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

UN GATE, Jan 25 – Antonio Guterres is killing the UN, including with his failure in Cameroon and elsewhere and his lawless censorship of Press, now at 571 days. He's put the UN in the Press Freedom Tracker, here. And so on 3 July 2019, this video.

   The day after being targeted and roughed up by Guterres' guard Ronald E. Dobbins and another unnamed, Inner City Press went to the NYPD's 17th Precinct with its torn shirt and damaged laptop to file a complaint. At first it was told, flatly, that the UN is entirely immune. Then once they heard the story, the NYPD took down a complaint. But the UN including its "investigator" Ben Swanson of OIOS, shown here, have done nothing about it.

Swanson confirmed receipt, as with Inner City Press' formal written complaint about Guterres' financial failure to disclose and conflict of interest in banning Inner City Press, no action: "From: Ben Swanson <swanson1@un.org> Date: Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 1:34 AM Subject: Re: Informing OIOS of "REPORT OF PROHIBITED CONDUCT (HARASSMENT, ABUSE OF AUTHORITY) AND ‘FORMAL COMPLAINT’ SUBMITTED [ABOUT] SECRETARY GENERAL, MR ANTONIO GUTERRES, PURSUANT TO ST/SGB/2008/5" please confirm receipt and what OIOS does To: Matthew Lee @ Inner City Press Cc: FUNCA @ funca.info, Heidi Mendoza <mendozah@un.org>, Michelle Claudio <claudio@un.org>, Byung-Kun Min <min2@un.org>   Dear Mr Lee   Thank you for your email and attachments the contents of which have been noted and will be dealt with in accordance with our standard practices.    Ben Swanson  l  Director l  Investigations Division l Office of Internal Oversight Services  l  United Nations Headquarters New York l Office +1 212 963 0597 | Mobile +1 917 288 7459."

 More than 500 days later - nothing. The UN is entirely corrupt.

   Banned Inner City Press published a complaint that Swanson and others had received, below, and now this, on which there is no reason to ask any UN comment pre-publication, since they do not answer any questions: "With reference to a previous letter of complaint, we are  writing to you about the reported sexual, psychological and administrative abuses of power of the UNMIK CMS, Ms. Sandi Arnold. So far, no tangible action has been taken at UNMIK to investigate these cases, all of which are easily verifiable with facts, documents and interviews. Instead, a witch-hunt exercise  has been launched in UNMIK as a fierce personal vendetta to verify the identity of the whistle blower and to make sure that this person is kicked out of the UN. We feel there is an attempt to close this case so that there are no more disruptions to the commendable and exemplary UNMIK.    It is ironic that one of the major themes of the past year on UNEthics was to report wrongdoings and to protect the whistle-blowers. All UNMIK Mission leadership attended the meetings, but it appears no lesson has been learned. We are now of the view that this was pure fake UN propaganda because the UNMIK example clearly demonstrates that some elements in the UN are protected from above and simply untouchable. The only action taken at UNMIK was to waste additional UN resources and money in promoting an absolutely fake image of a beautiful, healthy and enjoyable work environment in Mission Support Division with the video here, "We are one team" , directed and produced by Ms. Arnold but paid with UN money.

