of Ambassador Maguy Maccario Doyle of Monaco provided an ideal backdrop to bid farewell to Ambassador of Liechtenstein Claudia Fritsche, who is retiring this summer after 15 years of service. More than 40 guests from business, media, social and diplomatic circles gathered to toast Fritsche, one of the longest-serving envoys in Washington. She was Liechtenstein’s first resident ambassador to the U.S. and one of the few top diplomats who can lay claim to having visited all 50 U.S. states.

The Embassy of Italy fêted the country’s National Day in grand style, as hundreds of guests gathered inside the sleek embassy on Observatory Circle while Italian sports cars graced the lawn outside. This year’s program included the public premiere of “The Trio in B Minor” written by maestro Gabriele Ciampi in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Italian Republic.

Photo: Derek Parks / Embassy of Italy

Micaela Barbagallo and Italian Ambassador Armando Varricchio talk to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

Ambassador of Liechtenstein Claudia Fritsche, Shahin Mafi of Home Health Connection and Ambassador of Monaco Maguy Maccario Doyle.

Photo: Derek Parks / Embassy of Italy

Sports cars line the Italian Embassy.

Ambassador of Papa New Guinea Rupa Mulina and his wife Numa Mulina. Photo: Kate Oczypok

Photo: Derek Parks / Embassy of Italy

Photo: Kate Oczypok

Ambassador of Albania Floreta Faber and Monsignor Rolandas Makrickas.

Deputy Chief of Mission at the Monaco Embassy Lorenzo Ravano, Ambassador of Monaco Maguy Maccario Doyle, Ambassador of Luxembourg Jean-Louis Wolzfeld, Ambassador of Kazakhstan Kairat Umarov, Ambassador of Iceland Geir Haarde and his wife Inga Jóna Thordardottir.

Photo: Kate Oczypok

Photo: Derek Parks / Embassy of Italy

Paola Bolzan of the Italian Cultural Society, Washington, D.C., and Carlo Carugi of the Global Environment Facility.

Photo: Kate Oczypok Photo: Kate Oczypok

Critic and curator Renato Miracco and international trade specialist Ugo Fasano.

Greg Treverton of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Michael Mosettig of Online NewsHour.

Ambassador of Monaco Maguy Maccario Doyle toasts Ambassador of Liechtenstein Claudia Fritsche.

Photos: Embassy of Monaco

Photo: Kate Oczypok

Patrick Byrne, Lela Diers, Beau Diers of the U.S. Air Force and Frankie Byrne.

Photo: Kate Oczypok

Photo: Kate Oczypok

Emily Burns and Gabriel Sehr of the office of Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.).

U.S. Chief of Protocol Peter Selfridge, Ambassador of Hungary Réka Szemerkényi and Ambassador of Kosovo Vlora Çitaku.

Biologist Veronica Galli, Massimiliano Bissa of the National Institutes of Health and Laura Hernandez.

‘Nordic Stars’ Exhibition Ambassadors from Denmark, Estonia, Finland and Sweden came to Hillyer Art Space for the debut of “Nordic Stars.” Curated by Toomas Volkmann, the exhibit showcases eight Nordic illustration artists and their unique takes on contemporary fashion. Danish Ambassador Lars Gert Lose arrived in style on a Christiania rickshaw on loan from Cycling without Age, wearing clothing designs by two Danish brands: Knowledge Cotton Apparel and Last Conspiracy x ECCO.

Ambassador of Sweden Björn Lyrvall poses by work by a Swedish fashion illustrator.

Ambassador of Denmark Lars Gert Lose and his daughter Siw arrive at the Hillyer Nordic art show.

Ambassadors Eerik Marmei of Estonia, Björn Lyrvall of Sweden, Kirsti Kauppi of Finland and Lars Gert Lose of Denmark.

42 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

Photos: Gail Scott

Finnish artist Jarno Kettunen joins Ambassador of Finland Kirsti Kauppi.

WD | Culture | Spotlight

Institute for Education Salons

Dutch Celebrate

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) spoke at an Institute for Education (IFE) INFO Public Policy Salon on May 16 at French Ambassador Gérard Araud’s stately Kalorama residence. Markey gave an impassioned speech in defense of renewable energy, efforts to combat climate change and innovative solutions to environmental problems. IFE is a nonprofit that promotes civility and leadership. On June 6, the group also held an Innovation Salon at Dutch Ambassador Henne Schuwer’s residence featuring Haley Van Dyck, cofounder of U.S. digital services at the White House.

