In UN Council, Pascoe on Yemen, W.Sahara & Hariri Tribunal, Non-Members Excluded

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 4 -- “The horizon is broad,” UN Department of Political Affairs chief Lynn Pascoe told Inner City Press as he left the Security Council on Thursday morning. Inside behind closed doors, his briefing to the Security Council's 15 members was supposed to have not been limited to countries on the Council's agenda.

One such country sent a diplomat, who was surprised to be barred from the meeting. “I thought it would be public,” he told Inner City Press. Another member of the Council dismissively called it an “exercise,” but noted that the Council “ is not a gymnasium.”

The UK, whose innovation this was, declined through its Permanent Representative to list which countries had been discussed. Others present told Inner City Press that Yemen was mentioned, in the context of the Group of Friends which during the UN General Debate held a meeting, albeit across the street from the UN.

Whether the recent posting of bombs made it more likely Yemen will be post on the Council's agenda is not known. Yemen still leads the Group of 77 and China, so any loss of control or sovereignty is unlikely.

Another delegation told Inner City Press that Western Sahara was discussed in a less formal way that usual. Did France speak? No, the delegate recounted, [Ambassador] Araud just smiled.

Pascoe emerged with Assistant Secretaries General Zerihoun and Tarasco, who rushed in late. So, Africa and the Middle East. Where were D-2s like Tamrat Samuel on Asia and Horst Heitmann on the Middle East? The scuttlebutt on the latter is that his transfer from Security Council Affairs was meant to keep the Middle East seat under “non-Arab” control, while another DPA staffer aims for the post Heitmann vacated.

Pascoe, according to a source, urged the Council to go forward with a session on November 5 about Lebanon, specifically the Hariri Tribunal. On November 1, Inner City Press was told that the Tribunal would be discussed on Friday as Any Other Business.

But on Thursday Ambassador after Ambassador told the Press to “ask Sir Lyall Grant” of the UK. Lebanon's Ambassador said he did not want to steal Lyall Grant's thunder, and would only speak about scheduling or the program of work when Lebanon regains the Presidency in September.

The UN Security Council is so full of secrets, one wonder how it functions. Does it? Watch this site.

Top UN Security Council Staffer Removed Without Notice, Diplomatic Fiasco by Ban Ki-moon Team, Members Say

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, July 20, updated -- In a sudden shake up of the UN Secretariat's interface with the Security Council which has left several Council member states baffled, the head of the UN's Security Council Affairs unit, Horst Heitmann, has during his vacation been transferred from the post.

Heitmann's position, Director of the UN Security Council Affairs Division, is not an unimportant post, providing advice to each month's Security Council president and in some months essentially running the Council.

Heitmann had previously dueled with his boss, Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe, about insubordination in hiring for the Council's sanctions committees, as Inner City Press exclusively reported. Click here for Pascoe's “memo to file” against Heitmann, and here for further background.

Because no one is ever fired from the UN, a Permanent Five member of the Council tells Inner City Press Heitmann may be parked in another UN Political Affairs job, in the Middle East and West Asia Division, previously held by Lisa Buttenheim. UN staffers told Inner City Press that the change was “like a decapitation” and hurt morale.

They said the news of Heitmann's ouster was e-mailed to them on Friday, July 16 at 5:40 p.m.. The first time they could meet and ask questions, in the Council chamber, was the Tuesday, July 20 meeting. Several staff members expressed shock. Later on Tuesday, Lynn Pascoe convoked Heitmann's interim replacement to meet with him. A “Temporary Vacancy Announcement” will be published on Friday.

Ambassadors from several Security Council member states asked Inner City Press, regarding the sudden move on Heitmann, “what is going on?” Combined with the Council's move this year to exclude the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary General from attendance at consultation meetings, the failure to explain the move to the Council member states represents another managerial and diplomatic screw up by the Ban Ki-moon administration, they say.

Will Loraine Sievers, Heittman's deputy, be promoted to replace him? Probably not, sources say, since she only recently was promoted from the P-5 level to D-1. Another name, perhaps more realistic, being circulated as Heitmann's replacement is Pascoe's current Special Assistance Karin Ann / Karina Gerlach of Venezuela. She is currently at the UN's D-1 level, but seeks a promotion to D-2, which she would get if she takes Heitmann's post.

Another answer was surprising: a rumor that long serving Norma Chan, who retired amid a slew of congratulations and awards from P-5 members, may return to Heitmann's place. But, the Council source asked, wouldn't the awards be a conflict of interest? We hope to hear from the retired Ms. Chan on these topics, and will report what we hear.

