By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/un3dimandja111109.html
UNITED NATIONS, November 11 -- In Eastern Congo UN vehicles were used to transport jet fuel stolen from the UN in Bunia, former UN staff member John Dimandja has told Inner City Press, after having submitted his evidence and photographs to the highest levels of the UN.
The response of the UN to date has been to send New York City Police Department officers to tell Dimandja to stay away from the UN, after he said he would step in front of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's vehicle if he had to in order to deliver his letter.
Mr. Dimandja has written, "I keep the pictures of fuel-JA1... the plates of UN vehicle that transported fuel-Jet-A1 can be identified... MONUC administration sustained by putting out all those that condemn its acts of UN fuel Jet-A1 robbery, in this cases MONUC put out some colleagues from MONUC Bunia security section so that to remove all traces. The real fuel Jet-A1 robbery managers are supported by MONUC administration and continue to their work."
Dimandja states that when he arrived in New York after fleeing death threats in the Congo for his work for the UN disarming militias, he made the UN aware of these irregularities, but "nothing was done."
Dimandja has written, "UN air crafts Fuel Jet-A1 file is very sensitive, that continues to put me and my family again in an other insecurity, I am requesting again the Nations United to assist us by securing my family, I did not travel to USA with a purpose to accuse MONUC of its misbehaviors but to save my life as well as of those of my family."
On November 10, a senior UN official implied to Inner City Press that Mr. Dimandja is unstable and needs counseling.
We note that the whistleblower about the UN Development Program's financial irregularities in North Korea had his photo put in the same "do not let enter" photo array as Mr. Dimandja is now in. Most recently, in this whistleblower's case in the UN Dispute Tribunal, he states that the UN's lawyer said that UN Ethics Officer Robert Benson, who ruled he was presumptively retaliated against and then denied due process, would not be "allowed" to testify to the UNDT.
Nicolas Baroncini, who exposed an e-mail by Alan Doss, the UN's top Congo envoy -- and Dimandja's boss -- in which Doss asked UNDP to grant him "lee-way" and hire his daughter for Baroncini's job, after being pepper sprayed and biting out at Security Officer Peter Kolonias was taken to Bellevue Hospital to mental observation, and now faces trial in Criminal Court in lower Manhattan.
There is a pattern, then, of the UN describing many recent whistleblowers as mentally unstable or threatening. We will continue to follow this.And see, www.innercitypress.com/un3dimandja111109.html
