As UN's Ban Ki-moon Fetes His Envoys' Nepal Roles, Copter Co. Vertical-T is Suspended, UN Heats Up

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un3nepal080608.html

UNITED NATIONS, August 6 -- As the UN celebrated its contribution to the Nepali peace process, in a ceremony Wednesday at which Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon gave a speech, more quietly news emerged that the UN helicopter contractor responsible for a deadly crash in Nepal in March has now quietly been suspended by the UN. Inner City Press had asked the UN's envoy to Nepal, Ian Martin, for his response to the national aviation authority's report which severely criticized the UN's contractor, Vertical-T. Mr. Martin had said he was not the one to answer, so the questions were directed elsewhere. And this written answer resulted:

Here is the reply from the UN Department of Field Support on your question... The State of Occurrence (Nepal), has provided the UN with a copy of the Final report. The report is currently being reviewed by the relevant Accredited Representatives to the accident investigation. As per established procedures, once the review has been completed DFS will follow up on all the recommendations in the report.

Meanwhile, for internal purposes, the UN convened a Board of Inquiry (BOI) to review the circumstances of the accident and make recommendations concerning any actions, steps or measures, which the board considers should be taken by the UN authorities to avoid the reoccurrence of such accidents.

Vertical-T has been suspended as a UN registered vendor. The reasons for the suspension are a lack of cooperation with the Nepalese Accident Commission and an inability to meet contractual requirements. The UN currently has no charter agreements with Vertical-T.

As for the procedures for modifying existing contracts or taking negative performance reviews into account in future contracting, DFS has established Aviation Quality Assurance and Accident Prevention Programs in place that address contractual, operational, performance and safety issues.

This reporter, in riding in a Vertical-T helicopter in Chad in June, noted that all safety information was in Russian, and communications with the pilots was impossible.

Footnote: at the Nepal even on Wednesday, on the other hand, Ban Ki-moon was sired around by Chinese Ambassador Wang, as Lynn Pascoe and Vijay Nambiar worked the crowd. There was grumbling, yes, about Ban's decision to raise the temperature in Headquarters, to save money and the environmental. The number of electric fans coming in continues to climb, and Ban is slated to leave on a vacation. Should the UN Department of Political Affairs have given advice on this?

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un3nepal080608.html

In Nepal, UN "Regrets Altercation" With Media, Seizes Film of Crash Site, Won't Name Contractor

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un5nepal030708.html

UNITED NATIONS, March 7 -- Four days after a helicopter serving the UN Mission in Nepal went down, killing all of those aboard, the UN in New York was unable or unwilling to even state what company the helicopter came from. Inner City Press has adduced that it is from the Russian firm Vertical T. A local report says that photographs of the crash site were confiscated: "asking the news crew not to shoot images of the crash site, UNMIN staff also took tapes of the crash site already shot by the media persons into their possession."

At Friday's noon briefing at UN headquarters, Inner City Press asked again for confirmation of the name of the contractor, and for a response to the reports of crack-down on journalists. While still refusing any procurement information, the UN spokesperson told Inner City Press by e-mail that "we regret that there was an altercation between members of the UNMIN team and media at the site of the helicopter crash, when members of the UNMIN team were attempting to recover the bodies of colleagues and to cover them before filming."

While the UN's use of this rationale always sounds lofty, the Federation of Nepalese Journalists and the International Press Institute's Nepal chapter both denounced the UN's "manhandling and misbehavior" and the confiscation of the tape of cameraman Bhola Thapa of Nepal TV.

A Russian-language report says the cause may have been a rocket-propelled grenade. Still the UN not said who will investigate the crash. The Nepali Minister of Civil Aviation, on whose web site it is reported that there was at least one previous UNMIN helicopter incident that went uninvestigated, generally makes public copies of its crash reports. Will that happen in this case? The secrecy to date, while par for the UN course, is inappropriate in this case.

Vertical T, sometimes spelled Vertikal T, which has amassed some 127 million in UN contracts, click here for some. Involved in this contracting has been the head of the UN's Field Procurement Section, Dmitry Dovgopoly, who is also central to the UN's award of no-bid contracts to military contractor Lockheed Martin. During the General Assembly's questioning of the $250 million non-competitive contract to Lockheed for Darfur peacekeeping camps, Inner City Press is told by sources that Procurement official Dmitry Dovgopoly had Ukraine's ambassador reach out to other countries' Permanent Representatives, urging them to cool off on inquiries into the Lockheed deal, given Dovgolopy's involvement.

Earlier this week, Inner City Press asked Dovgopoly to comment on another procurement irregularity in which he is involved, the changing of the final Request for Proposals for the follow-on Darfur infrastructure contract after a request from the French mission to the UN. Dovgopoly did not respond. And the UN spokesperson's office, even four days after the crash in Nepal, could or would not provide the name of the helicopter owner.

A Vertical T helicopter was previously shot down by the Taliban in Afghanistan, click here for that. Why would the UN have an interest in downplaying possible hostile fire at one of its helicopters in Nepal? Perhaps, one observer said, the UN can be too committed to a peace process -- or, as now explained, too committed to its version of acceptable journalism -- to the point of confiscating evidence or worse.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un5nepal030708.html