Nikki Haley Took Names Then Went Native At the UN, Where Corruption and Censorship Continue

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR PFT NY Post

UNITED NATIONS, October 12 – When Donald Trump nominated Nikki Haley as his Ambassador to the UN, it seemed she would be a disruptor and clean up corruption. As she prepares to leave, though, at most one of those things is true: she was a disruptive force. But Haley's disruption of the UN was concentrated in her first few months, when she famously stood in the UN lobby and said she would be "taking names" of countries who opposed US interests, and when she blocked Secretary General Antonio Guterres' nomination of Palestinian candidate Salam Fayyad to be the UN's new envoy to Libya.

After that, however, Haley seemed to settle down and go native at the UN. Trump bragged at her send-off that Haley got to know "everyone" in the organization. But not well enough to get Russia's Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia to answer her calls before the UN's mechanism on Syria's chemical weapons expired. She cast vetoes on Jerusalem and Gaza, popular in some quarters but hardly a measure of the she-knows-everyone diplomacy that Trump spoke of.

Haley called for a UN Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry into the murder in the Democratic Republic of the Congo of American expert Michael Sharp and his Chilean-Swedish colleague Zaida Catalan. But the Commission never happened, and by June 2018 Haley was standing next to Mike Pompeo, explaining why the US was leaving the Human Rights Council.  The answer, some said, was John Bolton...

Haley got her fellow South Carolinian David Beasley installed as the head of the UN World Food Program; at her Press-less press conference as president of the Security Council in September 2018 a South Carolina journalist who'd flown up for the event asked if she'd be taking the Council members down to her home state. It didn't happen - until, in a different form, just after her resignation.

  Perhaps the most disappointing of Haley's failures to disrupt, or disruption interrupted, is on UN corruption. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres no fewer than 15 times since assuming office in January 2017 has used public money to fly to his home in Lisbon, where his spouse still lives. After for Inner City Press I asked questions about this, I was ousted from the UN and Haley did nothing. In fact, another journalist was told by the UN that the US Mission supported my ouster. Haley's spokesman also worked for Samantha Power; her Deputy Jonathan Cohen has yet to speak to the Press, now asking questions at the UN Delegates Entrance gate.

   Haley never even commented much less demanded UN action on a UN bribery case proceeding in Federal court in lower Manhattan against Patrick Ho of the China Energy Fund Committee for allegedly bribing then UN President of the General Assembly Sam Kutesa for oil and other concessions in Uganda. While Guterres has refused to even start an audit to determine the full scope of CEFC's bribery at the UN, Haley has stayed quiet. Perhaps an expanded scope would call into question her oft-repeated claim that it is a new day at the UN. It is not. The UN tends to drag those who pass through it to its level. So it was time for Haley to declare victory and move on.

After twenty four Congressmembers urged Haley to schedule a Security Council meeting about the slaughter of Anglophones in Cameroon, I asked her about it, and she said she was “open” to such a Council meeting. But it never happened, and now even amid the re-coronation of 36 year president Paul Biya, there is no meeting on the horizon.

Haley came out a winner when the New York Times mis-reported that she had accepted $52,000 curtains for her penthouse apartment (the curtains were bought and paid for by the Obama administration). But the real story may have been her living in a $58,000 a month apartment. From there, how could she criticize Guterres spending public money to fly home? Haley herself was taking rides on private jets, as detailed in a formal complaint the day before her resignation was made public.

   Haley's shift from taking names to taking selfies was exemplified on the 4th of July 2018, when the UN gave her its fourth floor Delegates Dining Room and balcony for a party to watch the fireworks. Ambassadors of all stripes lined up, wanting photos with her just as she wanted photos with them, to show how well she was getting along. But what that supposed to be the point?

  The UN is the ultimate swamp, with reform always a chimera, blocked by immunity. Haley's narrative is that she came and quickly cleaned up the UN. Twenty one months in, little has been cleaned up. Perhaps it was time to get out before demands came for results and not rhetoric. At the UN, the corruption and censorship continue -- including with the discovery that under Guterres the UN maintains a secret "active ban" list that includes "political activists' - and Inner City Press. But that's another thing that Haley hasn't acted on; that's another story. Watch this site.

On DRC Killings of Sharp, Catalan & Fixers, ICP Asks UN Lacroix, Who Says Shares Info With DRC

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, July 11 – After the UN belatedly focused into the murder of UN experts Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalan, unprotected by the UN in the DR Congo, on July 10 Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric what it is, exactly, that the UN is investigating. UN Transcript here and below. Then on July 11 Inner City Press asked the Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix what is being done. Periscope video here. Lacroix answered that he raised the issue "at the highest levels" in the DRC, as of concern to the UN and to the countries of origin of the experts. (In fact, Sweden's Olof Skoog has called for a more rigorous investigation that those current underway.) 

Lacroix noted the current DRC cases and said the UN has shared detailed information with the authorities there. We'll have more on this. Back on July 10, Inner City Press asked UN Spokesman Dujarrric: on DRC.  There's been a letter by ten US senators, pretty much bipartisan about the killings of Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalan.  And I wanted to ask you about this sentence in it.  They said that they've heard of the UN Board of Inquiry [BOI], but they understand, quote, it will not seek to identify perpetrators or what happened to Mr. Sharp's and Ms. Catalan's Congolese interpreter and drivers.  So, they're asking for a more serious investigation.  One, I wanted to know, what's the status of that Board of Inquiry given the interest and what happened.  And is it true that the Board of Inquiry, as these senators are saying, will not look at all at what happened into the UN-contracted interpreter and driver?

