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Foundations at the UN, Exclusion, Favoritism and
Lack of Transparency in Security
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
October 23 -- In the lobby of the
UN General Assembly a small calypso band played on Thursday night, the
eve of
UN Day. A half dozen UN staffers happened by, stood together and
accepted the
sushi that waiters in tuxedos offered them. Soon some others in tuxedos
and
evening gowns arrived. One of the latter came over and said, "If you
are
not with UNA, I'll have to ask you to leave or I'll call Security."
Inner City
Press, present on the scene, asked for confirmation that UNA meant UN
Association of the United States of America, and inquired how much rent
UNA was paying
to turn this public space private, if only for the evening. The answer
to the
first question was yes, and the second question wasn't answered.
"That's
not important, but if you don't leave we'll call security."
The
UNAttitude was ironic, given that the stated purpose of
UNA-USA is to build a
stronger UN -- apparently, without UN staff included. Inner City
Press stood by
the entrance, and gleaned that the evening would continue in the
Delegates
Dining Room upstairs and there was talk of donations of $5,000. But
donations to
whom and for what?
Earlier on
Thursday, the head of the UN Foundation, former Colorado Congressman
Tim Wirth,
was given an award in the Delegates' Dining Room. Afterwards Inner City
Press
asked him for his view of the program through which the UN Development
Program
used money from another foundation, George Soros' Open Society
Institute, to
supplement the salary of Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili. Click here
for that story.
Wirth
replied that while it is important for
the UN to work with foundations and the private sector, the UN
Foundation has
not to date funded the salary of any heads of state.
So are you supportive of the UN system being
a middleman for George Soros to pay Mikheil Saakashvili's salary? Wirth said he couldn't say.
UN Foundation's Tim Wirth on Thursday,
exclusion(s) not shown
The UN
Foundation was established based on a stated $1 billion commitment from
cable
television titan Ted Turner. As Wirth told the story Thursday, former
Secretary-General Kofi Annan suggested that Turner and his UN
Foundation focus
on a few big problems. It was acknowledged on Thursday that the UN
Foundation
also "lobbies for the UN" in Washington.
The
propriety of a US non-profit corporation lobbying, or
paying the salary of people who appear to be working in and for the UN,
are
topics for another day. For now, on the
same theme of exclusion as with the UN Association of the USA, we are
compelled
to take note of a long-time UN
correspondent's complaint that the UN Foundation
invited her to the Thursday lunchtime event in the Delegates' Dining
Room, and then
unceremoniously disinvited her. The dis-inviter, Rob Skinner, was
previously a
spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the UN, and was the addressee of the
following
"Dear
Cathy and Rob, Never in my life could I ever have imagined you would
put me in such a situation
of adding insult to injury by de-inviting me rather than upholding your
right
to include whoever you chose to at your table. I have always been there
for you
on each and every occasion. I would have never in my life done that to
anyone
under any circumstances. It is I who brought you on board to the Dag
Hammarskjold
Scholarship Fund. I accepted your invitation because I am a woman of
class. I never
imagined you would let such a class-less act win you over. Obviously I
am very
disappointed and deeply offended."
There are other sides to the side-stories here; the
point and connector here is that these
emotions, of disappointment and offense, were shared the very next day
by UN
staff members chased out of the General Assembly Lobby by foundation
officials
in evening dress. It makes one ask, who's running the UN?
That's a question we'll aim to answer on this
site.
Footnote: because
UNA invoked Security as the
enforcer of exclusion from their black-tie event, and because in the
background
of the UN Foundation's dis-inviting was a conflict in the also formal
wear
Waldorf Astoria to which security almost had to be called, we offer
this
interim update on UN Security. The Department held a town hall meeting
on
October 22 in the Dag Hammarskjold Library auditorium.
While the
Press was excluded from the meeting, subsequent interviews revealed
that D-2 level director
Moh'D Ali Bani Faris did most of the talking -- "incomprehensible,"
more than one officer pegged him -- while his D-1 association Bruno
Henn said
almost nothing. An officer remarked that in the audience was one
Jeffrey
Armstrong, formerly of the US Pentagon and now reportedly held down by
Henn and
friends in the name of bureaucratic rules for promotion that Henn
himself did
not follow. There is also a brewing issue of Henn's personal use of a
UN car,
on which the Spokesperson's office told Inner City Press:
"Hi Matthew -- I heard
you'd been asking about whether Bruno Henn had
recently returned the keys of a UN vehicle that had belonged to the
SG's security
detail; I just wanted you to know that the car that Mr Henn has been
using is
one that he was authorised to use, and that he routinely returns the
keys to
that vehicle when it is not in use by him. In other words, there's
nothing
unusual about him returning the keys last week, as he does at other
times so
that the vehicle can be serviced or employed for other uses."
But Inner
City Press' sources say that an inquiry has begun into the value of
Henn's
personal use of the car, whether rules were complied with and whether a
waiver
previously granted by the UN Department of Management was obtained on
false
pretenses. To these questions, too, we shall return.
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and 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
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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USA
Tel: 212-963-1439
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weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
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2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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