By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive, Patreon
UN GATE, SDNY, July 18 – How corrupt is the UN being made by Secretary General Antonio Guterres? While Guterres' censorship and support of sexual harassment has now also been profiled here, now Inner City Press exclusively reports that to replace his Global Censor Alison Smale, Guterres is considering three time loser Maher Nasser. He tried to improve his chances by making a false complaint against Inner City Press, that it should not report on what he said at a public stakeout position about favoring, them as now, no-show Egyptian state media that asks no questions over Inner City Press, now banned a year.
While some surmise that current UN PGA Espinosa Fernandez can't go back to Ecuador where her China-heavy term is done and might settle for Smale's post - a big come down - other sources tell Inner City Press that she might even become Guterres' next fig leaf Deputy SG. Either way it would be total conflict of interest, for an official ostensibly overseeing the UN Secretariat to be negotiating a job - in federal law, this is a crime. These people are censors, no more, no less. Here's from today's outside report: "The secretary general of the United Nations is coming under fire for reports claiming that he is about to extend the contract of a top UN official who is accused of sexual misconduct. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who claims to have a zero tolerance policy on sexual harassment, is believed to be about to extend the contract of the head of the UN’s peace keeping mission in Western Sahara – the ‘disputed’ desert territory taken by Morocco in 1975 following a Spanish withdrawal, and which continues to be a troubled hotspot, which the UN is failing to resolve. According to a controversial news website which vociferously reports on UN graft, Colin Stewart, who currently heads United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), is not only accused of sexual harassment in a previous UN post, but is about to benefit from a cover up by the UN boss “to protect another UN official”, Inner City Press reports. Guterres has only been in his post for two and a half years but is already establishing himself as a champion of double standards and hypocrisy, with a number of cover-ups already under his belt, to protect loyal staff and avoid bad press coverage. The case involving Stewart, which has been exposed by Inner City Press, is based on allegations against the Canadian former politician who was political director of the Addis Ababa UN office, which is believed to involve a number of young Ethiopian staff members. Stewart, 58, was working there between 2011 and 2016. In December 2017, Guterres announced that Stewart would head the UN mission in Western Sahara. Guterres is, according to Inner City Press - which his own officials have banned from entering the UN’s New York building for a year for exposing the corruption - as being torn between re-opening the cases against Stewart or sweeping them under the carpet and extending his contract with MINURSO. The agency blasts Guterres as culpable of “doublespeak, harassment and hypocrisy” as its journalists believe that he plans to go ahead with the cover-up, which is in line with his usual response to similar scandals involving allegations of sexual misconduct. In the New York headquarters of the UN itself, the Portuguese UN chief actually promoted a Chilean official who was also charged with sexual misconduct, to the prestigious job of “special advisor” to Guterres himself. Matthew R Lee, Editor of the news Inner City Press, was recently roughed up by UN security guards and was banned from re-entering the building (despite working from it for 10 years) simply for asking tough questions and exposing the Stewart case – which he insists is backed up by witnesses in Addis Ababa. “UN staff who are aware of the charges against Stewart are concerning Guterres — who like his spokesman may be going on vacation for the rest of July — will just haul off and reappoint Stewart. This should not happen,” he told TRT World . “I think it shows the total hypocrisy of the UN, and of Antonio Guterres in particular.” Lee claims that the sexual harassment case against Stewart, which he exposed is not the main reason why the UN chief had him banned from the UN building. He says that the Guterres wants to make an example of the journalist who has pointed the finger at him and accused him of being involved, still to this day, with the Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation, which was paying him until his appointment as UN chief in January 2017. Lee, remarkably, claims that unlike previous UN chiefs whose families were tarnished by corruption, Guterres has taken this trend to the next level. “Under Antonio Guterres, things have gotten exponentially worse,” he says. “I think it is because some of the corruption is personal to Guterres, whereas with Ban Ki-moon [and Kofi Annan] it was about relatives. Ban had a nephew who used the UN to make money - but Guterres took money from the Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation,” he explains. The Portuguese organisation, although appearing to be philanthropic, also has massive investments around the world and its move in February 2018 to sell its energy firm Partex to the Chinese would incriminate Guterres, because former Hong Kong minister Patrick Ho – who was jailed for three years for bribing African officials at the UN – was believed to be the chief ‘negotiator’ of the deal. Although the deal didn’t come off, any link made by mainstream media between Ho’s involvement and Gulbenkian would be deeply embarrassing for the UN chief and would probably lead to his resignation. “Guterres took money from the Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation, including in 2016 for which he omitted the Gulbenkian payments from his financial disclosure form covering 2016,” claims Lee. “This is significant because Gulbenkian sought to sell its oil company Partex Oil to CEFC China Energy, whose Patrick Ho was convicted of UN bribery [including of Uganda's Foreign Minister Kutesa] in the SDNY Federal Court,” says Lee. “I think that Guterres is absolutely committed to doing everything he can to conceal his links to UN briber CEFC China Energy through Gulbenkian, by banning the media that exposed and pursues it: Inner City Press.” On the sexual harassment cases plaguing the UN, which its chief promises to deal with, Lee is equally scathing. “I think Guterres' claimed commitment to oppose sexual harassment is a fraud - he does not answer complainants, and rewards those accused of sexual harassment." Yep.
