| UN Arrogance Extends From
Guterres to Addis ECA Songwe Rebuffs Staff
Union Disappears
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive Patreon
Germany
- Honduras
- UN
Q - Tel
Aviv Austria
UN GATE, Aug 2 –
Three weeks after Inner City
Press published leaked audio
of UN Office of Internal
Oversight investigator Ben
Swanson recounting being
ordered by UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres
NOT to investigate sexual
harassment committed by a UN
Assistant SG, now more Swanson
audio has emerged, see below.
Now this,
from the UN Economic
Commission for Africa staff
union: "Letter to the ES of
ECA on failure to respond to
Staff Union emails and request
for Virtual meeting /
Management relations Ms. Vera
Songwe Executive Secretary of
ECA Dear Madame,
Executive Secretary, We the
Staff Union are writing this
letter as a follow up to your
failure to respond to our
request to virtually meet you.
This request and its reminder
were preceded by several
earlier emails which you
didn’t respond to. You have
not talked to the Staff Union
since end of March 2020,
although we interacted in some
other platforms. Staff Union
recognizes the psychological
and mental stress brought to
all staff as a result of this
unprecedented and trying times
where isolation,
misinformation, anxiety, fear
have taken a toll. In view of
our responsibility to
discharge our duty to
safeguard staff concerns,
rights, privileges and
interests in line with the
United Nations rules and
regulations, we deem it
necessary to contact you this
way.... When staff were
confronted with several
challenges on top of the
challenges of COVID-19, the ES
simply turned her back and
decided not to respond to
several pertinent and time
sensitive emails from the
Staff Union president
requesting to meet with her.
Before asking for a virtual
meeting the Staff Union
president sent four (4) emails
to the ES which were ignored.
We at Staff Union believe that
regular communication gives
paramount importance to Staff
voices, we, at ECA have
recurrently observed that
staff are relegated to
observer status in moments
where they should be at the
discussion table. This was
quite obvious when a small
committee composed of the ES,
the RC, WHO Country
representative and one or two
more agencies, made decisions
on behalf of Staff without
prior consultations with Staff
Union. A decision was taken to
act contrary to the Ethiopian
Government Memo which relaxed
the quarantine rules for UNLP
holders and AU passport
holders including embassies in
Addis. This might have been in
good faith from our
leadership, but the decision
was taken on behalf of the
staff without the staff
presence and consent. Later,
at a FUNSA meeting with the
RC, all members of FUNSA
unanimously rejected that
decision and during the
subsequent townhall meeting,
the FUNSA president conveyed
the position of ECA and that
of all UN agencies based in
Addis Ababa and requested to
be part of that
deciding-committee which the
RC accepted publicly but FUNSA
has still never received any
invitation to date. ... The
staff union will never accept
that. Going to Details: Emails
to the ES which were Ignored
Staff Union wrote to the ES on
the following dates; 1) July
6, 2020 - A request for
approval for staff asking to
telework from outside of Addis
Ababa or assigned duty station
The email was not responded
to; 3 2) July 6, 2020 - A
request to the ES to grant
access of the Vice President
of Staff Management Committee
so he can continue to lead the
SMC meeting as interim
president due to internet
outage: No response; 3) July 8
2020 - A request for a Virtual
meeting with Staff Union
President: No response; 4)
July 9, 2020 – A request for
an extension of recovery
period of education grants: No
response 5) July 17, 2020 - A
reminder was sent for the
“July 8 request” for virtual
meeting: No response ...
Ethiopia current state of
affairs since Covid -19 is
like a disarray which is
creating an atmosphere of low
morale, insecurity and a sense
of being left alone among the
staff which is disrupting the
normal order of business and
mentally disturbing. Staff
should never feel abandoned by
Senior Leadership. [But they
do, right ot the top, corrupt
Guterres]
M. Nassirou Ba
President, ECA Staff Union,
& Federation of United
Nations Staff Association
(FUNSA)." Others note the
number of vacancies of key
staff in the Office of the
Executive Secretary, in a
Q&A....
In other UN
staff news, now Guterres'
personal spies OIOS under
Swanson, like his UN Security
thugs including Ronald E.
