Ban's 5 Year Rules Violation at ESCAP Ends, Sort Of, as Akhtar Named; France for 16 Years Has DPKO

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 10 -- There should be no more than five years at any one UN position, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced.

  But Inner City Press reported on October 7 that the head of the Bangkok-based Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Noeleen Heyzer of Singapore, had been in place more than SIX years now. She was put into the position in August 2007.

 On December 10, the UN announced that Heyzer is being replaced at ESCAP by Shamshad Akhtar of Pakistan. 

  Back in October, Inner City Press noted that Singapore is a serious UN country, so another USG post would have to be identified and given to Heyzer or another Singaporean. 

  The UN's December 10 announced slipped in that Heyzer will stay on, as a Special Adviser on Timor Leste. Is that a USG position? And what about other UN officials with more than five years in their position?

  Beyond this finessing of Ban's five year rule, it brings to mind again the need for a more meaningful reform: no COUNTRY should be able to control a UN department for more than five years. France has held onto Peacekeeping, even since demanding it in exchange for not vetoing Kofi Annan becoming Secretary General. Here they are:

Secrétaires généraux adjoints des Nations Unis aux Opérations de Maintien de la Paix :

Kofi Annan : de mars 1993 à décembre 1996

Bernard Miyet : de janvier 1997 à octobre 2000

Jean-Marie Guéhenno : d'octobre 2000 à juillet 2008

Alain Le Roy : du 30 juin 2008 au 2 septembre 2011

Hervé Ladsous : à compter du 2 septembre 2011

This is UNacceptable: over 16 years, 10 months. It should end.

  Meanwhile the Department of Safety and Security now says that of the 10 staffers given lay off letters earlier this month, only six are now at risk.  Earlier, more security was been gained, commitments from acting Under Secretary General Kevin Kennedy. This emerged at the best "End of General Debate" party of the season, under the (broken) satellite dish over the East River in October. Compared to the fauxceremony of the UN Correspondents Association Executive Committee, which after spying for the UN through its first vice president had to beg interns to come via a rare flyer, and now solicits a donated Samsung TV, DSS had steak and an open bar and plenty of good vibes. There will be another one soon.

  UNCA is given its clubhouse, in which it held a faux UN briefing by Gulf-supported Syria rebel boos Jarba (a/k/a Jarbucks), by the UN; Ban will help them raise $250 a plate in Cipriani's next week.  Of the Samsung TV to UNCA, we have publicly requested an explanation. The new Free UN Coalition for Access holds, if the explanation makes sense, fine; either way it will be published. 

  And now it has, here: UNCA misspoke that no mission was involved in the donation of the Samsung equipment. Watch this site.

As UN Slammed on Haiti Cholera Impunity, It Looks at its Own Waste in Mali, Ladsous Knee-deep

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 26 -- The UN's bid for impunity for bringing cholera to Haiti was assailed at a legal conference on Saturday, with Seton Hall law professor Kristen Boon saying that the UN does not possess absolute immunity, it's conditional on provision to provide forum for remedy.

But the UN Peacekeeping under Herve Ladsous has refused to comply with its Status of Forces Agreement and set up any standing claims commissions.

Recently the UN lied or mis-spoke to Inner City Press -- it said that now UN Peacekeeping screens for cholera. Then when Inner City Press asked for the second time the next day, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's acting deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq admitted this is not the case. But media reported that the UN now screens, and the UN did not correct it.

  It's worth noting -- and putting into context -- that the Security Council's resolution 2100 setting up the mission in Mali, MINUSMA, provides for

"the Secretary-General to consider the environmental impacts of operations of MINUSMA when fulfilling its mandated tasks and, in this context encourages MINUSMA to manage them, as appropriate and in accordance with applicable and relevant General Assembly resolutions and United Nations rules and regulations, and to operate mindfully in the vicinity of cultural and historical sites."

  Sophie Ravier, Environmental Officer of the UN Department of Field Support -- whose Ameerah Haq Inner City Press is told and has reported is to be sent off to ESCAP in Thailand by Herve Ladsous -- has said that "The reconnaissance team visited a few locations to assess them from a security perspective, but also looked at the environmental aspects of those locations including water, energy and possible waste management solutions."

