In Other Media-eg CJR, Independent, Fox, New Statesman, AJE, FP, NYT,  CSM Click here to contact us     .

By Matthew Russell Lee, CJR PFT CEFC Video

UNITED NATIONS GATE, May 14 – After UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres destroyed the remaining credibility of the UN's public financial disclosure by omitting from his form covering 2016 the payments he received from the Gulbenkian Foundation which was trying to sell its Partex Oil affiliate to convicted UN briber CEFC China Energy, now his UN has belatedly posted 2017 disclosures for some but not all of his officials. See Inner City Press' first exclusive report here.

   For months banned Inner City Press has in writing asked Guterres and his spokesman Stephane Dujarric why the public financial disclosures were so delayed. Then when in late April the disclosures were put online without any announcement (or answer to Inner City Press' outstanding questions), it emerged for example that Guterres' Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs D. Stephen Mathias owns shares in China XD Plastics Company, a China (government) based firm specializing in plastics used in automobiles - what could be more UN? Or this: Vitaly Vanshelboim on UNOPS owns "Residential property, joint ownership, Ukraine
Two (2) residential properties, Ukraine
Two (2) residential properties, joint ownership, USA
Annuity account, ING, USA
Mutual Fund, UNFCU, USA
Mutual Fund, Danske Invest, jointly held, Denmark
Mutual Fund, ABN AMRO, Netherlands."

Guterres number three official, policy adviser Ana Maria Menéndez, owns bonds not only in BBVA but also noted corporate rogue UBS, Union Bank of Switzerland. What are the standards? UNDP's Xu Haoliang owns, along with stock in Alibaba and Facebook, shares in Huaan Fund Management, China... Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the fifth or sixth Frenchman head of UN Peacekeeping in a row, owns four properties, renting out three of them for profit. But to whom does he rent them to? That would be the purpose of disclosure, but it is not disclosed. David Beasley of WFP not only has links to his family's First Carolina Bancshares / Carolina Banks but also "Swamp Fox" LLC. Francois Lounceny Fall, Guterres' envoy on Cameroon which he has failed, owns at least three separate properties in Guinea and rents them out for money - no disclosure about to whom he rents them out. He owns shares in a bank in Togo. And Cameroon links? Since Guterres hides his links, including also to China, who knows?

 Dujarric has not answered a single question including about those senior officials of Guterres who are not on the list and have refused to disclosure. A fish rots from the head. Consider that the Executive Secretary of the UN Biodiversity Convention, Cristiana Paşca-Palmer, is not listed among the disclosures, even as OIOS with its own issues is set to audit her in June, ahead of a possible ghoulish re-up second by Guterres who should not get one.

The head of UNICEF Henrietta Fore refused to make any financial disclosure. Why? Holsman International, ExxonMobil and Theravance Biopharma, see here. The head of UNCTAD Mukhisa Kituyi refuses to make disclosure, like fellow CEB member Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka of UN Women, with her own Guterres like travel waste and scandal, has refused to make even basic public financial disclosure. And the outgoing / ousted head of UNOG, Michael Moller, did not make financial disclosure. Achim Steiner the head of UNDP (which preaches about transparency) has not made any public disclosure, similar to the UN's head humanitarian Mark Lowcock has not made any public financial disclosure. Why not? Guterres' page says, "Please note that given the multi-cultural environment of the UN and the often security sensitive locations where UN staff are either working or come from, full public disclosure may not always be a viable or sensible option for certain staff members." How does that clunky excuse apply to UK Lowcock? To US DiCarlo? Consider the UK Andrew Gilmour, who said he regretted what Guterres and Alison Smale did to Inner City Press with the ban but did nothing about it, owns stocks connected to the oxy and opioid crises. We'll have more on this.

  Even the head investigator, so called, of the UN Heidi Mendoza does not disclose, while for example previous OIOS head Inga-Britt Ahlenius did. Mendoza is missing in action, on leave but flying back to New York for events in the Philippines consulate. Again no answer for Dujarric. Guterres' UN is entirely corrupt.