Dobbins told to target, rough
up and ban Inner City Press,
now assert the right to seize
and search personal cell
phones in the UN, in a message
leaked to Inner City Press:
"Thu 7/23/2020
9:23 AM - We wish to bring to
your attention an alarming
precedent established in a
recent (still unpublished)
decision issued by a United
Nations Dispute Tribunal
(UNDT) judge, which
jeopardises our right to
privacy going
forward. In her
decision, the judge endorses
the DMSPC/Administrative Law
Division’s argument whereby
Office of Internal Oversight
Services (OIOS) investigators
are entitled to seize any
personal IT device (cell
phone, laptop or desktop) that
has been used by a staff
member in conjunction with
their UN work (for instance,
by using a UN-issued SIM card
on your private phone, or by
installing UN licensed
software i.e. MS Outlook on
your personal
phone/laptop). The
legal question relates to the
interpretation of ST/AI/2017/1
(Unsatisfactory conduct,
investigations and the
disciplinary process) in
conjunction with
ST/SGB/2004/15 (Use of
information and communication
technology resources and
data). Based on the argument
of the Administration Law
Division, who supported the
OIOS’s practice of seizing of
personal devices, the UNDT
judge questionably ruled that
ST/AI/2017/1 overrides
ST/SGB/2004/15. It is
unfortunate that the judge
failed to observe that neither
ST/AI/2017/1 nor
ST/SGB/2004/15 stipulate in
any way or form the seizure of
personal devices.
The Staff Union disagrees with
this interpretation of the
rules, in view of the
definition of “ICT resources”
(Sect. 1.b) in the
higher-ranking ST/SGB/2004/15,
which should take precedence
and limit the provisions of
Sect. 6.2 of ST/AI/2017/1 to
those devices issued by the UN
that are “under the staff
member’s control”.
We believe this manner of
proceeding constitutes a grave
violation of a staff member’s
right to privacy and to their
private property. Needless to
say, that seizing of a staff
member’s personal phone and
laptop for a minimum of two
weeks would cause extreme
inconvenience to any colleague
who is involved in an
investigation, sometimes for
no wrongdoing of their
own. In sum, we
are calling on the OIOS to
suspend these practices,
especially under the current
working arrangements imposed
on staff due to COVID-19, when
many of us are required to use
our personal devices, due to
the fact that the Organization
was not always able to provide
UN-issued devices to ensure
business continuity.... We
advise all staff on this issue
and encourage you to
reconsider your use of
personal devices for
UN-related work, as well as
the utilization of any
UN-licensed software on your
personal devices."
Guterres
is a gangster- he should be
impeached.
In the newly
leaked audio, OIOS' Swanson
says.
"this whole thing
of retaliation has got the
potential to cause us massive,
massive problems if we get it
wrong.” As he describes
the system, he says the U.N.
used to open an investigation
in response to a complaint,
“and it was taking a long time
because some of them are
horribly complicated and some
of them are just so trivial
that they’re just not worth
investigating entirely.”
He says the office trialed a
process of getting the
complaint from the U.N. ethics
office, at which point it
would write to the person
accused of retaliating against
a whistleblower or someone who
reported misconduct, and ask
them to “tell us why you’re
not guilty.” ”We’d
get the stuff … in from the
ethics office, we then write
to the subject and, I’m
paraphrasing here, saying,
‘Look, the ethics office have
said that prima facie that you
have retaliated therefore you
are guilty of retaliation
against Staff Member A, here’s
all the material, here’s the
ST/AI, write back to us in 10
days and tell us why you
haven’t … why you’re not
guilty of retaliation,'” he
says, to chuckles from others
in attendance.
Continuing, he says: “We’ve
managed to cut the time down
from 247 days down to about 45
because they write back
straight away and invariably
it’s ‘I don’t know anything
about a protected act and this
is nonsense, all I did was
send out an email telling
people to behave
themselves.'” “Then we
sort of make the judgment of
whether, is it worth getting
64gb of emails to prove that
they haven’t only sent the
email out, or do we take their
word, their sworn word, for it
and then say ‘well, ethics
office, there is never ever
going to be any sanction
imposed for this retaliatory
act, or whatever it’s called,
and we’re not going to do
anything else’?” He says
they are effectively doing the
ethics office's job and the
office had “swallowed it up
and accepted it. We’ve done
two now, and I think we’ve got
another two in the pipeline,
and it’s working quite nicely,
that brings the figures down
[and] that gets the Americans
off the U.N.’s back, [it]
means they don’t reduce their
contribution.”
Quoting
whistleblower Emma Reilly's
letter asking for the 15% cut
in US contributions to the UN
that are required under law,
Fox News gets some response
from Capitol Hill. But will
this be followed through, as
to retaliation and Guterres'
censorship of Press? Watch
this site.
The
United Nations claims to have
a zero tolerance for sexual
exploitation by its staff and
peacekeepers, but routinely
covers up their abuses
including the rape of
children, withholding basic
information which was provided
to the Press under Ban Ki-moon
but not now under Antonio
Guterres.
Inner City Press, which
Guterres has banned from the
UN for 724 days as it asks
about these and his abuses, on
June 23 received from outraged
UN whistleblowers video of
sexual exploitation, they
said, in a white UN-marked
vehicle, here.
Now Instagram,
Facebook.
On July 1
at noon, Guterres' UN
Spokesman Stephane Dujarric
said he would release the
results of the UN Office of
Internal Oversight Services
(OIOS) investigation in the
afternoon. By midnight it had
not happened.
