At UN, As Appeal of Appleton Dismissed, Ahlenius Echo, OIOS Defanged: of Porno &Procurement Rules

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 28 -- In a time with the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services has gone quiet or worse, the UN Appeals Tribunal on Friday morning dismissed an appeal from Robert Appleton, to whom former OIOS chief Inga-Britt Ahlenius wanted to give a D-2 post.

Ahlenius, it will be remembered, left the UN with a volley ofcriticism of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's leadership, or what she called the lack thereof. Inner City Press story here.

Ahlenius' replacement, Carman Lapointe, has no only not criticized or meaningfully investigated the Ban administration: she has quashed various investigations which had been ongoing, including one involving UMOJA, as Inner City Press has covered, here. There are cases her OIOS should look into, but one hesitates to even refer them.

Appleton was in line for the investigative D2 position in OIOS, but in March 2009 it was re-advertised. He was again recommended to get it, but was turned down again a full year later in 2010.

After litigating inside the UN, he was awarded $30,000 in “moral” damages, nothing in compensatory damages. (Inner City Press covered that decision in August 2012, here.)

   Apppleton appealed, and Friday lost on every count. There was one dissent, Judge Chapman, who in reading out the decision said he could have gotten compensatory damages. But the other judges sided entirely with Ban, as they did in case after case read out on Friday morning.

One litigant was ordered to pay costs -- Appleton was denied the costs of his appeal -- and various appeals were called “non receivable,” the term Ban used to turn down the claims for 5,000 deaths from the UN bringing cholera to Haiti.

Ban wanted to redact even recommendations from a UN Dispute Tribunal case, and contested the right of the Tribunals to estimate people's harm. Appeals about pensions being pegged to the consumer price index, in Argentina, were denied. UN staffers were criticized for pornography and “authorized outside activity.”

Meanwhile the UN answered Inner City Press' questions about conflicts of interest and (anti) revolving doors rules with this, limited only to procurement:

Subject: Your question on post-employment rules
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 12:06 PM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

Employment restrictions for staff participating in procurement activities under ST/SGB/2006/15. For all staff, and former staff, staff regulation 1.2(i) applies:

Regulation 1.2 (i)

Staff members shall exercise the utmost discretion with regard to all matters of official business. They shall not communicate to any Government, entity, person or any other source any information known to them by reason of their official position that they know or ought to have known has not been made public, except as appropriate in the normal course of their duties or by authorization of the Secretary-General. These obligations do not cease upon separation from service.

We'll have more on this. Watch this site.

  

As UN Tribunal Finds Peacekeeper Porno in Western Sahara, Joshi Part Deux, Liberia Cover Up?

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.