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At UN in Kosovo, Harland Replaces Haysom, Borg-Olivier
and Trust Fund Need Review
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, September 1 -- As
the UN tries to smooth over its tattered reputation in and about
Kosovo, Ban
Ki-moon's political advisor Nicholas Haysom is returning to New York
from
Pristina, and long-time UN Peacekeeping official David Harland is
taking his
place, as Inner
City Press predicted on August 6 based on sources in UN
Headquarters in New York, click here
for that, and note Kosovo
Daily Express. Harland
has served as chief of the "Best Practices Unit" at the UN, and has
spoken of the need for personally accountability by those who work at
if not for
the UN.
In
that spirit, one decidedly worst practice into which he should inquire
is the case of former UN Mission in Kosovo official Alexander
Borg-Olivier, who
went from UNMIK directly to working and getting paid as a consultant to
the Kosovo
government. That's called a
"revolving door," and governments at the local and Federal level
often explicitly prohibit this type of conflict of interest or cashing
in, at
least for a year or two. Borg-Olivier waited far less and that.
Inner City
Press' sources in the Balkans says Borg-Olivier helped steer money from
the
Kosovo Trust Agency to officials in Pristina, and then accepted a
paying job
with them. Even as some of the Trust Fund money, from the contested
Olivier-advised sale of state-owned enterprises, is now having to be
returned,
Borg-Olivier is keeping his job. Accountability, anyone?
Kosovo UDI fall-out: not as Borg-Olivier self-servingly
predicted, see below
In fact, earlier this year even prior to Kosovo's
unilateral declaration
of independence, Borg-Olivier
was quoted
"This
is something which touches me very deeply as I am very conscious of the
fact
that I am playing an important role which will lead, without any doubt,
to
Kosovo getting its independence in a very short while," he says in an
interview
during a visit to Malta [whose independence his father is said to have
sired.]
Notably, in the same article Borg-Olivier is said to
have
"play[ed]
down the possibility of Kosovo's independence leading to instability in
the
region and the emergence of a new Cold War between Russia and the West.
'It is
true that relations are frosty between Russia and the West but some
believe the
issue is not really Kosovo but issues of a larger scope that are
playing a role
in the relationship between the two sides. We think it is highly
exaggerated to
talk of doomsday scenarios.'"
How prescient. In fact,
Borg-Olivier has admitted to the publication Express that, while
employed by
UNMIK, he was lobbying Malta
to recognize Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence.
What was that Ban Ki-moon said
about the UN remaining status neutral? And why wasn't these clear
conflict of interest and mis-use of UN funds noticed at the time?
About what about accountability? On this topic,
Harland has been quoted
that the "lack of accountability is
convenient. There is this endless ping-pong game between the
secretariat and
the member states. The states blame the secretariat for making mistakes
and
they blame the member states for a lack of political will."
But this is a test case, of Borg-Olivier having
thumbed his nose at
status - neutrality, right through the revolving door to the Kosovo
budget. Borg-Olivier
had his computer hard drive seized by OIOS before he left, as Inner City
Press
noted back in November 2007, but nothing ever came of
it.
The
same was true or Joaquim Rucker and Steven
Schook. As so often happens, there
was not follow-up by Inga-Britt Ahlenius' OIOS. Of
four initial questions sent to Ms.
Ahlenius' email on August 27, none has been answered. The excuse
apparently is that Ahlenius is on "annual leave" extending from July
28 through September 15. But the questions asked cannot wait that long.
It's
not just the March 17 events in North Mitrovica which they should be
held
accountable for, as Russia's Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin has
explicitly
requested. Where did the Trust Fund money go? This will be a test case,
especially given not only Harland's, but ironically Borg-Olivier's
statements
about accountability
Alexander
Borg Olivier: "While it is true that there are certain functional
immunities and privileges that apply to work of internationals in
Kosovo, this
does not in anyway shield the persons concerned from any wrongdoing
with which
they may be associated. So yes, there are immunities and these
immunities are
necessary for the proper functioning of the mission, this immunity is
not
intended nor does it ever shield any criminality or wrongdoing."
We'll
see. Watch
this
site. And this (on
South Ossetia),
this, on
Russia-Georgia,
and
this --
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