UN Staff Pan Next SG Candidates UN Betrayals Profiles Guterres and His Failing Chorus AJM

UN Staff Pan Next SG Candidates UN Betrayals Profiles Guterres and His Failing Chorus AJM By Matthew Russell Lee Patreon Book Substack NEW YORK, July 4 – With the UN moving such as it does - behind closed doors, public be damned - in 2026 to pick a new Secretary General, as its last one Antonio Guterres fails on Ukraine, Gaza and basic transparency, a new book has been published.  It is "United Nations Betrayals (see below) Now we publish this, one in a series, from UN staff members disgusted with the process and candidates: UN STAFF — WHY WE OPPOSE THESE two CANDIDATES( Amina and GROSSI) FOR UN SECRETARY-GENERAL?  Our opposition is not based on nationality, gender, or personal considerations — it is based solely on institutional record.  UN80 demands institutional renewal — not the recycling of the same leadership class that produced the governance crisis it is designed to correct. The United Nations Dispute Tribunal has found OIOS investigations to be 'not impartial' and 'factually incorrect' (UNDT/2024/055); the Secretary-General's own counsel provided 'patently incorrect legal advice'; and the administration proposed shifting the burden of proof onto staff in disciplinary cases (A/77/156). Each candidate below is directly connected to these failures.    AMINA J. MOHAMMED  Deputy Secretary-General  Served as the second-ranking official for the entirety of the Guterres administration. The governance failures UN80 must fix — suppressed OIOS reports, weakened judicial oversight, staff rights violations — occurred entirely on her watch as Deputy SG. Leadership continuity is not reform.  RAFAEL MARIANO GROSSI  IAEA Director General  Is campaigning for SG while refusing to resign from the IAEA — in direct defiance of conflict-of-interest guidance supported unanimously by all 15 Security Council members. A candidate who disregards the Council's consensus before election cannot be trusted to uphold institutional standards once in office.  CATHERINE POLLARD  USG, Management Strategy, Policy & Compliance  As head of DMSPC since 2019, she oversees the HR and disciplinary systems that UNDT/2024/055 found had 'failed at every level of scrutiny.' The proposal in A/77/156 to shift the burden of proof onto staff emerged directly from the management chain she leads. She did not inherit this system — she ran it.  MARTHA HELENA LOPEZ  ASG, Human Resources Management, DMSPC  As the UN's most senior HR official, she bears direct operational responsibility for the disciplinary processes the Tribunal has repeatedly condemned. Sanction letters in cases where OIOS was found to be partial and factually incorrect originated from her office's chain of command. Promoting the architect of a broken HR system will not fix it.   FATOUMATA NDIAYE  USG, Internal Oversight Services (OIOS)  In UNDT/2024/055, the Tribunal found OIOS 'not impartial' and directed a copy of the judgment to the USG for OIOS personally — that is Ms. Ndiaye. Recurring judicial findings of unsupported assertions, hearsay, and procedural failure reflect systemic institutional failure under her leadership. The head of the oversight body cannot become the head of the institution it oversees.     The next Secretary-General must be independent of this administration, must have a proven record of defending staff rights and judicial independence, and must commit to a single non-renewable term. The United Nations cannot preach accountability to the world while protecting from accountability those who led its own institutional failures.  In conclusion: Why Many Staff Oppose Continuity of the Current Senior Leadership? Many staff members believe that the next Secretary-General must represent a decisive break from the current administration. Consequently, they oppose the prospect of senior officials closely associated with the present leadership—including Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed,Rafael Mariano Grossi, Catherine Pollard, Fatoumata Ndiaye, Martha Helena Lopez and all managment team  or any other senior officials associated with the current administration—being entrusted with leading the Organization into its next chapter.  Our opposition is grounded in institutional and legal concerns rather than nationality or personal considerations. Many staff believe that the current administration sought to weaken the independence of the internal justice system through the proposal contained in report A/77/156 to amend the Statute of the United Nations Dispute Tribunal. In their view, the proposal would have:  Shifted the burden of proof onto staff members challenging disciplinary measures, contrary to the jurisprudence of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal that there is "no overall onus on the staff member to prove his or her innocence." Reduced the Tribunal's fundamental judicial role by limiting it to determining whether the Secretary-General acted "reasonably," rather than independently assessing whether the administration had established misconduct through sufficient, credible, and reliable evidence. Undermined judicial scrutiny of OIOS investigations by suggesting that Tribunal review affected OIOS's operational independence, despite the Tribunal's responsibility to examine the credibility, legality, and evidentiary value of investigation reports. Weakened due process by diminishing the Tribunal's ability to review defective investigations, procedural irregularities, reliance on hearsay, unsupported assertions, and failures to meet the required standard of proof. Risked transforming the Tribunal from an independent judicial body into one that merely deferred to executive decisions, thereby upsetting the balance established by the General Assembly when creating the UN system of administration of justice. Many staff also point to repeated judgments in which both the United Nations Dispute Tribunal and the United Nations Appeals Tribunal criticized serious shortcomings in disciplinary investigations and decision-making. These include failures to distinguish allegations from proven facts, reliance on hearsay without proper corroboration, inadequate factual analysis, and procedural deficiencies that undermined fairness.  Rather than addressing these judicial findings by improving investigations and strengthening accountability, critics argue that the proposed statutory amendments sought to reduce the scope of judicial review.  For these reasons, many staff believe that leadership associated with these governance approaches should not direct the next phase of UN reform. They contend that UN80 can achieve its objectives only under leadership that fully respects judicial independence, due process, the rule of law, accountability, protection of whistleblowers, and the equal application of standards to both managers and staff.  In the view of many staff, institutional renewal requires more than administrative restructuring—it requires leadership that accepts independent judicial oversight as an essential safeguard, not as an obstacle to management authority.       UN Staff — Advocates for Accountability and Internal Justice  |  July 2026  |  Ref: UNDT/2024/055 • UNDT/2019/033 (Aahooja) • Report A/77/156   Note that Grossi has refused to answer the questionnaire from the Free UN Coalition for Access including about press access to the UN, and that Amina J. Mohammed has been complicit in Guterres Press ban throughout.   "United Nations Betrayals: From Election Stolen by Guterres to Bribes and Banning of the Press"is by Matthew Russell Lee (who quickly discloses that he has been ousted and banned from the UN by Guterres, for his reporting).   A noted by New York Magazine on Lee's Maximum Maxwell book, at times here he uses the character Kurt Wheelock, who first appeared in his Predatory Bender.    The book begins with Guterres beating out female candidates for the UNSG post, after a murky year being paid by Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation. The book digs into the bid by the China Energy Fund Committee, convicted of UN bribery, for Gulbenkian's oil company. Readers can draw their own conclusion, including on the need for SG campaign finance disclosure in 2026.    Part of the book in italics delves into the UN Correspondents Association and its efforts to throw Lee out. They appear again in the afterword / novella, "Whacking Qaddafi," which was first mentioned in the New Yorker magazine's Talk of the Town piece about Lee. It addresses more countries: from India to Pakistan, Guinea to Guinea Bissau.   The main text addresses UN failures in Sri Lanka - including the UNCA connection - Cameroon, Western Sahara, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, Gaza and elsewhere. UN Betrayals indeed - this should be the first of a series. *** Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron. Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com SDNY Press Room 500 Pearl Street, NY NY 10007 USA Mail: Box 130222, Chinatown Station, NY NY 10013 Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540 Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.  Copyright 2006-2025 Inner City Press, Inc. 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