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As UN, Talk of Post and Salary Reductions, Ban's
Surprise and Secret Audits, Soft Porn's Return
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
May 20 -- A day after outgoing UN Management chief Alicia
Barcena spoke of a "declaration of war" on or by the UN Staff Union,
still without denying or explaining the meaning of the phrase, UN
Deputy
Spokesperson Marie Okabe said the Secretary-General is "surprised" by
the Staff Union's dissatisfaction, expressed in a two-page letter they sent on
May 16. Perhaps the surprise will grow,
at a call for an extraordinary meeting next week which refers to
"proposals to reduce salary" and "post reductions - your career
at risk." Click
here to view.
The
timing, of course, is far from opportune. Ban Ki-moon left UN
Headquarters on
Tuesday, and will be in Myanmar and Bangkok until next Monday. Ms.
Barcena and
her successor Angela Kane, both of whom have been asked to respond
directly to
the critique in the letter -- point by point, as Ms. Okabe wouldn't --
have not
responded. For now all we have is Ms.Okabe's read-out response. Inner City Press asked Ms. Okabe, at Tuesday's
UN noon briefing, "There was this letter on Friday from the Staff Union
to
Mr. Ban that raised a number of critiques, of the hiring of the new
Head of the
Department of Management, of the lack of responsiveness to the issue of
the administration
of justice. What's the response of the
Secretariat to that?"
Ms.
Okabe replied, "I don't think I'd like to go point by point on the
letter,
but I think, in essence, the Secretary-General, and more specifically
the
Department of Management, have tried to solve all the requests put
forward by
the Staff Union of New York, and most importantly, have established a
solid
mechanism of negotiation. Recently, it
was discussed very seriously how to extend this mechanism on the global
level
and, therefore, the Secretary-General is surprised to have received
this
letter." Video here,
from Minute 16:27.
Angela Kane and Asha Rose Migiro in the
Security Council, many things not shown
Also
surprising was Ban Ki-moon's position on only showing audits of the UN
to
member states if they commit to keep them secret, expressed in leaked
"talking
points" Ban used at
his Chief Executives Board meeting on April 28 in Bern, Switzerland.
Ban had
said he was for transparency, but now adopts the UN Development
Program's
"public - be - damned" approach.
Question: is it even ethical, or legal, for governments which spend
their citizens' and taxpayers' money on UN programs to withheld from
their own
citizens the audits of those programs? A
question deserving an answer, if not at the UN, then elsewhere. Watch
this
site.
Footnote:
Perhaps the Department of Management did
not respond point by point is related to the snafus Tuesday in
Headquarters.
The first floor escalators were blocked off with police tape, but the
revolving
doors people could use to pass from the Conference Building to the
Secretariat
got jammed. People were directed to go down to the basement, then not
to use
the elevators. Meanwhile the newsstand, from which the Department of
Management
promised soft porn was being removed, has itself moved, from its kiosks
into a plywood
shack and back again, and the soft porn has returned, Smooth, King and
Curve. Maybe
it will take Angela Kane to fix this? Only at the UN.
* * *
These reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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[at] innercitypress.com
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Other,
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