Now Inner
City Press exclusively
published audio of OIOS' Ben
Swanson saying that one of
Guterres' Assistant
Secretaries General thrust his
hand down the pants of a
female staffer - and Guterres,
"a politician," said to cover
it up. Audio
here, here
on Patreon, transcribed here:
"I was summoned
to a meeting in the SGS
conference room in February
(2018) where the SG, DSG,
Legal Counsel and of all the
special advisors and all that
were there. The SG is a
politician and he wanted a
sound byte result and the
soundbite result was that
paragraph which I showed you
before. I tried to make
the point that there's three
overlapping things with this,
there's the culture, the
investigations and there's the
accountability
piece. Now,
I was trying to tell him what
actually apart from the
numbers that's coming in, the
investigations piece is
already, we're OK because we
know what we're doing and
we're able to do the
investigations. It's just with
the increase in demand and I
said the accountability is a
problem because of whatever
the tribunals are doing. And
it's your culture's the
problem. I said I said I
had a D1 female D1 in my
office last week. She in tears
telling me about how an ASG
put his hand inside her
trousers and when she tried to
discuss how to complain about
it, she was told it wouldn't
do her any good and he was a
favored son. And you're a
woman. So I tried to
tell the story and I got
(knock on table) I was cut
there."
Guterres'
OIOS investigations are a
politicized scam. A fish rots
from the head - Guterres
covers up for his Assistant
Secretary Generals grabbing
crotches, and for whoring by
UNTSO staff. Guterres should
resign.
On July 1
AFP reported
of the UNTSO video that "It
was originally published on
June 23 on the Twitter account
of Inner City Press, a blog in
open conflict with the UN,
which has been denied access
"for 721 days" , said its
author Matthew Lee. The
account claimed a few days
later that this scene was
filmed in Tel Aviv (Israel)."
[Would they say that the
Rappler is "in open conflict"
with Duterte?]
The UN
after Inner City Press' video
went viral claimed they were
quickly investigating; a
French journalist even
(falsely) reported that
sanctions had already been
announced.
But now,
days after Inner City Press
identified to the UN the
nationality and then the names
of the men in the vehicle,
nothing. It is another cover
up by Guterres, this time funded
not only by taxpayers but also
IKEA and Pierre Omidyar.
Early on
June 29 Inner City Press has
asked Guterres, Melissa
Fleming, Stephane Dujarric and
others: "Please confirm or
deny that Michael Antoine,
whose past promotions and
transfers out of UNTSO
including to the UN-OPCW
mission in Syria Inner City
Press has previously asked the
UN spokesmen about without
answer, is with UNTSO (and his
role in this).
Same question regarding Ray
Milan. On deadline. Please
immediately confirm receipt."
No answer. Guterres' UN is
corrupt, now using Omidyar and
IKEA funds.
On June 28
Inner City Press asked
Guterres, Melissa Fleming and
UNTSO: "confirm or deny that
Michael Antoine, whose past
promotions and transfers out
of UNTSO including to the
UN-OPCW mission in Syria Inner
City Press has previously
asked the UN spokesmen about
without answer, is with UNTSO
(and his role in
this). Same
question regarding Ray Milan."
No answer.
We now
report - Milan is, as Inner
City Press asked and reported,
from Puerto Rico. And in the
back, Michael Antoine has both
Trinidadian and US citizenship
- and quite a history. Inner
City Press previously asked
the UN about him (for example
here).
and his sponsor / Godfather
Fadil Abdullah, since promoted
out to UNICEF in Sudan. Inner
City Press asked the UN about
him, again, in 2019, here
- no answer. UN cover ups.
Whistleblowers exclusively
tell Inner City Press this is
being covered up: Antoine is
"protected." He is known
in all the bars of
Jerusalem. The military
observers know him as the
jackass. That is his
nickname. Military
observers were told not to
place complaints about his
antics, that nothing would be
done. They would see his
UN vehicle out late in the
bars in Jerusalem. He would
drive with Ray to Haifa
Russian bars. Ray Milan
and Antoine would also use
prostitutes
regularly. Senior
management refuse to address
the misdeeds of civilian
staff. Antoine is part
of culture of civilian UN
staff who are undisciplined
and there is no
accountability.
Antoine had many Palestinian
girlfriends and this would
also cause problems for UN.
Guterres is to blame for this.
Inner City
Press has been encouraged by
UN staff to publish this now
to try to ensure that Guterres
doesn't once again cover up
for a "whoremonger." They say
Guterres should resign.
Inner City
Press will continue to demand
re-accreditation.
On June
26, despite the story now
being reported from Austria
to Israel
to Switzerland,
those let in from Al Jazeera
and other publications asked
nothing. We'll have more on
this. Watch this site.
***
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