The Dutch have had a busy spring. Among recent events, the Embassy of the Netherlands hosted a ThinkBike workshop, welcomed Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who spoke with students from American University, and joined the Netherland America Foundation and Holland on the Hill to celebrate the third annual Heineken Award, which was given to Victoria B. Mars, chairman of the board for Mars Inc. The Dutch Embassy also welcomed party-goers decked out in orange for the annual King’s Day (Koningsdag) national holiday.

IFE Digital Ambassador Devika Patil, coach Kathy Kemper, Ambassador of Finland Kirsti Kauppi, Ambassador of the Netherlands Henne Schuwer, co-founder of U.S. digital services at the White House Haley Van Dyck and White House Presidential Innovation Fellow Eric Daimler.

Photos: Institute for Education

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) leads a discussion on climate change as part of the Institute for Education (IFE) INFO Public Policy Roundtable series, now in its 25th year.

Institute for Education (IFE) founder and CEO coach Kathy Kemper, Ambassador of France Gérard Araud, Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, his wife Judy Harris and Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.

Deputy Head of the European Union Delegation to the U.S. Caroline Vicini, Assistant Navy Attaché at the Dutch Embassy Cmdr.

Erik Jan Looman and his wife Claudia Looman.

Photo: Stephen Voss

Ambassador of Afghanistan Hamdullah Mohib, center, poses with White House Presidential Innovation Fellows Ross Dakin and Steven Babitch.

Ambassador of Morocco Rachad Bouhlal, Alexandra de Borchgrave and Shahin Mafi of Home Health Connection Inc.

Victoria B. Mars of Mars Inc., center, is joined by U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) and Dutch Ambassador Henne Schuwer as she accepts the Holland on the Hill Heineken Award at the Capitol Visitor Center.

Photo: Embassy of the Netherlands

Aruban Prime Minister Mike Eman talks with Dutch Ambassador Henne Schuwer at the King’s Day reception.

Ambassador of the European Union David O’Sullivan and his wife Agnes O’Hare.

Ambassador of France Gérard Araud, Dr. Susan Blumenthal, Ambassador of Colombia Juan Carlos Pinzón and journalist Jan Smith.

John Paul Farmer of Microsoft, journalist Jan Smith, White House Presidential Innovation Fellow Eric Daimler and Ambassador of Singapore Ashok Mirpuri.

Photo: Embassy of the Netherlands

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, center back, poses with students from American University’s School of International Service.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer talks with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

IFE Digital Ambassador Devika Patil, Wanchana Manawapat, Ambassador of Thailand Pisan Manawapat and Ambassador of Finland Kirsti Kauppi.

Photo: Gail Scott

Ambassador of Bulgaria Elena Poptodorova and Ambassador of the Netherlands Henne Schuwer.

Ambassador of Iceland Geir Haarde asks a question.

Multicultural Media Correspondents Dinner The Washington Diplomat was among half a dozen “Champions in Media” honored at last month’s lavish Multicultural Media Correspondents Dinner. The first-of-its-kind event, held May 26 at the National Press Club, attracted some 350 people and was organized by the nonprofit Vote It Loud. The goal: to highlight the contributions of blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other minorities in all major sectors of U.S. media, including print, broadcast and online.

Actor Jamie Foxx talks about the importance of minorities in media.

Photos: Larry Luxner

Victor Shiblie, publisher of The Washington Diplomat, won a trophy in the international category at the Multicultural Media Correspondents Dinner.

Celebrity host Chris Spencer, left, and David Morgan, vice president of government affairs for American Express, right, honor Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.).

Ambassador of Slovakia Peter Kmec and Ambassador of Kosovo Vlora Çitaku.

Sui Lang Panoke, director of Women Politics Media LLC, Danny Vargas (who accepted an award on behalf of journalist Patricia Guadalupe) and David Morgan, vice president of government affairs for American Express.

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) said that despite advances, minority media ownership is still too low.

Puerto Rican-born entertainer Aida Rodríguez performs at Vote It Loud’s first annual Multicultural Media Correspondents Dinner.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 43

WD | Culture | Spotlight

Diplomatic Spotlight

July 2016

Embassy Chef Challenge

Renovated Norwegian Residence

Cultural Tourism DC’s Embassy Chef Challenge, part of Passport DC, brought 18 embassy chefs to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center for the popular annual cooking competition. Barbadian chef Creig Greenridge won over the competition judges, including top local chefs, for his rum-infused Barbadian seasoned pork with tamarind-ginger rum sour, while Filipino chef Claude Tayag nabbed the people’s choice award for his bringhe (seafood rice) topped with milkfish and crab fat.