  It's nice for the UN, now, to be saying it is looking at " possible waste management solutions" rather than simply putting cholera infested feces into people's drinking water as in Haiti. But what about the thousands of families injured, killed, by the UN's gross negligence?

  And whatever belated review UN Peacekeeping is doing on its waste in Mali, Ladsous has incorporated into the mission a country on the UN's list of child soldier recruiters, and has yet to act on its rapes, or those of his partners in the Congo.

  How can Ladsous and Ban Ki-mon preach or even speak of rule of law, while refusing to answer questions about their responsibility for deaths in in Haiti? Ladsous, who refuses all Press questions (video here, UK coverage here) is polluting, Haiti style, the entire UN. Watch this site.

   

Exclusive: At UN, As Ban Ki-moon's Five Year Rule Is Violated at ESCAP in Bangkok, Ladsous Wants to Push Haq There, UNreformed

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, October 7 -- There should be no more than five years at any one UN position, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced.

  But Inner City Press notes, for example, that the head of the Bangkok-based Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Noeleen Heyzer of Singapore, has been in place more than SIX years now. She was put into the position in August 2007, and it is now October 2013.

  But there's more to this than just another example of the UN not living up to its stated principles, as with its Human Rights Due Diligence Policy with continued aid to the two Congolese Army units implicated in the 135 rapes in Minova in November 2012.

Inner City Press is not the only one who noticed that Heyzer's Under Secretary General position at ESCAP could be freed up. 

  Well placed sources exclusively tell Inner City Press that the head of UN Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, the fourth Frenchman in a row to hold THAT position, wants to push out his co-equal Under Secretary General for the Department of Field Support, Ameerah Haq.

  While an earlier Ban Ki-moon reform involved splitting Peacekeeping into two separate components, DPKO and DFS, now Ladsous wants to dominate both of them, by pushing Haq out of DFS and installing a person of his own choosing. (More on that in a future story.)

  Singapore is a serious UN country, so another USG post would have to be identified and given to Heyzer or another Singaporean. But Ladsous, or better said France, has this kind of control in the UN system.

  Beyond this abuse of Ban's supposed five year rule, it brings up the need for a more meaningful reform: no COUNTRY should be able to control a UN department for more than five years. France has held onto Peacekeeping, even since demanding it in exchange for not vetoing Kofi Annan becoming Secretary General. Here they are:

Secrétaires généraux adjoints des Nations Unis aux Opérations de Maintien de la Paix :

Kofi Annan : de mars 1993 à décembre 1996

Bernard Miyet : de janvier 1997 à octobre 2000

Jean-Marie Guéhenno : d'octobre 2000 à juillet 2008

Alain Le Roy : du 30 juin 2008 au 2 septembre 2011

Hervé Ladsous : à compter du 2 septembre 2011

This is UNacceptable: over 16 years, 9 months. It should end.

  At the other end of the UN spectrum, it's every UN department for itself. The Publishing Unit faces a zeroing out of jobs, from 150 position not long ago. To save some posts, in order to scan old documents in the basement of the UN library, sources exclusively tell Inner City Press that the UN is turning to its new Daddy Warbucks: Qatar.

  Warbucks because while the UN pleads for Qatar's money, that country's royal family funds war in Syria. But the UN says nothing. At least, then, the UN should create a bidding war to save more staffers' jobs. We are against lay-offs, but also against the UN becoming beholden to particular states, creating under Ban Ki-moon a UN "a la carte," to use another French phrase like faux (but not Pho).

  Meanwhile in the Department of Safety and Security, more security has been gained, commitments from acting Under Secretary General Kevin Kennedy. This emerged at the best "End of General Debate" party of the season, under the (broken) satellite dish over the East River Friday night. Compared to the faux ceremony of the UN Correspondents Association Executive Committee, which after spying for the UN through its first vice president had to beg interns to come via a rare flyer, DSS had steak and an open bar and plenty of good vibes.

  UNCA is given its clubhouse, in which it held a faux UN briefing by Gulf-supported Syria rebel boos Jarba (a/k/a Jarbucks), by the UN Department of Public Information, regarding which we have received a detailed recruitment complaint, regarding which we have publicly requested an explanation. The new Free UN Coalition for Access holds, if the explanation makes sense, it's fine. But to not respond, or to only selectively respond, is not. More on this to follow. Watch this site.