Inner City Press waited outside Pascoe's office before publication of this story; his spokesman has rarely answered questions, for example about corruption at the top of DPA's Affair II division, and Center in Turkmenistan. Whatever we hear from Mr. Pascoe we will also report. Watch this site.

Update of 6:38 p.m. -- Lynn Pascoe emerged from his wing of the North Lawn building and issued a no comment, an affable no comment but a no comment nonetheless. Perhaps Security Council members states will belatedly be told more information? Watch this site.

Update -- the UN has since provided this:

This is to inform you that Under-Secretary-General Pascoe informed staff that, with the appointment of Ms. Lisa Buttenheim as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Cyprus, he has decided to laterally move Mr. Horst Heitmann to the post of Director for the Middle East and West Asia Division (MEWAD) effective 16 August 2010. His post at Security Council Affairs will be circulated shortly.

In UN Sanctions Branch, Of Sex and Waste and Fiefdoms, Pascoe's Transfer Re-Examined

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/undpa2filenote101309.html

UNITED NATIONS, October 13 -- The UN's Sanctions Branch is run in such a way that when one of its Democratic Republic of the Congo experts began spending its money on prostitutes while in the DRC, he was allowed to continue by converting the working woman into his girlfriend, responsive UN sources tell Inner City Press.

The team on Sudan sanctions was stacked with non Arabic speakers, friends and acquaintances of the UN official who recruited them, costing tens of thousands of dollars in extra translation fees.

The Sanctions Branch is a part of the UN Department of Political Affairs, currently embroiled in controversy. Last week Inner City Press obtained and published a sharply worded "note to file" by DPA chief B. Lynn Pascoe reprimanding two long time staffers, Horst Heitmann and Aleksandar Martinovic, who oversees the Sanctions Branch. Since then additional whistleblowers have stepped forward, and the picture has become more complete.

It is, as is so often the case at the UN, a story about family connections, nationality and fiefdoms. To fill an opening at the P-5 level in the Sanctions Branch Mr. Martinovic, a Peruvian who came into the UN along with Javier Perez de Cuellar, favored one James E. Suttlin, whose father James S. Sutterlin wrote a central bank about Perez de Cuellar.

Lynn Pascoe's supporters recount that the Sanctions Branch under Martinovic faced complaints of sexism and "lack of gender balance."

With two long serving women leaving the sanctions branch, the hiring of Sutterlin was not positively viewed. Nor was the fact that until one of the women left, the Sanctions Branch lacked staff meetings and coordination. "Just one on one, divide and conquer" is how one insider described it to Inner City Press. And so Pascoe intervened, circumventing an already ongoing recruitment process to laterally send in someone in his office.

Martinovic and Horst Heittman protested, suddenly declaring that the position wasn't needed. The Pascoe supporters point out that while Heittman now contests USG Pascoe's lateral transfer, he himself favor a lateral move of his fellow German Gregor Boventer into the Charter Research Branch, with little background in the subject.

National fealty and power politics seem to have determined much of the make up of DPA and its Security Council Affairs Division.

It is said that when Heittman came in at D-1, then German Ambassador Gunter Pleuger pleaded his case to then DPA chief Kieran Prendergast. Now with another Germany Ambassador on his way, this level of support is not known.

Heittman is said to have offered German help to Kofi Annan's last DPA chief Ibrahim Gambari, to try to keep this post under Ban Ki-moon. This didn't work, and now Lynn Pascoe is said to not let Gambari work on any African issues.

It is like archeology, and if what Inner City Press reported in its last article, that the Obama administration wants peacekeeping and would give DPA to the French, a new round of musical chair might soon begin. But we like to get as close to the truth as we can for each round, hence this follow up report. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/undpa2filenote101309.html

At UN, Rebellion and Retaliation in Political Affairs Unit, Pascoe's Transfer Questioned, Faces French - Obama Switch?

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/undpa1filenote100809.html

UNITED NATIONS, October 8, updated Oct. 9 -- The UN Department of Political Affairs, charged with working internationally for peace, has devolved into some internal warfare. On October 8, DPA chief B. Lynn Pascoe wrote an angry "note to file" about two of his directors, who rebelled against what many of Inner City Press' sources in DPA call a flawed and even corrupt hiring process. The note to file, after DPA's response, is being published by Inner City Press here.

As Mr. Pascoe's Note to File about "Unacceptable Conduct by Messrs. Martinovic and Heitmann" has it, "a P5 level staff member in my office volunteered for the internal mobility exercise. I reviewed the Vacancy Announcement that was posted for the P5 in the Subsidiary Organs [of the Security Council] Branch, and I deemed that she was qualified for the post."