After extensive renovations, the Norwegian Residence on Observatory Circle opened just in time for the U.S.-Nordic Leaders White House Summit. The renovation of the building, which was inaugurated in 1931, was originally scheduled for four months but took over two years to complete. An elevator was added for disabled guests; Norwegian interior designers brought in contemporary furniture, light fixtures and art to complement the antique pieces, including an art collection featuring seven works by Edvard Munch; and the property was given much-needed structural upgrades.

Photos: Cultural Tourism DC

Participants in the 2016 Embassy Chef Challenge pose for a group photo.

Cultural Tourism DC board members pose for a photo: Jeffrey D. Werner, Michael Akin, Greg O’Dell, Executive Director Steven E. Shulman, Chinyere Hubbard of Events DC and Timothy C. Cox of Washington Home and Community Hospices.

Ambassador of Ecuador Francisco José Borja Cevallos is interviewed by embassy liaison Jan Du Plain.

Maria Victoria Cuisia and Ambassador of the Philippines Jose L. Cuisia Jr. talk with Ambassador of Uzbekistan Bakhtiyar Gulyamov

Judge’s competition winner Creig Greenridge poses with Leila Beale and Ambassador of Barbados John Beale.

Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson joins Ambassador of Norway Kåre R. Aas.

Inga Jóna Thordardottir and her husband Ambassador of Iceland Geir Haarde.

Ambassador of Cabo Verde José Luis Fialho Rocha and his wife Yamile Rocha.

The Czech Embassy participates in the 2016 Embassy Chef Challenge.

Photo: Embassy of Norway

Guests mingle on the outside lawn and renovated deck.

Ambassador of Latvia Andris Razans, Ambas- Ambassador of Kosovo Vlora sador of Slovenia Božo Cerar and Ambassador Çitaku and Ambassador of of Lithuania Rolandas Kriščiūnas.

Norway Kåre R. Aas.

Finnish Concert

GALA Night of the Stars GALA Hispanic Theatre celebrated its 40th anniversary with a “Noche de Estrellas (Night of the Stars)” fundraiser May 10 at the Organization of American States. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser recognized GALA founders Hugo and Rebecca Medrano for bringing Latino art and cultureto the nation’s capital. GALA has staged over 200 productions, ranging from classical Spanish theater to contemporary works by local Latino youth.

Ulla Rønberg and her husband, Ambassador of Denmark Lars Gert Lose, pose with a giant polar bear.

At left, Shahin Mafi of Home Health Connection, Ambassador Neil Parsan of the Organization of American States and his wife Tara Compton.

Ambassador of El Salvador Francisco Roberto Altschul Fuentes, economist Sylvia Charles and Ambassador of Dominica Hubert John Charles.

Miriam Hooker and Ambassador of Nicaragua Francisco Obadiah Campbell Hooker.

Photo: Embassy of Norway Photo: Embassy of Norway

GALA co-founder Rebecca Medrano receives a proclamation from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.

The Flamenco Aparicio Dance Company performs a traditional flamenco dance.

Noemi Rodriguez, Lorena Sabogal and Carla Hübner Vidal, artistic director of the In Series.

Photo: Gail Scott

President of Capital Hotels and Suites Jay Haddock and Acting Assistant Secretary of the State Department Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Mari Carmen Aponte.

D.C. Council Member David Grosso and his wife Serra Sippel, president of the Center for Health and Gender Equality.

44 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016

Craig Pascal of BB&T, Julissa Marenco of the Federal Communications Commission and Ambassador of Spain Ramon Gil-Casares.

Hector Torres, general manager of the Beacon Hotel and Corporate Quarters and a member of the GALA Board of Directors, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and President of Capital Hotels and Suites Jay Haddock.

Finnish pianist Jukka Nykänen, pictured with Finnish Embassy Cultural Counselor Keijo Karjalainen, performed a musical journey through sports history as part of the exhibit “Sports Stories from Finland.”

