Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/unpga1nepotism062509.html
UNITED NATIONS, June 25 -- Despite the low level turn out for his summit on the global financial crisis, General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann is reportedly already trying to name members to a proposed working group which would follow-up on the whatever is accomplished or agreed to at the summit.
D'Escoto is already under fire for having put two of his relatives, a nephew and a niece, on his staff for the summit, paying them with UN funds. Now, sources tell Inner City Press, attempts have been made to get both of them positions with the financial working group, to stay on even after d'Escoto must step down.
D'Escoto has refused to explain his reasoning in paying two relative with UN funds. Inner City Press first reported the story on June 9, and on June 23 Inner City Press asked d'Escoto about it. D'Escoto snidely encouraged Inner City Press to "continue with its speculation" which he found "entertaining."
Meanwhile, a range of diplomats including from the left and Latin America approached Inner City Press to marvel at the low quality of d'Escoto's management. They said a move had been afoot to get D'Escoto's nephew Michael Clark, and niece Sophia Clark, positions with the working group d'Escoto wants to come out of the summit. As one wag wryly put it, "To the losers go the spoils."
While there has been no legal accountability, it is said that the incoming President of the General Assembly Ali Treki of Libya, initially open to the extension of the two nepotistic hires, has grown skeptical due to the bad publicity.
At a press conference of Caribbean states, moderated by a staffer from d'Escoto's Office, Belize's Dean Barrow appeared to indirectly answer as d'Escoto might or should have, saying with reference to the head of state of Grenada naming his own son as ambassador to the UN that there is no need to be "overly finicky" when talent runs all in the family. But does it here? Watch this site.
