Diplomats for some of the world's wealthiest countries routinely roll up mammoth parking fines in Washington, then thumb their noses at the city when it tries to collect.
The Soviet Union, which is seeking aid from the United States, is by far the leader on the list - accounting for more than $3.2 million out of a total of nearly $7 million in unpaid embassy parking tickets.But the list of diplomatic deadbeats also includes wealthy oil states aided by the United States during the Persian Gulf war, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Israel and Egypt, the two largest beneficiaries of U.S. foreign aid, are on the list. Even the Vatican owes $90.
Efforts to encourage voluntary payment have fallen short, and a congressman is now threatening to cut off foreign aid to countries that fail to settle their local debts.
Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., inserted the warning in a stopgap spending bill Congress passed two weeks ago, a measure that extends foreign aid spending through next March.
"Obviously foreign aid is not very popular these days," said Obey, referring to the overwhelming defeat of an aid measure in the House last week. "So for these turkeys not to be paying their parking tickets is not going to endear them to Congress or the taxpayers. We ought to pull their chain on it."
The roll of scofflaws turns up countries that the United States annually pays millions for the rights to maintain military bases: Turkey, Greece, Portugal and the Philippines. It also encompasses countries emerging from communist rule and now seeking U.S. aid, such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.
"There is a certain amount of, `You can't touch me, you can't tow my car, so I'm going to park,' " said a State Department official familiar with the problem, speaking only on condition of anonymity.
The department and the city acknowledge that Washington does have a serious parking shortage.
"It's a sensitive topic in this city," said Vada Manager, press secretary for Mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon. Diplomats, he said, see tickets not as a personal liability but as their embassies' problem, "as opposed to normal citizens, for whom it comes out of their bank account."
The Soviet Union, which is seeking massive food and economic aid from the West, accounts for nearly half the total. Over the past three years, Soviet diplomats have been ticketed for illegal parking an average of more than 60 times a day, weekends and holidays included.
Moscow's downtown embassy, which routinely has lines of cars parked out front with pink citations under their windshield wipers, owes a staggering $3.2 million in parking fines. A call to the embassy's press office was not returned on Friday, though embassy officials previously have argued that they are ticketed unfairly because there is no other place for them to park.
Egypt, for which the United States recently forgave $7 billion in old military loans, has 2,532 outstanding tickets and fines totaling $136,235.
Israel, which gets more than $3 billion a year in economic and military help from American taxpayers, owes $71,671 in fines on 1,417 outstanding tickets, according to city figures.
Many of the tickets are for infractions that pose public safety dangers, such as blocking emergency exits and parking in front of fire hydrants, said Manager of the mayor's office.
Frustrated city officials turned to the State Department a year ago to help collect the overdue fines but with little success.
The department sent out a flurry of letters to the worst offenders reminding them that while their diplomatic immunity shields them from being towed or hauled into court, it does not relieve them of the obligation to obey local laws or pay fines.
Failure to pay up, the department said, could lead to loss of driving privileges in the United States. The letters were followed by a second notice and by personal visits to offending embassies.
Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries, paid $20 of the amount it owed.
But nearly a year later, the collection effort has brought in less than $25,000, according to the city's most recent figures. During the same period, the total amount of outstanding parking fines grew by 8 percent, to a total of $6,820,195.
While a State Department official said the trend is turning around, it was not quick enough to satisfy Obey.
Not all the offenders get or are seeking U.S. foreign aid. Countries like Australia, Britain, France, Switzerland, Germany and Spain are beyond the reach of such an enforcement tool. But many more - especially in Africa and Latin America - would stand to lose if the threat to cut aid is carried out.
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Top deadbeats and their debts
Here's a list of the dozen foreign embassies in Washington that owe the most in parking fines to the city's government, together with the number of outstanding tickets and the total amount owed.
1. Soviet Union 65,759 $3,219,000
2. Somalia 6,503 $289,455
3. Nigeria 3,009 $155,405
4. Egypt 2,532 $136,235
5. Saudi Arabia 2,752 $121,250
6. Sudan 1,661 $93,960
7. South Korea 1,814 $92,395
8. Cameroon 1,851 $90,970
9. China 1,744 $84,585
10. Gabon 1,578 $72,175
11. Israel 1,417 $71,671
12. Bulgaria 1,348 $67,915