www.innercitypress.com/uncyp1conflicts050409.html
UNITED NATIONS, May 4 -- How does the UN police for conflicts of interest in its ranks? The answer appears to be, it doesn't. Last week the UN's envoy for Cyprus, Alexander Downer, took questions from the Press. Inner City Press asked, as it had in 2008, what safeguards are in place to ensure that Downer's job with business consultancy Bespoke Approach doesn't conflict with his activities in and around Cyprus.
Downer assured that he wouldn't allow conflicts, adding that Cyprus doesn't have that much business. Neither is a satisfactory response at the organization like the UN. Only a few month ago, the UN's stealth envoy to Niger, former Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler, was kidnapped in Niger while on his way to visit a Canadian-owned gold mine, apparently not on UN business. The UN has still refused to answer questions, even after Fowler had been released, reportedly in exchange for the freeing of terrorism suspects.
Downer's answer as to Cyprus is particularly insufficient because Bespoke Approach work with Turkey (or Greece) would also be a conflict. The investment firm KKR lists an affiliation with Bespoke Approach. Who is policing these conflicts? Not the UN.
The Cyprus foreign service has made this transcript of Inner City Press' Q&A with Downer:
Inner City Press: there’s been some controversy or questioning about if you can be the envoy and also have side job as a businessman?
Downer: Well, I was employed part-time not full-time so I have to keep body and soul together. I’ve got a wife, I’ve got children. My daughter got married last week, I just have to pay for the wedding and thank you for congratulating me. It’s only a part-time job. Of course I have absolutely no business with Cyprus at all. I have absolutely no business involvement there. To have business involvement there would be a conflict of interest. Cyprus would be the greatest of perspective, I love Cyprus, is not a very big place, it’s not like the United States. So business doesn’t arise day-by-day between Australia and Cyprus.
Inner City Press: I found on the UN website of bespoke approach, it says you are a good person to hire in part, because you work for the UN. So some people wonder whether it’s appropriate to …..
Downer: Let's just say I’m a good person to hire because if you read it carefully, because I work for the UN, it just explains my CV. You are working in the media and so I think you would appreciate this point in the way that I do. I think transparency is incredibly important. Therefore, it wouldn’t be honest to hide from anybody who may use bespoke approach. But it’s a fair question to ask because obviously I have to be careful there is no conflict of interest. Also I work as a professor at Adelaide University. In that capacity I do talk to people about Cyprus from time to time. In Australia there’s quite a lot of interest on Cyprus. There are nearly 100,000 Australian Cypriots. They split about 60 – 40 Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots. So they keep me busy as well as some of them are on campus of the university. One of them was at my daughter’s wedding actually last week and started lobbying me furiously about some issue to what I’m going to do.
