By Matthew Russell Lee & sources, Exclusive
UN GATE, Aug 22 – UNESCO, like the whole UN system under Antonio Guterres was been falling apart in corruption and fraud.
Inner City Press has been reporting on serious malfeasance by the French Audrey Azoulay administration at UNESCO in Paris, almost as bad as Antonio Guterres' corruption in and of the UN in New York. A fish rots from the head.
The UNESCO corruption series is now more than 138 stories long. In our news report on UNESCO of March 16, (here), we underlined the following : “By March 15, the deadline for submitting candidates for the post of Director-General of UNESCO, in addition to the Egyptian candidate, Dr Khaled Al-Anani, former Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, two other candidates were presented – both from the UNESCO Secretariat. The two internal candidates are the ADG for Social and human sciences, Mexico's Gabriela Ramos, and the other one is DG Azoulay's yes-man and ADG for External Affairs and Africa, Vietnamese-Congolese Firmin Matoko.
We also wrote that “Gabriela Ramos is best known in the SHS sector for having been authorized by DG Azoulay to exercise totalitarian control over staff, including intimidation and harassment that coerce staff members into fear and obedience. For years, Azoulay took no action against her and continued to protect her against documented complaints from her staff to Ethics and the IOS. In January 2024, IOS launched a formal investigation against Gabriela Ramos for misconduct and harassment. The IOS report number 2024/02, of December 2024, was finalized by IOS and presented to DG Audrey Azoulay for administrative action. Instead, DG Azoulay sat on the report and let time run out, clearly waiting for the March 15, 2025 deadline to allow Gabriela Ramos to run as her successor as DG of UNESCO.
The IOS report is very clear and conclusive regarding Gabriela Ramos' proven harassment practices and we also wrote that “the Mexican authorities still have plenty of time to read the report and consider withdrawing Ms Ramos from the race to avoid a shameful situation in which she leads her country directly into a paradoxical situation in which the Mexican candidate for DG is about to be dismissed for misconduct”. That is exactly what happened, and Mexico, after assessing the slim chances of success of this electoral process, withdrew Ramos from the race this week after negotiating mutual support with Egypt at the UN in New York. In a letter dated August 21, addressed by Enrique Ochoa to the Chair of the UNESCO Executive Board, this withdrawal was officially notified. One sentence in this letter caught our attention regarding the justification for Ramos' withdrawal.
It begins with “In order to promote unity among members and strengthen the organization (...)”. This means that even the Mexican authorities have realized that the organization would be strengthened and would be a better place without Ramos. This speaks volumes about her human and professional qualities. So be it. Finally, for Gabriela Ramos, the political winds blew against her opportunistic career, first as the mistress of the head of the OECD, then as one of the worst ADGs for social and human sciences. The same fate will befall Audrey Azoulay after she leaves her post as DG in two months' time.
All electoral games are built on dirty tricks, but tricks don't work every time. Gabriela Ramos' enormous handicap as an awful personnel manager, as described in the IOS report, disqualified her from the outset and subsequently allowed Egypt to negotiate her withdrawal. We'll be following developments in the electoral process at UNESCO, a UN agency that is a breeding ground for corruption, embezzlement, abuse of power and nepotism. We will have more on that. Watch this site.
This is where UNESCO stands today. We will have more on that. Watch this site.