There was only one problem: public notice of this P5 post has already been published, and three candidates from outside the UN had already applied. They were told that a test would be administered to make the process competitive and merit-based. Then they were told that the examination was canceled "for technical reasons."

One of the suddenly disqualified finalists, from Germany, came to New York and demanded of Mr. Aleksandar Martinovic to know what these "technical reasons" were. Another internal candidate, already expert on sanctions, was also sidelined by Mr. Pascoe's unilateral decision to place his colleague Michele Griffin into the vacant P5 post, effective October 20, 2009.

Returning to Mr. Pascoe's disciplinary version, after he "issued a note to all DPA staff announcing the move, plus one other transfer, on 2 October, 2009" suddenly Mr. Martinovic and Horst Heitmann, the head of the Security Council Division, informed Mr. Pascoe's Special Assistant Karin Ann Gerlach that "they no longer required the post, did not need the staff member I had laterally re-assigned."

This was a protest of Mr. Pascoe's circumvention of an already begun recruitment process, sources tell Inner City Press. But rather than reconsider his actions, challenged by two respected directors in DPA, Pascoe fired off a note to their personnel files, calling it a "direct contravention of... the instructions I issued as head of the Department... unacceptable conduct for senior managers."

For the head of the UN Secretariat's main diplomatic unit to resort to managing his directors by vituperative notes to personnel files strikes some as a bad sign.

Less documented than the above but not entirely unrelated, well placed sources in the UN say that the United States is mulling taking over the Department of Peacekeeping Affairs, thereby displacing its current chief Alain Le Roy, but in exchange giving DPA to Le Roy's native France. They noted, however, that India too is making a claim to the Peacekeeping post. Watch this site.

While there is no mechanism, it appears, for a "note to the personnel file" of Mr. Pascoe, his circumvention of an already begun recruitment exercise, disregard for the protests of two long time directors, and notes to their files do not reflect well on him. Pascoe concludes, "I have asked Mr. [Haile] Menkerios to duly note this incident on both e-PAS' for the 2009/10 cycle."

Mr. Menkerios is known as Pascoe's "go-to" guy for African issues, totally sidelining Pascoe's predecessor as DPA chief Ibrahim Gambari. But with Menkerios reportedly up to replace Rodolphe Adada in Darfur, will he continue as the e-PAS hatchet man against two of his directors?

A month ago, Inner City Press posed a simple question to DPA and its spokesman, about a hiring process. It took more than three weeks to get it answered, and even then, only partially. While that story is finally in preparation, the report above, supported by two documents with Mr. Pascoe's signature, does not require any three week wait. Pascoe's note to file says "they will have an opportunity to respond in writing should they wish." So, on that or Pascoe's response, we have have more. Watch this site.

Footnote: On October 8, the day Pascoe signed the above quoted note to file, Inner City Press asked him questions on the record about both Somalia and Guinea. On the former, both on and off camera, Pascoe presented himself as unaware of the specifics of the United States' curtailment of aid to the UN World Food Program due to questions about the applicability of anti-terrorism laws to aid in the Al Shabaab controlled portions of Somalia. Video here from Minute 7:47.

On the latter, Pascoe expressed outrage about the rapes in Guinea, and said he hoped for an election, to which the UN would provide help. Video here, from Minute 11:29.

Hopefully clearer than in Afghanistan.

Then Inner City Press obtained a copy of Pascoe's note to file, which seems an equally or more accurate reflection of current DPA diplomacy.

Update of October 9, 2009: rather than the more that three weeks it took to answer a simple question about an office overseen by the Department of Political Affairs, this time DPA sent a response the next day:

Subj: in response to your blog posting of today
From: Jared Kotler [at] un.org
To: Inner City Press
Sent: 10/9/2009 12:03:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

Under USG Pascoe’s leadership, DPA is undergoing a process of strengthening and renewal which includes a mobility exercise intended to broaden the experiences of staff members, consistent with broader efforts to create a more mobile and well rounded Secretariat. The staff transfer you refer to on your blog today was taken in that context. Incidentally, you may be unaware that, as established in ST/AI/2006/3, it is entirely within the authority of a Department head to transfer staff laterally within a department. The reasons for the note to the file you refer to on you blog are well summarized therein.

Jared Kotler
Office of the Under-Secretary General
UN Department of Political Affairs

And so, we publish the note to file, here and above. The protest / refusal to go along of two long standing and respected directors in DPA remains noteworthy. Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson, who Inner City Press asked about this on October 9, said that Ban would have not comments on the specifics. The question was and is, does UN "mobility" allow for a hiring process so irregular that long time and respected directors protest it? And is the answer to fire off vituperative notes to file? Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/undpa1filenote100809.html