by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
UN GATE, Nov 14 – How corrupt is today's UN under Antonio Guterres? Today's example is his mission in Afghanistan, about which his spokespeople Stephane Dujarric and Melissa Fleming refuse all Press questions. Inner City Press has asked them, and others, about a sex abuse case against the UN there. Now this, from a UN whistleblower sent to Inner City Press:
DPA USG Rosemary Di Carlo has just appointed another useless Deputy Special Representative (Political) in UN mission Afghanistan. Marcus Potzl, the former Ambassador, was forced upon her by Germany but who has now left to become German Ambassador in Iran.
Pernille Kardel, a Danish diplomat with a good reputation, was appointed in 2016 but soon clashed with senior staff and then SRSG Yamamoto of Japan and was moved to Lebanon, where she clashed with everyone and had to be removed.
Then Ingrid Hayden was over-promoted from HQ to be Deputy, but she could not cope and had a breakdown, ringing up people in the middle of the night with weird accusations. Even then it took Di Carlo months to remove her as she didn’t want her back in DPA to her old D1 job. Hayden took months of sick leave but then got her old D1 job back.
Then Di Carlo appointed another Danish woman, Mette Knudsen who was so incompetent she only lasted just over a year. Now Di Carlo has appointed Georgette Gagnon a human rights lawyer who was desperate for the job as she needs a political post to get an SRSG rank, to which she thinks she is entitled. She has no political experience and as Deputy in Libya showed she couldn’t even manage the agencies in the country team. UN staff in Kabul just hope that this woman will also be moved on quickly, now she has gotten political experience, and they can get a decent deputy. But with Di Carlo’s record or bad appointments that don’t seem likely.
We'll have more on all this. No answer from UN Spox Dujarric on this, or nomination of Elise Stefanik. Keep the info coming.
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