Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

Amid UN Council Card Games, Turnover Continues, Olek Matsuka's Rise

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 24 -- The UN Security Council late on June 23 resembled a casino or series of card games. In the consultations room there were consultation on sanctions in Liberia. Elsewhere, the new draft resolution to send Ethiopian troops to Abyei was being discussed.

  As experts on the Golan Heights mission UNDOF returned from meeting in the UN's North Lawn building, it emerged that Russia had “put into blue” its draft resolution on the topic, not containing the condemnation of violence sought by Western members including the United States.

  (Being put in blue ink connotes that a resolution can be voted on within 24 hours. Click here for Inner City Press' previous article about the departure of the Council's long-time and much missed “Mister Blue,” Troy Setiawan.)

  Speaking to Council diplomats as they went in and out of the casino, Inner City Press learned that Russia had just circulated a draft resolution seeking to establish a new UN Special Representative on the allegations of organ trafficking in and by leaders of Kosovo.

  “It's tied to something else,” one diplomat whispered to Inner City Press. It always is.

  If the Council is a casino, its work is held together by a staff of croupiers or card dealers. This staff, called the Security Council Affairs Division, has seen rapid turnover of late.

  As Inner City Press exclusively reported, the chief of the UN Department of Political Affairs which oversees SCA Lynn Pascoe, after issuing a disciplinary note to file moved Horst Heitmann from the top job in Security Council Affairs over to DPA's Middle East division.

  Norma Chan returned from retirement to fill in at the top, and Loraine Sievers continued in what's called the second spot. After a longer interim period than projected, Movses Abelian came south from being omnipresent secretary of the Fifth (Budget) Committee in the North Lawn to SCA's top spot.

  (That the Fifth Committee under Abelian's successor Sharon van Buerle has still not, as of June 24, finished what's called its "May" session is referred to by some, only half in jest,  as a tribute to Abelian.)

  Now, with Loraine Sievers retiring at the end of this month, a recruitment was held to replace her. Source told Inner City Press that Abelian wisely played no part in the panel, since he would have to keep working with whomever came in second to be second. (Abelian explains this as that the process began before he took up his position.)

  The finalists were Oseloka Obaze, who rose to prominence in DPA when former Nigerian diplomat Ibrahim Gambari had what's now Pascoe's job, and Oleksandr Matsuka, who despite the Japanese sounding name is listed by the UN as UKR: Ukrainian.

  During the selection process, staff were told to send all notices for July 2011 to Matsuka, called Olek. Some thought this indicated in advance who would win. They were not surprised, then, when a belated e-mail went out declaring Matsuka the winner.

  There was dark talk that Obaze, who has more seniority, was passed over due to his connections with Gambari, said to not be a selling point with Pascoe's chief of staff Karin Ann Gerlach. Others note that both are qualified, and will be working together in the number two spot to some degree.

Before the shifts: Heitmann claps for Urbina, Chan & Sievers behind

  After Inner City Press mentioned the transition, presaged by the direction to send July e-mails to Matsuka, in a piece this week about another Security Council member transition, UK Political Coordinator David Quarrey's return to London to a national security job, it was quickly explained to Inner City Press first that both Matsuka and Obaze were getting the e-mails about July.

  Then this was modified: Matsuka was receiving July, and Obaze August. While promotions to posts at the UN's D-1 level like this are usually not announced, it was done in this case.

  Sievers, after her long service in the Council, will become the co-author of the fourth edition of the standard treatise on the procedures of the Security Council. We wish her well, as the games go on.

  We'll aim to have a book review, as well as an update on an overarching question here: what happens with Lynn Pascoe, and with the top spot at the UN Department of Political Affairs? Watch this site.

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