  Among those which have become available are those of Elizabeth Spehar, Guterres' Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP). While Spehar never did answer Inner City Press about the the fraud of UNFICYP's (and thus her) CFO before Inner City Press was roughed up and banned from the UN amid its questions, she is not a landlord, listing only one property, with a mortgage from a bank, BB&T, then under enforcement action for money laundering. What standards does the UN have for the banks it does business with? None. And worse, its supposed head of Genocide, or the Prevention of Genocide (though not in Cameroon) Adama Dieng has refused to make even the basic UN Public Financial Disclosure. Again in fairness, under Ban Ki-moon Dieng at least showed some minimal commitment to press freedom. Under Guterres, as with most things, that stopped and grew worse. Guterres is killing the UN.

  Deputy Secretary General Amina J. Mohammed, who owns no fewer than five residential properties in Nigeria, and rents out for profit some unspecified number of them. Photo here. Big landlords preaches about the poor - she or the UN paid to fly a huge number in to New York to watch her induction after she had just signed thousands of backdated certificates to try to normalize / cover up the export of endangered rosewood from Nigeria and Cameroon to China. Inner City Press covered that induction, as a photo op, before Guterres and his Stephane Dujarric - and, it now seems clear including since she did nothing about it, Amina Mohammed - first banned it from photo ops, then had it roughed up and barred from the UN, 301 days and counting.

  Significantly, Guterres' head of security Peter Drennan whose Lt Ronald Dobbins targeted Inner City Press for assault (Drennan had yet to answer the Press letter he received) has refused to make even this superficial public financial disclosure. It is like a dictatorship, where the head of security hides untold caches of cash. We'll have more on this.

Again, Guterres' Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs D. Stephen Mathias owns shares in China XD Plastics Company, a China (government) based firm specializing in plastics used in automobiles - what could be more UN? But in terms of other conflicts of interest, the UN's top political official Rosemary DiCarlo, once Deputy Ambassador under Susan Rice, has declined to make any disclosure at all. While Guterres and his Spokeman Stephane Dujarric have refused to answer Inner City Press' written questions about this financial disclosures ostensibly for the public, we will have more on this. And on this: Michele Marie Coninsx, who lists no fewer than 19 properties, as well as owning "storage space." Specifically, "Two (2) residential properties, jointly owned, Belgium
Five (5) residential properties, Belgium
Eleven (11) real properties, jointly owned, Belgium
Shares, Delen, Belgium
Storage space, Belgium
Storage space, Belgium."  Preferential option for the poor, anyone? Guterres leaves his $15 million mansion empty.

