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By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UN GATE, May 2 – On April 18, Inner City Press exposed UNESCO’s Director General Audrey Azoulay’s efforts to use Coronavirus as a pretext to rule with even less oversight and accountability the agency.

To that end, she is still plotting with her French cabal to keep it closed until September 2020 and even beyond, and do whatever she wants until then, with the free ride secured by friendly EU member states. 

Further to the article by Inner City Press, even more consolidated diplomatic contortions were observed at UNESCO, particularly hypocritical as it and its controlling member states bloviate about "World Press Freedom Day."

  Two Bureau meetings of the Executive board have been convened over the past two weeks with heated debates revealing the split between those member states protecting the French Azoulay and those protecting the Organization.

 These two Bureau meeting were organized against the will of DG Azoulay and despite the sabotage efforts by the French Ambassador to UNESCO who, in her constant desire to please Azoulay, did behind the scene her utmost in order to undermine the authority and denigrate the personality of the Chair of the Executive Board from Equatorial Guinea, Mr Agapito Mba Mokuy. She further conspired and obtained a letter signed by France, Germany, Italy and Spain, in which the Chair got blamed groundlessly for some recent leaks to the Press related to the work of the Board.

The Chair got further undermined by allegations about his individual unconstructive approach towards the governance issues at UNESCO and for representing a non-democratic country.  The nasty game against the Chair of the Board actually just starts and the French delegation to UNESCO, capably assisted by the Legal advisor of UNECO, Santiago Villalpando and the Secretary of the Executive board, Sachin Bhatt, compose the unlawful team implementing Azoulay’s instructions to bring him down. 

 The tension is palpable between Azoulay and the governing bodies. “She is freaking out at the idea to have any control enforced over her autocratic management of UNESCO, panicking at the idea that her private shop can be inspected or scrutinized by member states”, underscored a UNESCO staff member close to the Cabinet. “Panicking at the slightest prospect that her total power can be restrained instead of being amplified in order to prepare next year’s reelection in the most non-transparent way possible and by eliminating occasions for criticism and disclosure of major managerial errors, corruption and abuses of power”.  

At the end of the second Bureau meeting held on 28 April, Azoulay lost her nerves and ordered the French ambassador to work more energetically on limiting the occasions for member states to interfere in her job. How will Ambassador Roger-Lacan deliver on that one is yet to be seen. What is already evident though, is that she successfully mobilized all her current cronies – Inner City Press has uploaded the letter to Scribd here – to request from the Chair of the Executive Board to modify the minutes of the meeting of the Board by deleting any mention of a “virtual” meeting of the Board.

 By copying all member states of the Board about such a minor issue, the French used a bazooka to kill a fly, Inner City Press was told by a Paris-based Ambassador, but she didn’t realize that instead she shot herself in the foot.  Question legitimately asked by several member states, is why France and Germany, two countries pushing forcefully for having a Security Council meeting convened virtually at the UN in New York, are, on the opposite, doing everything possible for preventing a virtual meeting of the Executive board from happening at the UN Agency in Paris.  Inner City Press got the following comment from inside UNESCO: “Hypocrisy of states is often the basis of diplomacy and most of the time no one is really bothered about it. In that specific case of France and Germany, and with the Chair of the Board under such a strong attack by seven member states for no big deal whatsoever, it is more of an outrageous double-standard insulting the intelligence of member states and creating a dangerous precedent in totally undermining governance principles and rules at UNESCO”, said one senior official working closely with the Excetuve Board.

 The usual sermonizers from the European Union are obviously putting aside they big principles and will gladly keep protecting the French DG of UNESCO despite all the corruption and embezzlement schemes exposed and despite her absurd administrative decisions ruining the UN Agency. EU countries are OK even with the fact that Madam Azoulay never accepted that the Constitution is not allowing for a monarchy-type management of UNESCO. For two years now she was allowed to run UNESCO as a private shop with all power usurped by her Cabinet. As pointed out by a senior official: “Her wet dream is to be able to declare “l’UNESCO – c’est moi”, reference made to the famous “l’Etat c’est moi” of the French King Louis XIV, but this only shows her pettiness as a human being, her ignorance of the UN and her pathological obsession aggravated by unhealthy political ambitions at national level in France”. 

The only reason why France and the EU are pushing for such an unprecedented free hand is because Madam Azoulay is French. Period.  Thus, despite all warnings by some member states about the illegality and anti constitutionality of the current situation, DG Azoulay is using the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse for justifying the immobilization of the governing body, for entombing accountability and for spreading around unpunished corruption and abuse of power.  This is UNESCO today. This is the UN of Antonio Guterres. We will have more on that. Watch this site.

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