By Humeyra Pamuk
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Among the scores of offices the U.S. State Department eliminated last week in its dramatic revamp, the shuttering of one little-known office has raised particular alarm among U.S. diplomats.
The small team at the Department’s Office of Casualty Assistance, which supports U.S. diplomats and their families abroad in the event of death or serious injury, received termination notices last Friday along with more than 1,350 Department employees. The firings came as a surprise, sources familiar with their situation said.
When the notices arrived by email on Friday, the team was working on repatriating the remains of a senior U.S. official who died in a car crash in Mexico last week.
The U.S. Consulate in Monterrey said in a Facebook statement that Brian Matthew Faughnan, a member of its mission, died in a car accident in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila on July 9.
Kirk Leash, the team leader at OCA, informed other U.S. officials at the U.S. mission in Mexico and his counterparts in different government agencies who were working on Faughnan’s case that Leash was just removed from his job, and that he was no longer able to help, according to two sources familiar with the exchange.
The elimination of the office was part of a major overhaul of the State Department by President Donald Trump, who aims to reshape the U.S. diplomatic corps to ensure it faithfully implements his “America First” policies.
It is also part of an unprecedented push by the Republican president to shrink the federal government, which he says was misspending American taxpayers’ money.
The State Department said the agency continues to be “fully equipped” with casualty evacuations if there are employee deaths overseas. “There has been no interruption in our capabilities to carry out this mission,” said a senior State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
TAKING CARE OF DIPLOMATS
The State Department revamp drew intense criticism from Democratic senators, former diplomats and secretaries of state for what they said was the arbitrary way it was carried out. Critics said it involved the firing of experienced, specialized employees in far-flung parts of the world, and that such skilled staffers are difficult to replace quickly.
A State Department memo to employees last week, seen by Reuters, said the moves were made in a “carefully tailored” way.
But the shuttering of the bureau made some question that statement.
“I don’t think any sitting president or any secretary of state would not want their people, their personnel – the most valuable asset of their agency – to be taken care of,” said Edith Bartley, who is a spokesperson for the families of the Americans killed in the 1998 al-Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
“You want to know that your country does all that it can to take care of you, your remains and your family in the aftermath. That’s critical. That is America First,” Bartley said.
Bartley lost her father, who was a career diplomat, and brother in the 1998 attacks, which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. OCA was established a year later, thanks in large part to her advocacy.
The office is typically supported by volunteers from the Department’s Human Resources bureau who can be mobilized on short notice following a mass casualty event. The teams were called upon after the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the death of four Americans including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.
“OCA is in touch with the deceased employee’s family within hours after the death, and provides support services as long as they are needed – for weeks, months, and in some cases, years,” an undated article in the Department’s magazine said, referring to the work of the office.
A senior State Department official said on Wednesday that the agency transferred the functions of the OCA to the Office of Employee Relations. But that office has a much wider remit, supporting the agency’s workforce, and lacks the specific knowledge and expertise in navigating the complicated procedures of repatriating a deceased diplomat, sources familiar with the matter said.
“That function is being folded into another office,” Michael Rigas, deputy secretary of state for Management and Resources, said on Wednesday, in response to a question about the closure of the office by Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen at a hearing.
Shaheen also asked Rigas to get back to her on how the department was handling the repatriation of the body of Faughnan, the U.S. official who died in Mexico. “I don’t think the family thinks that that’s a good firing,” Shaheen said.
Reuters was unable to reach Faughnan’s family.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in WashingtonAdditional reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer in Mexico City; Editing by Don Durfee and Matthew Lewis)