  Guterres' successor atop UNHCR, Filippo Grandi, sure owns a lot of stocks (while doing nothing about his own staff calling for harsher repression of Anglophones in Cameroon, and benefiting from Guterres' censorship of press). Specifically, from Grandi's disclosure: "Two (2) residential properties, jointly owned, Italy
Residential property, jointly owned, Switzerland
Bonds, Switzerland: General Motors Financial; Deutsche Bank; AT&T; Fixed Rate Notes Cooperative Rabobank;
Mutual funds, Switzerland: Fixed Rate Notes Cooperative Rabobank; Schroder International Selection Fund; Underlying Tracker Custom Markets Securities; Underlying Tracker Custom Markets Securities; Janus Henderson Capital Funds; Higher Education Note Argentum Capital; Mirabaud; Nordea 1; JP Morgan Funds; Aberdeen Tiger Equity; HSBC Global Inv Funds; Aberdeen Japanese Equity; Trackers SICAV MSCI Mexico; Aberdeen Latin American Equity; Baring Australia Fund; Robecosam Smart Energy Fund; Blackrock New Energy Fund; HSBC Frontier Markets; Aberdeen World Resources Equity Fund; Blackrock World Mining Fund; Robecosam Sustainable Water Fund; Credit Suisse Global Prestige Equity Fund; My Bonus Certificate Credit Suisse; Credit Suisse Infrastructure Equity Fund;
Mutual funds, Italy: iShares Euro Stoxx; iShares FTSE EPRA/NAR; ISHS MSCI Japan; iShares Core; iShares MSCI Jpn; iShares MSCI Jpn; iShares; EasyETF FTSE EPRA; iShares MSCI Australia; Lyxor Barclays; iShares Euro Corporate Bond; UBS ETF SICAV MSCI Switzerland; Amundi ETF; Nordea; Blackrock Global Fund; Schroder; CS SICAV; CS (Lux) Corp; Jupiter GL Fund; Pictet Global; GAM Star Credit; UBAM SICAV Swiss Equity; Robeco US Select; Generali Inv; Pictet SICAV Japanese Equity; Lombard Odier Convertible Bond; AXA US; Carmignac Portfolio; Digital Funds; Bluebay SICAV Invest Grade Euro AGG; Goldman Sachs; Lord Abbett Passport; Vanguard Eurozone; Vontobel; Invesco Funds; AXA World Funds; CS Index FD Equities Canada; CS Fixed Inc Global; Pictet EM; Blackrock Euro; Generali Euro;
Invesment portfolios, Switzerland: Permal Multi-Manager Funds; Responsability Micro and SME Finance;
Shares, Switzerland: Microsoft; Pfizer; Intel; Samsung Electronics; Roche; Novartis; Lindt & Spruengli; Nestle."

  The official who Guterres called "impolite" for signing a letter to the Somalia government asking human rights questions, Nicholas Haysom, is not listed on the roster of disclosurers. We'll have more on all this.

   A now-removed Gulbenkian Foundation web page says Guterres continued as a board member into 2018. Archived here. In fact it was on 9 February 2018 that Gulbenian tweeted that Guterres was no longer on the board - AFTER it was reported that Gulbenian was trying to sell, or even had already sold, Partex to CEFC. This is called guilty knowledge.

 While Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric is refusing to answer Inner City Press' written questions, contrary to promises by Guterres' Global Communicator Alison Smale, it appears Guterres' evasive defense is claiming that he left Gulbenkian in November 2016 and therefore somehow had no conflict of interest in refusing and blocking the obviously needed UN audit of CEFC after the arrest of its Patrick Ho for UN bribery. This defense is dubious.

  Why did Gulbenkian take down its webpage disclosing that Guterres remained on board into 2018? Why - sixteen months after Guterres ostensibly left - did they wait until February 2018 to tweet that he left? Because their negotiations with CEFC became public (see 2 February 2018 Bloomberg here, and 6 February MacauHub here: "CEFC China Energy buys Portugal’s Partex Oil & Gas.")

  In any event, Guterres' "2017" Financial Disclosure, which explicitly says it covered the year 2016 in which even in this new story he remained on Gulbenkian's board into November, more than 80% of the year - did not disclose his role in Gulbenkian, only on the Club of Madrid. Guterres has had previous financial disclosure omissions, for example in Portugal, here. CEFC was hardly unknown: it bought a Portuguese insurance company in November 2017, here.

    Guterres' failure to disclose and, separately and even more so, his refusal to audit CEFC in the UN was a direct conflict of interest, which he has tried to cover up by roughing up and banning Inner City Press which asked him about it. (See January 2018 press conference here, July 2018 roughing up by Guterres' UN Security here, banning letter via Press Freedom Tracker here.)

