Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/ban1unctad062409.html
UNITED NATIONS, June 24 -- Weeks after the filing with the UN investigative unit of emails showing a dirty tricks campaign by staffers of UN Conference on Trade and Development chief Supachai Panitchpakdi to get a second term, on Wednesday UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon nevertheless announced he is supporting Supachai for another four years.
Inner City Press, which exclusively reported the filing on June 22, asked Ban's spokesperson if Ban had considered its contents, and acknowledged any connection between them and the reappointment.
The most explosive part of the emails, being published for the first time today by Inner City Press, are the arguments made in a May 8, 2009 email by Supachai's special adviser Kobsak Chutikul, that African and other countries were supporting Ivory Coast's former trade minister to deny Supachai from Thailand a second term in order to set a precedent to deny Ban Ki-moon a second term as Secretary General, due to "his perceived Western backers."
Ban's spokesperson declined to comment on the filing, saying it is before the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services. Video here from Minute 10:45. But senior Ban officials including Management chief Angela Kane and Ethics Officer Robert Benson have had the complaint since June 4. Meanwhile, the complainant has reportedly been demoted.
Inner City Press asked Supachai if his UNCTAD has any whistleblower protection provisions. Yes we will follow those, Supachai answered. He claimed he "never campaigned," despite what the emails show his special adviser Kobsak Chutikul doing. He claimed he only "responded to some countries' remarks." Video here, from Minute 56:18.
Given these statement, Inner City Press is today publishing some of the emails at issue, here.
In a May 8, 2009 email marked Attachment E and headlined, "NAM Note Verbale," Chutikul wrote to three senior UNCTAD staff, including the subsequent complainant:
"Gentlemen, please see attached NAM Note Verbale sent out to all NAM Missions today. In light of this new development, it is the assessment of Thai and some ASEAN Ambassadors that the picture has become clear -- UNCTAD SG post has become an innocent bystander caught in the middle of a bigger struggle... The goal seems to be to insist on geographical rotation of posts, and undermining the practice / tradition of two continuous terms, with the real target being the UN SG (and his perceived western backers)."
This argument raises the issue, for some interviewed by Inner City Press so far: did Ban have something of a conflict of interest in overriding (after working to override and change) African Group resistance and giving Supachai a second term? In fact, that too is laid out in Supachai's special adviser's Mach 8 e-mail, referring to telling Team Ban "things like 'you are the real target' or 'you are next.'"
The emails point to several other improprieties, and it is extraordinary that Team Ban wants or wanted to ignore them and simply reappoint Supachai.
Following Chutikul's"all hands on deck" e-mail, the press was on to get Ban to announce his referral of Supachai's renomination to the General Assembly. A Chinese staff member conferred with Beijing, and that asked for evidence of which way Ban was leaning (Attachment G). Another UNCTAD staffer questioned why the African Group targeted the second term of Supachai and not Frenchman Pascal Lamy at the World Trade Organization -- "because he's white"? The e-mails are replete with racial references.
Now what will happen? Watch this site.And see, www.innercitypress.com/ban1unctad062409.html