Spokesman:  No.  The BOI is under way. We… last I'd heard, we expect it for the end of this month.  As we've said, we would effort to make some of its findings public.  The BOI was appointed to establish the facts and, if possible, identify the perpetrators around the killings.  We'll submit a report with recommendations as to the next step.  We're also looking at further options that may be available to us.  Obviously, first and foremost, the responsibility lies on the Congolese authorities.  We cannot substitute ourselves for a national criminal investigation unless, of course, there is a Security Council mandate.  I think I would urge you to wait and see what the findings are, and then we can take it, next step.  My understanding also is that the letter was addressed, from what I saw in the press reports, to Ambassador [Nikki] Haley, not to the Secretary-General.

Inner City Press: What I wanted to know is, one, I remember at the time, there was some dispute about whether the… in fact, the interpreter of the two experts had also been found dead.  Is that… is your understanding that he has?

Spokesman:  My… I don't have an understanding into that.  I think we have to wait for the BOI and see what facts they would have been able to clear up. 

On June 5 US Ambassador Nikki Haley said "they and their families deserve justice. We owe it to their legacy to end the human rights abuses being carried out by armed groups and the DRC government against the Congolese people. We hope other nations will join us"- she called for a Human Rights Council and a UN Secretary General investigation. On June 16, Haley added: "reports of the Congolese government’s campaign of murder and rape of women and children should shock us into action. These allegations must be investigated and those responsible held accountable. It is past time for the Human Rights Council to take decisive action and launch an independent investigation into the human rights violations and abuses in the DRC. This is the core mission of the HRC. If they can’t act in a situation this horrifying, why bother having one." On June 6, Inner City Press asked the SG's holdover spokesman Stephane Dujarric, UN transcript here: Inner City Press: Nikki Haley has called on the Secretary-General, António Guterres, to initiate a special investigation into the murders of Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalan.  I saw you were quoted, something about… I want to understand your position, something about using maximum authority.  Doesn't he have the authority to investigate the murder of UN staff members?

Spokesman:  Well, I think, you know, first of all, we, obviously… you know, the call from Ambassador Haley and we've seen calls from the… from Sweden, as well.  We take the requests very seriously.  I think they echo our own concern.  The Secretary-General has consistently said that he and the Secretariat would do everything they could to make sure justice was done in this case while recognizing first and foremost that the responsibility for a criminal investigation rests with the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  We cannot substitute ourselves… the Secretary-General, the Secretariat, cannot substitute himself… ourselves for the criminal justice system of a sovereign State.  We're cooperating… actively cooperating with national authorities conducting criminal investigations, but we're also ready to implement any Security Council decision on this matter.  As you know, there is a Board of Inquiry (BOI) that was appointed.  They are fully at work.  We expect their conclusions of that work to be done by the end of July.  They're there to establish the facts and, if possible, identify the perpetrators. And they'll submit a report with recommendations to the Secretary-General.  We're also looking at further options that may be available to us.  But that review, the work of the BOI, should provide a good basis for putting together a set of possible next steps for the Secretary-General Member States to consider in the murder of… to find out what happened… not only find out what happened to the murder… to our two murdered colleagues, but also to ensure that justice is done and those who killed them are brought to justice.

Inner City Press: Since often these Board of Inquiries are not… not made public, can you… is the intention, at a minimum, to at least make it public…

Spokesman:  We will… as we've done in certain cases, we will share with you what we can and make public what we can of the Board of Inquiry, in a way that doesn't jeopardize any future investigations that may take place.

   We'll stay on this. Earlier on June 6, Inner City Press asked UK Ambassador Matthew Rycroft: Inner City Press:  Does the UK think that the Secretary-General should do his own inquiry to the death of the two experts in the DRC? Nikki Haley has called for that, as well as for the Human Rights Council to do it. Which do you think should happen, or either?

Amb Rycroft: Well, we want to just get to the truth. We want those who are responsible for the devastating murder of the two UN officials to be held to account. So whichever way will get to the truth, we support.

   Meanwhile, as Inner City Press has reported, the UN Department of Safety and Security's alleged burying of reports should not itself be covered up. After Inner City Press exclusivelyreported that UN Department of Safety and Security's top officer Peter Drennan -- to whom the Board of Inquiry report on Sharp and Catalan would be filed on July 31 -- ordered that a security report on UNESCO chief Irina Bokova be “buried” last year due to the personal political implications for Drennan if Bokova instead of Antonio Guterres became UN Secretary General, the UN's response was to attack the leak. (On May 23 they insisted a Garowe, Somalia Board of Inquiry report was shared with interested parties). Also on May 23, when Inner City Press asked about criticism of the UN in the DRC, the response was to defend everything. From the UN transcript: Inner City Press: I'm sure you've seen the editorial in The New York Times saying, “astoundingly irresponsible approach by the United Nations to an obviously dangerous and unusually important task”.  They also question what's been accomplished for the billions spent in the… in the DRC.