Three times now Dujarric, his deputy Farhan Haq and Office of the Spokesperson colleagues Marcia Soares Pinto and Keishamaza Rukikaire, as well as Guterres, his chief of staff Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti and Deputy SG Amina J. Mohammed have refused to answer this: "Beyond the 36 questions from Inner City Press you refused to answer last week, still set forth below for promised answer, this is a reiterated request past deadline that you (1) state when SG Guterres left his position on the Gulbenkian Foundation, (2) state why Gulbenkian was not listed on SG Guterres' public financial disclosure which covered 2016; (3) explain how it is not a conflict of interest for SG Guterres to have refused to start an audit of CEFC in the UN, as requested by Inner City Press in January 2018, given CEFC's bid for the oil business of Gulbenkian. Also, again, state why under SG Guterres there have been no updates to the UN public financial disclosures since those filed for 2016. Also, again, explain your refusal to answer any of Inner City Press' questions this week despite USG Smale's statements to GAP, me and UNSR David Kaye." No response at all, even as spokesman Dujarric for example tweets at actor Seth Rogin. Dujarric, as simply one example, on 1 March 2018 evaded Inner City Press' in-person questions about CEFC and Guterres, less than a month after Gulbenkian said Guterres was off the board, amid oil negotiations with CEFC. Video here. Then Guterres and Dujarric had Inner City Press roughed up and banned from the UN. Guterres' wife Catarina Vaz Pinto also worked for Gulbenkian. This is today's corrupt UN.

   For years Guterres received money as a board member of the Calouste Galbenkian Foundation, which despite its name is the 100% owner of Partex Oil and Gas. Partex has operations in Angola, Abu Dhabi, Brazil, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Oman and Portugal. It was to a Portuguese court that Guterres, while justifying no listing some of his income, disclosed in 2016 that he was paid at least € 2735 per month for his position with the Gulbenkian Foundation.

   But while a now deleted Foundation web page (archived here) stated that Guterres continued with Gulbenkian into 2018, Guterres did not list it on his most recent, and so far lone, UN Public Financial Disclosure, which covered 2016 ("Disclosing financial and other interests for the 2016 reporting year").

  So why did Guterres disclose his position with the Club of Madrid, but not with the Gulbenkian Foundation / Partex Oil and Gas? It is worth noting that Guterres' wife Catarina Vaz Pinto has also been connected to Gulbenkian.

   Following the roughing up and banning from the UN of Inner City Press which has covered the CEFC scandal throughout, Guterres' head of Global Communications Alison Smale promised UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression David Kaye, who asked, that the UN would still answer Inner City Press' written questions.

   But as 2018 came to a close Guterres' spokesmen Stephane Dujarric and Farhan Haq left unanswered 36 questions in a row from Inner City Press, including this: “Beyond the 35 questions from Inner City Press you refused to answer this week, this is a request on deadline that you (1) state when SG Guterres left his position on the Gulbenkian Foundation,

(2) state why Gulbenkian was not listed on SG Guterres' public financial disclosure which covered 2016;

(3) explain how it is not a conflict of interest for SG Guterres to have refused to start an audit of CEFC in the UN, as requested by Inner City Press in January 2018, given CEFC's bid for the oil business of Gulbenkian.

Also, again, state why under SG Guterres there have been no updates to the UN public financial disclosures since those filed for 2016. Also, again, explain your refusal to answer any of Inner City Press' questions this week despite USG Smale's statements to GAP, me and UNSR David Kaye. On deadline.”

   The question was also sent to the e-mail addresses of Guterres, his chief of staff Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, his Deputy Amina J. Mohammed, and Smale, who earlier in the week told Inner City Press she would take “under advisement” her 17 August 2018 pretextual withdrawal of Inner City Press decade long UN media accreditation.
  It seems clear that Guterres and his team have engaged in censorship for corruption, to conceal a blatant conflict of interest by Guterres. It has been raised by Inner City Press to the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, and others.  Watch this site.

Back on 5 December 2018 Patrick Ho was found guilty of seven of eight counts of violating the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and month laundering. (He was only not guilty on money laundering in Chad - where the bribe was not through any US bank but in cash, $2 million in a gift box). The evidence showed that the NGO he ran, China Energy Fund Committee, used its ongoing UN consultative status to pay bribes to Ugandan foreign minister - and Ashe's successor as President of the UN General Assembly -- Sam Kutesa.. He was working with precedessor Vuk Jeremic while Jeremic was UN PGA. CEFC even offered weapons, tanks and drones, to Chad's long time president Idriss Deby for oil blocks or a stake in the Chad Cameroon pipeline. (Inner City Press published documents here.)

