By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, November 1 -- That the UN's head of security in of its MINURSO "Peacekeeping" mission distributed pornographic pictures of women from Western Sahara arose Thursday at UN headquarters, in an ill-attended session of the UN Administrative Tribunal.
Mr. Massah, "a national of Cameroon, was employed as a Security Officer with the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara ('MINURSO'). His duty station was Laayoune."
And here, according to the UN decision appealed from, is what Mr. Massah did: he took and then emailed around photographs of "female sexual organs" of local women. But when he challenged his firing, the UN Dispute Tribunal sided with him, finding that
"the Applicant took pictures of women in his apartment. There is no evidence to suggest that the Applicant forced these women into these pictures or that he profited monetarily, socially, or politically from taking them. Nor is there any evidence to establish any act of sexual abuse."
But weren't there supposed to be some rules about UN officials' conduct while on Peacekeeping missions?
Thursday, after the death of the Applicant, the above-quoted decision was overturned; it was noted that the women were of "highly sensitive cultural background" and that sexual services had been paid for.
Still, of the UN especially in Western Sahara, the case is telling. Previously, DPKO peacekeepers in Western Sahara were found to have painted pornographic graffiti over ancient case paintings there. And still -- no Referendum.
Meanwhile Inner City Press is informed of similar and current abuse in the UN Mission in Liberia, at an even higher level. Does the UN just fail to renew people as a form of (non) accountability?
(Click here for Inner City Press coverage of Department of Peacekeeping Operations chief Herve Ladsous' quiet trip to Western Sahara -- some ask, what is his role as DPKO chief in the events in the military component of the mission in Liberia?)
Back in New York, in the case of Dushyant Joshi of whom Inner City Press reported the arrest by the New York Police Department for sexual abuse, and most recentlyasked for an update from Under Secretary General for Management Yukio Takasu, further inquiry has unearthed the following from a source:
Joshi was for two years in Division for Human Resources at UNICEF's New York headquarters. He rose from a P4 to a P5 through an elaborate and very Machiavellian scheme. He first managed to move out of his section by cutting his reporting line to his boss, Rudolf Messinger. He convinced DHR management that a new section was needed for which he made them appoint him Chief without due process.
He then managed to get his old section - with the Chief post - abolished. His old boss was moved to Islamabad. He appealed in vain but in the absence of evidence Mr Joshi only had to , well, dissemble before the Administrative Tribunal...
We'll have more on the UN Administrative Tribunal. Inner City Press attended on short notice Thursday's read-out in North Lawn Conference Room 6 of 26 judgments of the 34 cases heard. Watch this site.
