Subject: Re: [BoundaryPoint] Re: French Properties on St Helena
Date: May 02, 2005 @ 20:47
Author: Lowell G. McManus ("Lowell G. McManus" <mcmanus71496@...>)
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----- Original Message -----
From: "aletheiak" <aletheiak@...>
To: <BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2005 7:58 AM
Subject: [BoundaryPoint] Re: French Properties on St Helena
> whatever this lovely parcel was
> it was a military emplacement from beginning to end
> & a superimposition of de facto reality upon & within a preexisting state
> territory
> aka a de facto clave
>
> or in other words
> a commonplace
> albeit with an exotic purpose
> & accordingly unusual accoutrements
>
>
> to call it an extraterritorial territory or parcel
> or to say it enjoyed a status of extraterritoriality
> even after the surrounding territory was reconstituted
> would be a misuse of english
>
> people can of course have a status of extraterritoriality
> in the sense of both being exempt from local jurisdiction
> & of being under the jurisdiction of their home country when abroad
> as the word is commonly used in both these senses
> but territorial extraterritoriality
> if ever there was any
> was extinguished by the vienna treaty of 1961
>
> --- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "L. A. Nadybal" <lnadybal@c...> wrote:
>> There is such a thing as extraterritoriality -
>>
>> Until 1990, there was a fence around a piece of property (I estimate
>> about four to five acres/hectares), in Frankfurt, Germany (suburb of
>> Niederrad to the SW of downtown). On the fence to the left side of
>> the single gate that led inside, there was a sign that was headlined,
>> in German - "Extraterritoriales Gebiet". It was a big sign - six feet
>> high at least, with lots and lots of other, smaller words explaining
>> that the U.S. was the sovereign inside the fence, that U.S. Military
>> Community Commander in Frankfurt was the governor, that the U.S. had
>> placed the grounds at the disposal of the Soviet Union and that no
>> German law applied inside, no German citizen for other third country
>> national was permitted to enter, and talking to the Russian gate guard
>> was prohibited. There was a American phone number to call at the
>> bottom of the sign, in case anyone had questions. The number led
>> callers to a villa in NE Frankfurt (not on a base) where the commander
>> had a team that governed the operation inside the fence. Two U.S.
>> Army regulations regulated the operations - the U.S. supplied the
>> Russians stationed there with radios, telephones (not German), gas,
>> heating fuels, and special car license plates (not German and not U.S.
>> forces plates under the Status of Force treaties - US Forces plates
>> are actually German plates inscribed with "USA" that the Germans let
>> the Army give out under provisions of the SoFA treaty), etc. German
>> authorities were prohibited from approaching the vehicles with those
>> plates affixed when they were out on the German roads. The occupants
>> could drive over any German roads except those which were marked on an
>> American map as off limits to the Russians (generally U. S. military
>> training areas and roads near allied bases. The Russian occupants of
>> the area (military officials and their family members) were even given
>> ID cards so they could shop free of German tax and customs control
>> (and without needing Germany money) in the U. S. PXs in Frankfurt and
>> Heidelberg.
>>
>> The status of the place stemmed from the Hubner-Mallanin Agreement in
>> the 1940s - it predated the founding the Federal Republic of Germany,
>> it was not included as part of the land on which Germany was founded
>> and that was under occupation until 1955. It was basically a
>> territorial hole in the middle of the Federal Republic. I think (not
>> sure)it may have technically been part of Prussia. After the U. S.
>> had taken possession of the Frankfurt site, which was during the
>> occupation but some years after the war ended (but before the founding
>> of the Federal Republic), the allies abolished Prussia. It could
>> even be that the sovereign that the Frankfurt site belonged to before
>> the Federal Republic came into existence actually went away by U.S.
>> and allied edict.
>>
>> In 1990, upon the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Russians abandoned the
>> site and the U.S. closed the gate. It stayed that way until the U.S.
>> was able to negotiate an arrangement with the Germans for the transfer
>> of sovereignty. Today, it is full of German apartments and the
>> American buildings are gone. Some of the old fence is still there,
>> but the apartments are new and surrounded by the much older ones that
>> were previously outside the fence. When one visits the place now, it
>> is obvious that something odd was there before, because the
>> architecture is very different from the adjacent old town.
>>
>> The U.S. never annexed the grounds to make it part of the U.S., but it
>> was, nevertheless - extraterritorial - because it was never a part of
>> the Federal Republic of Germany that surrounded it.
>>
>> Regards
>> LN
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Henry Hirose" <silentcity@h...>
>> wrote:
>> > "aletheiak" <aletheiak@y...> writes:
>> >
>> > <<good point
>> > followed by a deafening silence
>> > for i am a little surprised our extraterritoriality mavens havent
>> responded
>> > nor even gasped out loud yet>>
>> >
>> > I was wondering the same thing. But I also feel that, if I
>> understand you
>> > correctly, that the conclusive reply was rather underwhelming.
>> > Extraterritoriality after all isn't sovereign territory, which would
>> have
>> > created bona fide enclaves and got a lot more people fired up.
>> >
>> > But I would venture to guess that the hon. consul is mistaken in his
>> > assumption. It may not be extraterritoriality but mere
>> "inviolability of
>> > their premises" just as in embassies. Traditional
>> extraterritoriality of
>> > land, as opposed to persons, seems virtually dead, with all cases of
>> > examples dating from the days of Western Imperialism that were all
>> given up
>> > or seized by the host countries. See here for examples:
>> >
>> > http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/E/extrater.html
>> >
>> > Cheers, HH
>
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