By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, October 7 -- There should be no more than five years at any one UN position, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced.
But Inner City Press notes, for example, that the head of the Bangkok-based Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Noeleen Heyzer of Singapore, has been in place more than SIX years now. She was put into the position in August 2007, and it is now October 2013.
But there's more to this than just another example of the UN not living up to its stated principles, as with its Human Rights Due Diligence Policy with continued aid to the two Congolese Army units implicated in the 135 rapes in Minova in November 2012.
Inner City Press is not the only one who noticed that Heyzer's Under Secretary General position at ESCAP could be freed up.
Well placed sources exclusively tell Inner City Press that the head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to hold THAT position, wants to push out his co-equal Under Secretary General for the Department of Field Support, Ameerah Haq.
While an earlier Ban Ki-moon reform involved splitting Peacekeeping into two separate components, DPKO and DFS, now Ladsous wants to dominate both of them, by pushing Haq out of DFS and installing a person of his own choosing. (More on that in a future story.)
Singapore is a serious UN country, so another USG post would have to be identified and given to Heyzer or another Singaporean. But Ladsous, or better said France, has this kind of control in the UN system.
Beyond this abuse of Ban's supposed five year rule, it brings up the need for a more meaningful reform: no COUNTRY should be able to control a UN department for more than five years. France has held onto Peacekeeping, even since demanding it in exchange for not vetoing Kofi Annan becoming Secretary General. Here they are:
Secrétaires généraux adjoints des Nations Unis aux Opérations de Maintien de la Paix :
Kofi Annan : de mars 1993 à décembre 1996
Bernard Miyet : de janvier 1997 à octobre 2000
Jean-Marie Guéhenno : d'octobre 2000 à juillet 2008
Alain Le Roy : du 30 juin 2008 au 2 septembre 2011
Hervé Ladsous : à compter du 2 septembre 2011
This is UNacceptable: over 16 years, 9 months. It should end.
At the other end of the UN spectrum, it's every UN department for itself. The Publishing Unit faces a zeroing out of jobs, from 150 position not long ago. To save some posts, in order to scan old documents in the basement of the UN library, sources exclusively tell Inner City Press that the UN is turning to its new Daddy Warbucks: Qatar.
Warbucks because while the UN pleads for Qatar's money, that country's royal family funds war in Syria. But the UN says nothing. At least, then, the UN should create a bidding war to save more staffers' jobs. We are against lay-offs, but also against the UN becoming beholden to particular states, creating under Ban Ki-moon a UN "a la carte," to use another French phrase like faux (but not Pho).
Meanwhile in the Department of Safety and Security, more security has been gained, commitments from acting Under Secretary General Kevin Kennedy. This emerged at the best "End of General Debate" party of the season, under the (broken) satellite dish over the East River Friday night. Compared to the faux ceremony of the UN Correspondents Association Executive Committee, which after spying for the UN through its first vice president had to beg interns to come via a rare flyer, DSS had steak and an open bar and plenty of good vibes.
UNCA is given its clubhouse, in which it held a faux UN briefing by Gulf-supported Syria rebel boos Jarba (a/k/a Jarbucks), by the UN Department of Public Information, regarding which we have received a detailed recruitment complaint, regarding which we have publicly requested an explanation. The new Free UN Coalition for Access holds, if the explanation makes sense, it's fine. But to not respond, or to only selectively respond, is not. More on this to follow. Watch this site.
