By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive confirmed
UNITED NATIONS, Marhc 24 -- On February 25 Inner City Press exclusively reported that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's senior adviser and right hand man Kim Won-soo was in line to replace Angela Kane atop UN Disarmament.
Inner City Press published the story, and asked the UN Spokesman, in the UN Press Briefing Room, to confirm it.
Inner City Press' scoop was credited, for example here.
Inner City Press' scoop was credited, for example here.
Now on March 24 the UN has done just that - Kane is out, and Mister Kim is in, as "acting" head of Disarmament, including with its North Korean portfolio.
On
February 25, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Dujarric:
Inner
City Press: I did want to ask you. We did it on Kubiš. So now I
want to ask you this one. Whether you can confirm that Mr. Kim, Kim
Won-soo, is a candidate to replace Angela Kane at the top UN
disarmament?
Spokesman:
I will not. Because I do not know. Thank you very much. Have a
great day.
On
March 6 Inner City Press asked Dujarric:
Inner
City Press: now that Angela Kane has confirmed that she's leaving the
disarmament post publicly, I wanted to ask… I'd asked whether Mr.
Kim is in fact a candidate. Are there women candidates in that and
what's the process?
Spokesman:
As you know, the process will be open, and when the selection
process is made, it will be announced.
Inner
City Press: Is it a policy to have a woman candidate in the final
three in each of these?
Spokesman:
When the candidate is announced, we will announce it
As Inner City Press first reported, Kim had applied for an Assistant Secretary General position in the Department of Political Affairs. But, sources tell Inner City Press, Under Secretary General of DPA Jeffrey Feltman put the kibosh on that. Kim would report directly to Ban Ki-moon, whose campaign for election and re-election as Secretary General Kim essentially ran.
Inner City Press previously reported on January 30 that along with Kim, another candidate for the DPA Assistant Secretary General post -- whose interim holder spoke with week, for example, with the foreign minister of the Maldives after the jailing of former president Nasheed -- was Dmitry Titov. It is again confirmed that this was plan - but we're told it is no longer. Miroslav Jenca got the post, and Bulgaria's Dragonov took over Jenca's Central Asia post. So who will be the next SG?
Some question Kim Won-soo of South Korea holding the UN's Disarmament post, given the nuclear standoff with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or North Korea.
Kane has had a long tenure in the UN, in such duty stations as Eritrea and, before Disarmament, in the Department of Management. As recently of February 23, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarricabout a controversy in UMOJA during Kane's tenure as Under Secretary General for Management, on which Inner City Press has also exclusively reported:
Inner City Press: you may remember a Paul van Essche was an UMOJA official that ended up leaving his job due to irregularities in his CV, etc. He recently then was rehired by UNICEF as the head of information technology and it’s my understanding that he quit once the connection was made to the prior problem on this side of the street. I wanted to ask you whether the Secretary-General called Anthony Lake about this and whether it’s true that Mr. van Essche, despite leaving the job after 10 days, is receiving six months’ salary for his troubles.
Spokesman Dujarric: I think that’s a question you’d need to address to UNICEF.
Inner City Press: The reason I’m asking here [cut off by Spokesman]
Spokesman Dujarric: I’m not aware of any contact between the Secretary-General and Mr. Lake on this issue.
Kane leaving the Disarmament post would seem to increase the odds of her fellow German Martin Kobler getting the Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs post which the UK has held twice in a row. (Inner City Press' exclusive reporting on the OCHA race has been credited by, for example, UK Channel 4, here.)
Kobler has not, however, fulfilled his vow that the Mission in the Congo under his command would neutralize the Hutu FDLR militia as it did the largely Tutsi M23 group. There is also an unresolved scandal, first exposed by Inner City Press, in that mission and the one in Haiti, both run by Herve Ladsous, in which UN Police position were sold for money by an Ivorian diplomat who Inner City Press continues to see inside the UN.
Inner City Press was first to report that Nickolay Mladenov would replace Robert Serry as UN Middle East envoy, that that Jan Kubis would replace Mladenov in Iraq, confirmed on February 24, nine days after Inner City Press reported it. Now that. Watch this site.