WD | July 2016

Around the World Appointments

World Holidays AFGHANISTAN

BRUNEI

CZECH REPUBLIC

JORDAN

MAURITANIA

Independence Day

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

July 6: Eid al-Fitr July 15: Birthday of the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam

July 5: St. Cyril and St. Methodius Day July 6: John Hus Day

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

July 6: Eid al-Fitr July 10: Armed Forces Day

PHILIPPINES

MONGOLIA

QATAR

July 11-13: National Naadam Holiday/ Anniversary of the Mongolian People’s Revolution

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

MOROCCO

RWANDA

ALBANIA July 6: Eid al-Fitr

ALGERIA July 5: Independence Day July 6: Eid al-Fitr

ARGENTINA

BURKINA FASO

EGYPT

BURMA (MYANMAR)

July 6: Eid El Fitr July 23: Revolution Day

July 19: Martyrs’ Day

ARMENIA July 5: Constitution Day

July 1: Independence Day

AZERBAIJAN

CANADA

BURUNDI

July 6: Ramazan Bayramy

July 1: Canada Day

BAHAMAS

July 5: Independence Day

BAHRAIN July 6: Eid al-Fitr

BANGLADESH

July 6: Eid El Fitr

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

July 9: Independence Day

July 10: Independence Day

DJIBOUTI

CAPE VERDE

ERITREA July 6: Eid al-Fitr

KENYA July 6: Idd-Ul-Fitr

KOREA, REPUBLIC OF July 17: Constitution Day

KUWAIT July 6: Eid al-Fitr

LEBANON July 6: Eid al-Fitr

FIJI July 28: Constitution Day

LESOTHO

FRANCE

LIBERIA

July 14: Bastille Day

July 26: Independence Day

GAMBIA

CHAD

July 6: Eid-al-Fitr

July 6: Aïd-El Fitr

GHANA

COLOMBIA

July 1: Republic Day July 6: Eid al-Fitr

July 17: King’s Birthday

LIBYA July 6: Eid al-Fitr July 23: Revolution Day

BELARUS

COMOROS

July 4: Caricom Day

July 3: Independence Day

July 6: Independence Day

INDIA

MALAWI

BELGIUM

COSTA RICA

July 21: Independence Day

July 25: Guanacaste Annexation Day

BENIN

CÔTE D’IVOIRE

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

July 2: Laïlatoul-Kadr July 6: Aïd-El Fitr

BOTSWANA July 1: Sir Seretse Khama Day July 15: President’s Day July 16: Public Holiday

CUBA July 25-27: Celebrations for the Day of the National Rebelliousness

NICARAGUA July 19: Sandinistas Revolution Day

July 6: Republic Day July 6: Eid al-Fitr

ROMANIA July 29: Day of the National Hymn July 1: Independence Day

ST. VINCENT and THE GRENADINES July 4: Caricom Day July 4-5: Carnival

SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE July 12: Independence Day

SAUDI ARABIA

NIGER NIGERIA

July 6: State Day (Crowning of King Mindaugas in 1253)

INDONESIA

July 7: The King’s Birthday (National Day)

LITHUANIA

July 6: Eid-al Fitr

July 6: Idu’l Fitr

NEPAL

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

July 20: Independence Day

GUYANA

July 6: Eid al-Fitr July 30: Throne Day (King Mohammed VI’s Accession to the Throne)

July 6: Eid Ul Fitre

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

SENEGAL

July 6: Id-el-Fitri

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

SINGAPORE

OMAN July 6: Eid al-Fitr

PAKISTAN

July 6: Hari Raya Puasa

MALAYSIA

July 6: Eid-ul-Fitr

SLOVAK REPUBLIC

July 6: Hari Raya Puasa

PALAU

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

MALDIVES

July 9: Constitution Day

July 5: St. Cyril and St. Methodius Day

IRAQ

July 26: Independence Day

July 6: Idul Fitri

IRAN

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

JAPAN

MARSHALL ISLANDS

July 19: Marine Day (Umi no hi)

July 3: Fisherman’s Day

Sister Cities Continued • page 19

TWD: Is North Korea a textbook example of a country where we could benefit from more citizen diplomacy?

Kane: I think we have a lot [of places] that we’re working on establishing right now. Los Angeles has a sister city relationship with Tehran. But it needs to be reinvigorated. We don’t prohibit anyone from forming a sister city relationship.

TWD: So if a city wanted to become sister cities with Pyongyang, and our mayor was on board,

Republic of China (Taiwan) Stanley Kao has been appointed representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) to the United States, having previously served as head of the Taipei Representative Office in Italy since 2013. In addition, Kao served as director-general of the Department of International Cooperation and Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taipei (2010-13); representative of the Taipei Representative Office in Hungary (2008-10); deputy representative of TECRO in Washington, D.C. (2004-07); and deputy permanent representative of the Taiwanese Permanent Mission to the World Trade Organization in Switzerland (2002-04).