  It was showcased at the DOS Supply Chain conference in November 2019, as well as shared with all missions. The video, that featured several UN officers with principal actress Ms. Sandi Arnold, is the highest form of HYPOCRISY and lack of any principle, ethics or integrity and was realized only to bury the requested investigation on her abuses.   We need to point out that all the achievements mentioned in that video are neither the initiatives nor products of Ms. Arnold; including ISO project, the solar panels, the hybrid vehicles, which were mostly  projected, budgeted and achieved by Ms Arnold’s predecessor. We are dismayed that Ms. Arnold has no shame in wanting to take credit for what others have accomplished, in order to progress her career. Her only contribution was the implementation of the UNMIK SCOR projects, for which a consultant was hired at a phenomenal cost of almost 100.000 USD to the organisation.  This exercise was totally unnecessary but was done as a show of allegiance to her friend, the DOS Director, Ms. Anne Marie Van den Berg in charge of Supply Chain Management. No other Mission has paid such money for something so useless, as well as waste of manpower resources.  Ms. Arnold is used to waste funds of the Organization to satisfy her cult of personality and extreme ego. At UNMIK retreats, she used to hire a local company, friends of friends, simply to pop up balloons and make towers of papers at the end of the daily sessions for Team building. The Organization has no funds to pay salaries to Staff and Ms. Arnold wastes money in doing such activities. As this practice was noted by Senior Management in UNMIK, she was no more allowed to use the service of the same company. But no action taken against her and her good friend, Ms. Letitia Brown, Chief Finance Officer,  who approved the expenses in UMOJA.    Ms. Arnold constantly abuses her authority by having some UNMIK subordinate staff pander to her personal needs; and she can do whatever she wants, including entering in their personal lives. Ms. Arnold was used to have one of her administrative assistants to regularly enter at Senior Management Meetings just to take her cup of tea whilst the meetings were ongoing. Upon instruction of Senior Management, no more National Staff were allowed to enter once the meetings were ongoing, just to stop this practice that was simply embarrassing. When the Security stopped her assistant at the door, Ms. Arnold got furious and used  abusive words against them. Ms. Arnold often organizes (during working hours) lunches, breakfasts and reunion with UNMIK female Staff only, with the main purpose to have them under her control and to harass them later. One of these meetings was organized, as usual during working hours,  at a swimming pool in swimsuit…If you don`t have any moral and are not afraid to lose your dignity as a person and at work, the best way is to follow Ms. Arnold. Her friends enjoy months and months of TDY in New York like Ms. Fatima Tafida (recruited by Ms. Arnold in UNMIK from P3 to P4) who has been recently appointed and shortly will be promoted to P5 Chief Supply Chain at UNMIK, or like Manucher Adylor, FS-5 Finance Assistant in Sudan and then recruited by Ms. Arnold as FS-6 in Belgrade (with a manipulated recruitment), then P-4 in Kosovo (within two years), all of these without any matches with competencies required, except great cooking for Ms. Arnold, especially in Sudan. Now a new recruitment has been finalized  for P-5 ORM, where Ms. Letitia Brown has  been selected for the post (just published and very fast recruited). From P3 to P5 in UNMIK if you have the right friend. Ms. Brown got the P5 clearance from a NY panel that, by coincidence, was chaired by Ms. Arnold and assisted by another friend of her Ms. Felista Ondari. Her recruitment must be investigated as well as all recruitment where Ms. Arnold was in charge both for the written and CBI interviews due to her usual corruption. We are aware that Ms. Arnold, before any interviews,  briefs the other panel members saying who is good and not good (for her own agenda), influencing the outcomes of the process. The panel members that worked with Ms. Arnold should be interviewed considering that FPD has always considered  the same Staff from Missions to whom Ms. Arnold has a friendship. For the transparency of the process, the panels should be always changed without permitting the establishment of a corrupted recruitment process. Therefore all these fraudulent clearances should be frozen and retrieved.  Ms. Brown will be also in charge of UNMIK during the period of absence of Ms. Arnold, simply to cover up all the abuses committed by her CMS and as well as to intimidate the MSD Staff. Being a close supporter of Ms. Arnold, she also practices similar abusive methods, and this can be confirmed by many MSD Staff and not only from her office.  Therefore, she should not be in charge of MSD, particularly during the requested investigation.   Regarding corrupted recruitment, we can go on and on with all other posts in UNMIK. Why do we need to advertise a post  in UNMIK if we already know who will be the selected candidate because the recruitment are manipulated by the CMS? Where is the hope for colleagues that are losing their jobs in downsizing missions? NONE, if they don`t have friends in UNMIK!!! For Mr. Adylor, the Mission did not even receive the list  (a strange coincidence for a CMS so well connected in FPD) of the downsized P4 staff from FPD  just to be sure that her plan would have been successful (no RFR but usual Arnold`s PSJO). No shame and no ethic. However, thanks to our previous intervention, Mr. Adylor`s illegitimate request for relocation grant seems to be stopped  despite Ms. Arnold`s heavily, abusive and unlawful insistence. Nobody will approve it except her and/or her friends. If you are a friend of Ms. Arnold, you will travel a lot, make additional $$$$, going to training and workshops and she will create a post for you and your friends, even if the post it is not necessary. It is only important that you play a part in her movies, where she is better than an Hollywood star, take pictures with a smiling face for her personal UNMIK Newsletter (her name is everywhere, every month), prepare a delicious breakfast and then your career will fly. If you accept her sexual jokes, advances and sex toys, then you are a winner. It doesn`t matter if you are conducting  a very questionable life in UNMIK even living and with friendship with adolescents. This is tolerated or even accepted  in UNMIK. Nobody will see anything wrong. Especially if you draw a red heart around Ms. Anne Marie Van den Berg, DOS Director, like in the aforementioned video, then you will have a five-star treatment. The heart is a romantic symbol and is strategically placed on the right person: Ms. Anne Marie Van den Berg who used to work and live together with Ms. Arnold in Sudan. Ms. Arnold built and still owns  a house there. Ms. Van den Berg gave her the clearance for D-1 CMS and facilitated her to get the D1 post CMS at UNMIK.  Ms. Arnold should be placed  on administrative leave pending the results of the requested investigation, but we are aware that the best decision found seems to send her on TDY  to NY so she will have more money to spend in important gifts to all Senior Management.   Ms. Arnold will enjoy additional 9000 dollars monthly DSA in New York where she leaves, and she has all her close and powerful friends."