The night of the verdict I asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres what he will do to clean up the UN, where he has left CEFC without any audit, still in consultative status with the UN. On his way from his Mercedes to a glitzy fundraiser including George and Amal Clooney, Guterres refused to answer. The next day when asked by another journalist why Guterres had refused to answer banned Inner City Press' question, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric claimed that the UN has “cooperated” with the prosecution. But the bribery group remains in the UN, unaudited.

Why has the case of US versus Ho, and now the guilty verdicts, garnered relatively so little interest, with the corruption of the UN exposed by it scarcely mentioned all? SG Guterres is hoping it goes away. In terms of corruption, he did not disclose and refuses to answer on the African business links of his son Pedro Guimarães e Melo De Oliveira Guterres. He refuses to answer how much he spends in public funds flying to his home in Lisbon at least sixteen times sofar as SG.

   So CEFC remains an accredited non governmental organization with the UN's Economic and Social Council, while investigative Inner City Press for which I have been covering the case has been dis-accredited by and ousted from the UN, put on a list of those permanently banned without notice, due process or appeal. On December 7 I was informed I am banned from a “UN Human Rights” event on December 10 to be addressed by Guterres and his human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet. But this reporting will not stop - Guterres' corruption of the UN must be addressed, through oversight or as is discussed elsewhere, impeachment. From the lofty goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Guterres' censorship for corruption is UNacceptable.

  With UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and her Deputy Andrew Gilmour set to speak in the UN on human rights day on December 10, Inner City Press responded to an invitation and was told, "Thank you for registering to attend the Human Rights Day event at the United Nations on Monday 10 December. On Monday, please come to the UN Visitors’ Gate on First Avenue opposite 45th street starting at 2pm, at which time entry passes will be distributed."

Then, past six p.m. on Friday, December 7 this from Bachelet's and Gilmour's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: "Dear Matthew, We have received notification from UN Security that your name was flagged as "BARRED" on the list we submitted for passes for Monday's event (3pm, ECOSOC Chamber). We will therefore not have a pass for you and are unable to facilitate entry.
Thank you for your interest and best regards,
OHCHR New York Office." Photo of email here.

   Inner City Press immediately wrote back, to the sender and Bachelet and her assistant, to Andrew Gilmour and to the moderator of the event, "Particularly since you are the UN Office of the High Commissioner for *Human Rights,* did you not ask why a journalist who asks the Secretary General and his spokesmen about the killings in Cameroon, Burundi, UN corruption, UN peacekeepers' sexual abuse of civilians, and Sri Lanka, is “BARRED” from attending your human rights event - without any hearing or appeal? I will appreciate your Office's answer to this."  We'll have more on this.

 Bachelet gave a speech on October 15 in the UN's Third Committee, she emphasized a prioritization of social and economic rights and said one of the officials of her office is "on mission in Silicon Valley" in the US. There are questions about this - but Inner City Press which has covered human rights and the UN for more than a decade was for the first time banned from access a High Commissioner's speech. This has been raised repeated to Bachelet since she took office but she has so far done nothing, not even responded. Meanwhile on October 12 Cameroon, from whose Paul Biya Secretary General Antonio Guterres took a golden statue and favors in the Fifth (Budget) Committee and remains silent on the slaughter of Anglophones, was elected to a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. This system is failing - but if Bachelet cannot even answer on Guterres maintaining a secret banned list including not only Inner City Press but also "political activists" - and anti-corruption campaigners - then the UN of Guterres has hit its newest low.

***

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

UN Office, past & future?: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA
For now UNder Guterres: UN Delegates Entrance Gate
and mail: Dag H. Center Box 20047, NY NY 10017 USA

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2018 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com for