He also served as the English interpreter for President Chen Shuibian (2000-01); English interpreter for President Lee Teng-hui (1998-2000); deputy chief of mission at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Malay-

sia (1996-98); director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Atlanta, Georgia (1993-96); and special assistant at the Coordination Council for North American Affairs (now TECRO) in D.C. (1985-90).

Other postings at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs include directorgeneral of the Department of North American Affairs (2001-02), where he also served as deputy directorgeneral (1998-2001) and section chief (1990-92). Representative Kao holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from National Taiwan University, a master’s degree in international law and diplomacy from National Chenchi University in Taipei and he was a fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.

He is married to Sherry Sung and has one daughter. Representative Kao, who was born May 16, 1953, in Taipei, enjoys traveling, tennis, golf, baseball, music, reading and movies.

Santiago Day

TONGA

SRI LANKA

July 12: Crown Prince’s Birthday

July 6: Id-Ul-Fitr

TRINIDAD and TOBAGO

SUDAN SURINAME

TUNISIA

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

July 1: Emancipation Day (Keti Koti)

July 6: Aïd El Fitr July 25: Republic Day

VENEZUELA

SWAZILAND

TURKEY

July 22: Public Holiday

July 6: Seker Bayram

SYRIA

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

UGANDA

July 23: Remembrance Day

July 7: Independence Day

TAJIKISTAN July 6: Eid al-Fitr

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

PERU

SPAIN

TANZANIA

UNITED KINGDOM

July 7: Saba Saba

July 12: Battle of the

we could try to make that happen somehow?

Kane: If they wanted to do it, and had the backing, which would be hard to get, it would be OK. They’d have to have local citizens willing to build that relationship though because they don’t happen overnight.

TWD: Do you have any idea how many non-U.S. sister cities there are?

Kane: It’s become a really popular program.

In China, for example, there is the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries … that sets up sister city relationships with Chinese cities and other places around the world.

One of our most famous alumni of Sister Cities is [Chinese] President Xi Jinping, whose

July 18: Constitution Day

July 6: Eid-Ul-Fitr

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

July 25: Apostle

URUGUAY

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

SOLOMON ISLANDS

July 28-29:

Boyne (Orangemen’s Day)

July 6: Eid al-Fitr

first trip to the U.S. was on a sister states delegation trip to Muscatine, Iowa, in 1985. When he came back in 2012, to visit Vice President Biden, the State Department told him to go to Washington and Los Angeles, and he said, ‘No, I’m going to visit my host family and have tea with them in Muscatine, Iowa.’ And he did.

On his most recent visit, last September, he met with Microsoft in Seattle, and then he went to Lincoln High School in Tacoma. I was fortunate to be there. He went to an American football practice, an AP government class and then gave a speech in the auditorium.

TWD: And how did he enjoy all this?

Kane: He said, through an interpreter, ‘If we’re going to be the two world superpowers then I have to tell you, we know a lot more about you than you know about us. I’d like you to learn

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

UZBEKISTAN

July 5: Independence Day July 24: Simón Bolívar Day

YEMEN July 6: Eid al-Fitr

ZAMBIA July 5: Heroes’ Day July 6: Unity Day

more about us, so I brought you some gifts.’

Then they opened the curtain and there were all these bookshelves, filled with books on Chinese language, history and culture. And then he also announced that he was giving them five Ping-Pong tables.

TWD: An article we wrote on Sister Cities International last year likened one initiative you have as an online dating site for cities looking for partners. How does that work?

Kane: We post it on our website, as part of our cities seeking cities program. For example, someone in Idaho could be seeking a partnership in France. We’ll post their parameters and background, the reasons why they are looking for the partnership and the folks here in our See Sis t er C it ies • page 47 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 45

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TWD: Looking at the big picture, we have this incredible amount of tension between Muslims and Christians around the world. Can citizen diplomacy efforts help bridge this divide?

office talk to a lot of Foreign Service officers and public affairs officers in embassies around the world. And we work directly with the State Department and mayors and governor’s offices to help them with these partnerships. Everyone wants to partner with New York City.

TWD: So if, for example, Timbuktu wants to partner with Chicago, you can suggest another city that might be a better match?

KANE: Right. Actually Timbuktu is sister cities with Tempe, Arizona.

TWD: Chicago has banners up at O’Hare Airport advertising all of its sister cities. It seems as though there are dozens. Do they have more sister cities than any other American town?

