By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/undt1weaponscase122909.html
UNITED NATIONS, December 29, updated / redacted -- A Russian expert in weapons of mass destruction, claiming retaliation for having exposed what she called a United Nations cover-up of chemical weapons left over from Iraq, is challenging the UN's termination of her employment at New Years.
[REDACTED] served the UN in Iraq, in New York and most recently on North Korea and Iran, appeared Tuesday in a judicial proceeding in the basement of UN headquarters, saying that if the UN lets her go, she is in danger.
She alleged retaliation, and that her supervisor Thomas Markram had forced her to remove the names of countries she worked on -- North Korea and Iran -- from her job description and evaluation.
The chief of UN Disarmament Affairs' Weapons of Mass Destruction Branch, Gabrile Kraatz- Wadsak, acknowledged that Mr. Markham had forced these two countries names to be removed from [REDACTED]'s employment forms, but said it was so no "bias" would be perceived against the two countries.
[REDACTED] went to the UN Ethics Office, which is ostensiblly in charge of ensuring protection of whistleblowers. They simply referred her elsewhere in the UN system, leading to the December 29 hearing.
Inner City Press, the only media organization covering the hearing and case, first questioned [REDACTED] in 2007, when five vials of phosgene were found in the closed down offices of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, (UNMOVIC).
On Tuesday, before a gag order was sought, [REDACTED] alleged that UN "management concealed six days" the vials.
After UNMOVIC was disbanded in 2007, [REDACTED] continued working in UN Disarmament, in posts funded by the John D. MacArthur Foundation. (Testimony says $2 million was spent on a mere four posts in 22 months). [REDACTED] that it was discrimination and retaliation that she was made to work on projects outside the scope of the MacArthur grant, such that she is now being let go.
After that, a deputy of Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN Vitaly Churkin called the head of UN Disarmament, Sergio De Queiroz Duarte, asking if [REDACTED] be kept on. Only if money could be found, Mr. Duarte replied, according to testimony. Then a prospective donor country -- left unidentified -- was approached, but did not come through.
UN Dispute Tribunal judge Memooda Ebrahim-Carstens asked [REDACTED] if she currently has an UN security. No, [REDACTED], but "Hans Blix protected me." She added that she lives in an apartment building -- which Inner City Press will leave unnamed -- where "eighty percent" of the tenants work for the UN, with security video cameras.
[REDACTED] said that she could not get a job in the weapons field in Russia because her husband is American, nor in the United States because she is not a citizen. Her degree is as a chemical weapons production engineer. What do you want me to do, she asked, "put that on my Facebook?"
The OLA representative countered that the UN "can't give jobs for life." He argued that [REDACTED] harm would not be irreparable, that it could be compensated with money if she ultimately wins on the merit. [REDACTED] a medical procedure costing "three times as much as [her] repatriation grant" and the possible need to return half of the UN's $25,000 educational grant for her daughter.
At Tuesday's hearing, after the UN Office of Legal Affairs representative pointed Inner City Press out, a motion was made to prohibit Inner City Press from reporting on the proceedings. Inner City Press opposed the motion, noting that the hearing was listed as open and that the Ban Ki-moon administration brags about the transparency of its new internal justice system. (Click here for a previous Inner City Press report on a UNDT proceeding.)
While granting separate orders to keep documents filed secret from the Press and public, the judge agreed, but asked OLA to in the future make earlier motions to bar the press. But the Press would need notice and an opportunity to be heard, Inner City Press pointed out. So far, no response.