Guterres claims he has a zero tolerance policy on sexual harassment, but continues to reward UN officials who are charged with harassment. Inner City Press previously reported on Guterres promoting his official Fabrizio Hochschild Drummond of Chile, after sexual harassment in his own 38th floor office, to "Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Preparations for the Commemoration of the United Nations’ 75th Anniversary."
Today Inner City Press, now banned from the UN by Guterres for 361 days, exclusively reports on another reward being fulled in Guterres' world of double-speak, harassment and hypocrisy.
Colin Stewart is accused of sexual harassment, covered up by Guterres official to protect yet another official - and Steward is about to have his UN contract extended at head of MINURSO, another of Guterres' failing peacekeeping missions. There is pushback by some UN staff and whistleblowers, but these people under Guterres are ignored and retaliated against.
While Stewart was Political Director at the UN Office in Addis Ababa the serious charge arose. In typical UN fashion a cover up began. But the charge gathered force and was soon seen as being inconvenient for Stewart's immediate supervisor Haile Menkerios.
That's when the real cover-up team got active, including Kyoko Shiotani who Inner City Press has previously shown to have gotten her husband an entirely unmerited paid UN job on the UN website while serving as chief of staff to UN Political Affairs boss Rosemary DiCarlo.
More on Patreon, here: it's even worse than it looks...
When Inner City Press, after receiving no answers to its questions from Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric, ran its exclusives about the all-in-the-family website contract to John van Rosendaal, it was twice roughed up by Guterres UN Security Lieutenant Ronald E. Dobbins and five others who refused to give their names. It has now been banned from any entry of the UN for 361 days, with its written questions unanswered by Dujarric.
Also involved in the sexual harassment cover up: Nathalie Ndongo-Seh, then Menkerios' chief of staff, and Fatemeh Ziai. Guterres' UN is totally corrupt, answers to questions and roughs up and bans the Press which asks.
Now there are voices inside the UN, sources of banned Inner City Press, outraged that the absent and bloated Secretary General Antonio Guterres is about to reward another harasser while spending public money to cultivate a false image of himself to try to get a second term. L'affaire Colin Stewart is another test. Guterres has already failed enough tests to be fired or worse. And this one? Watch this site.
Downtown at the SDNY courthouse which Inner City Press now covers daily, Vivian Wang, who as money manager for convicted UN briber Ng Lap Seng's South South News made payments to disgraced President of the UN General Assembly John Ashe, was given a time served sentence on June 26 by U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge George B. Daniels.
Wang's lawyers at Goodwin Proctor, in a heavily redacted sentencing submission, stated that her deceased husband Forest Cao "was 57 years old adn had no known health problems of medical conditions. No autopsy was performed."
It also says, as to UN President of the General Assembly John Ashe, that while awaiting trial on UN bribery charges "his death was reported as the result of a 'weightlifting accident' after a barbell apparently crushed his throat."
After the sentencing, Inner City Press with covered the Ng Lap Seng trial before SDNY Judge Vernon Broderick daily asked Wang's lawyer Derek A. Cohen if he was implying that Forest Cao and John Ashe were killed, and why he had so heavily redacted this sentencing submission.
"It speaks for itself," Cohen said by the elevators. Likewise the Assistant U.S. Attorney on the case Daniel C. Richenthal declined Inner City Press' question about who beyond Ng Lap Seng Ms. Wang had cooperated against.
Judge Daniels did not preside over the trial of Ng Lap Seng. He accepted the government's recommendation of time served with very little inquiry.
He said as if by rote that corruption of the UN is a serious matter. But if so, why should a person who paid bribes in the UN get such a light sentence with little public showing of the benefit of their cooperation?
Corruption has continued at the UN since the prosecution of Ng Lap Seng, resulting in his four year prison sentence. A second, separately prosecution was brought against Patrick Ho of CEFC China Energy, an entity which also tried to buy the oil company of Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation which employed current UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres as a compensated board member.
Neither in the Ho nor Ng Lap Seng cases where any of the UN Secretariat officials implicated in the bribery schemes prosecuted.
This laxity can be contrasted with another SDNY proceeding a mere hour later, in which Judge P. Kevin Castel looked behind the U.S. Attorney's Office's 5k1.1 cooperation letters and imposed jail time on the four siblings, the Seggermans, who evaded taxes. That underlying case was USA v. Little, 12-cr-647 (Castel). This bifurcated case is USA v. Wang, 16-cr-495 (Daniels).
Vivi Wang helped bribe the UN, and on June 26 she got a time served sentence for undefined cooperation. Judge Castel looked behind the government's 5K1.1 letter but Judge Daniels did not. And the UN continues corrupt. Inner City Press will have more, much more, on this.