KANE: Yes, they have 28 sister city partnerships. Their mayors are very insightful; they do a lot of trade with their sister city partnerships. They support the sister city program very strongly.

TWD: Are there ever any hard feelings if a city gets spurned by another place they wanted to partner with or

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exchange with high school students online with their sister cities [in China, Moldova, the Bahamas, Ghana and Liberia].

CONTINUeD • page 45

KANE: That’s what our cities seeking cities program does. You help people find a good partner, not just people who want to visit New York City. It’s not going to help your city to find a partner with whom you have nothing in common or it’s so large that it won’t focus on you.

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TWD: How do you manage that?

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at its conference this year, Sister Cities International is celebrating 60 years of peopleto-people exchange.

are cities usually on the same page?

KANE: It may take a little longer sometimes but if they want it to happen, it usually does. It’s logical that our bigger, more famous cities will get more requests than a place like Wilmington, Delaware, or Chattanooga, Tennessee, because people overseas are more familiar with the big cities.

TWD: You mentioned a new sister city partnership between Minneapolis and a town in Somalia. I wonder how anyone in a war-torn country like Somalia can quality for a visitor’s visa to come to the U.S. KANE: We live in an interesting age; there are many ways to connect besides just personal travel. It’s much easier to keep these relationships going than to start them up. Some of our partnership signings have been virtual on Skype. For example, there was one between a town in Western Maryland and one in Estonia where they signed their agreement on Skype.

We have a great program going

on right now between San Diego and Jalalabad, Afghanistan. High school students bring down barriers by talking directly to students in Afghanistan. They get together once a month via Skype and get online to talk to each other.

TWD: You wrote that we already have nine sister city partnerships with Cuba, including the oldest one, which started in 1993, between Mobile, Alabama, and Havana. With Cuba opening up a bit, are we likely to see many more sister city partnerships with the communist island?

KANE: There are a lot of people interested in building partnerships with Cuba. Some of this depends on how many requests the Cubans are able to handle. But the ones we have set up now are quite active. I think the first exchange was with medical students.

Tacoma, Washington, and Cienfuegos, [Cuba], have been doing a baseball-related exchange. Sports are great for this. Soccer is a universal language. The president of China, he loves the NBA. Winston-Salem, [North Carolina], has a virtual chess

KANE: We don’t look at it as religions; we look at it as citizens. We’re here to encourage citizens to talk to each other no matter what their backgrounds are. Because once you do that, you learn a lot more. That was the purpose of this program when it started 60 years ago. Looking back to what Dwight Eisenhower said back then — I love this quote — ‘Every bomb we can manufacture, every plane, every ship, every gun, in the long run, has no purpose other than negative: to give us time to prevent the other fellow from starting a war, since we know we won’t. The billions we pour into that ought to be supported by a great American effort, a positive constructive effort that leads directly toward what we all want: a true and lasting peace.’

He was talking about the exchange of professors and students and executives, and he was very specific about building these relationships with Russia.

TWD: Right. And Russia was the country we needed to improve ties with during the Cold War. But is there not now a specific need to focus on citizen diplomacy between the U.S. and Muslim countries? It’s fine for a student in Tempe to form a partnership with someone in Latvia or Botswana, but is it not more urgent to expand citizen diplomacy efforts with countries in the Middle East, given the lack of understanding and mistrust on both sides?

KANE: It’s important to form partnerships with every country. Here at Sister Cities International, we are encouraging folks, just as Eisenhower did 60 years ago, to step outside their comfort zone. It was uncomfortable 60 years ago to reach out and make friends with the Germans and Japanese. Now we’re asking folks in the United States to do the same thing with folks they don’t know in the Middle East and North Africa. Our goal is to develop more sister cities partnership in this region because we’ve seen that this works.

TWD: Americans are isolated geographically and we have less vacation time for international travel compared to other countries. Does that make it even more important for more Americans to be citizen diplomats?

KANE: I think it’s always important to be a citizen diplomat and to travel and have exchanges. That’s part of our job to encourage these things.

Should everyone have a passport?

Yes, they should. Our members get so much out of traveling and meeting people who become like family members.

I just went to Shizuoka, Japan, with 68 members from Omaha. It was like they were going to a family reunion. There had been dozens of student exchanges. You build these relationships over many years. To think that 50 years ago, these folks didn’t even know each other and were probably predisposed not to like each other, and then to see people sobbing at the airport worrying about when they were going to see each other again, it was pretty impactful. It changes people’s lives and their perspective. WD Dave Seminara (@DaveSem) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | JULY 2016 | 47

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