 Guterres' UN is irredeamable. "From: [Whistleblower] Date: Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 12:21 PM Subject: Request for an independent investigation for UNMIK CMS Ms. Sandi ARNOLD To: OIOS-NY <oios-ny-unhq@un.org>, OIOS-Directors <oios-directors-unhq@un.org>, OIOS-UNMIK <oios-unmik-unhq@un.org>, ethicsoffice <ethicsoffice@un.org> Cc: Donna Dottey <dottey@un.org>, James Finniss <finniss@un.org>, Violas Otieno <otienov@un.org>, Fabrizio Hochschild <hochschild@un.org>, Ben Swanson <swanson1@un.org>, Atul Khare <khare@un.org>, Chhaya Kapilashrami [UNO365] <kapilashrami@un.org>, Martha Helena Lopez <lopez22@un.org>, DMSPC-OUSG-MEU <meu@un.org>, Field Central Review Bodies <fcrb@un.org>  

Good afternoon,I would like to request that an independent investigation be launched immediately into Ms.Sandi ARNOLD’s reiterated sexual and management abuses which have been occurring for the past years against staff members in UNMIK. Ms. ARNOLD serves in the capacity of Chief Mission Support, UNMIK, at D1 level. Ms. ARNOLD employs a sexual approach when dealing with professional matters at work: she makes use of obscenities during meetings and in multiple occasions she approaches women subordinates with unwelcome, sexual comments.Whomever dares to disagree with her and go against her decisions is pushed out from work or is subjected to complete isolation in the office, deprived of professional interactions and career development opportunities (training, TDY opportunities etc.) Ms. ARNOLD often displays aggressive behavior and shouts at any staff who dares to challenge her.  She is fond of giving speeches in which she uses sexual comparison terms and mentions in the end that she is a proud lesbian.  Most staff find this behavior intolerable and highly offensive, however they are afraid to complain fearing that their jobs will be affected. Only Ms. ARNOLD’s friends benefit of professional opportunities(career development, training and assignments in New York and TDYs in other missions). Thanks to this management style (including sending staff on TDY to NY for three months and more) the past budget of UNMIK led to an overspent of more than 200,000 USD. This "volunteer" support to HQ, paid by UNMIK, was only to please her friends, promote them and get her the possibility to gain further promotion to D2.Ms. ARNOLDlikes to brainwash her subordinates, males and females, and comments about their dress code and physical appearance. She makes disparaging comments towards them and does not take into consideration the psychological damages and offenses affecting the staff who have no opportunity to defend themselves.Nepotism is vastly practiced at UNMIK Mission Support Division.  Ms. ARNOLD has recruited staff without the consent and approval of the hiring managers, claiming that she  had an agreement with New York and if you want to complain, you can protest to the  USG.Ms. ARNOLD has fostered a cult of personality and a patriarchal management, with a culture of harassment, including sexual harassment, bullying staff and abusing constantly her power. For instance, she published on the wall of the conference room the list of the Staff who passed the SCOR training and who did not. This situation created an enormous stress to all Staff who failed the exam because she mentioned that everybody should have passed it if they want to keep their jobs. Recently she enrolled staff without their consent for another training at UNMIK (not mandatory) like PRINCE II Practicioner. Staff were so demotivated by this harassment that nobody passed the exam and many did not want to participate to it, fearing to be blamed and humiliated. The result of it is  a waste of resources (staff doing the training who were not interested in) and money (the cost of the trainer) for the organization.  These are violations  and as well as  harassment that nobody had the power to challenge.She treats everybody as her personal employees. She demands that a national staff goes on daily basis to buy food and prepares breakfast for her, and her friends if she has guests, in the office before working hours (washing and preparing salads, cooking eggs, buying her favorite bread). When something is missing or not in accordance to the instruction, Ms.ARNOLDS shouts at her, even in public.She uses a second National Staff (Administrative Assistant)  as her personal driver and assistant  for home commissions including laundry, utilities payments and supermarket runs. The Staff keeps the car with her at home once the CMS is not even in Mission Area.It can be verified with the car log and this is an abuse of authority and mismanagement Ms. Arnold uses to leave her credit car to this lady and to pay her holidays to keep her silence.Both National Staff cannot report this situation for fear of retaliation. Nobody can accept to be paid by the UN and instead becomes a personal maid for only personal matters.Whilst she travels to New York on business class for official duty, she is pushing the staff (other than her friends) to fly economy class or travel by car for any official business. Ms.ARNOLD claims for full airport expenses (on duty) even though her UN driver comes to deposit and collect her at the airport all the time.  Despite the restrictions for everybody in the UN, she is constantly flying (business class) for official business not related to her administrative duties.Ms. ARNOLD has managed to create a unique, toxic and unprofessional management style.  She recruits mainly females for her personal agenda. Ms. ARNOLD’s unethical approach stretches so far that she provides sexual suggestions to her female subordinates on how to reach orgasms.  She has also given sex toys as gifts to female staff.Ms. ARNOLD obnoxiously tells everyone that she has protection from above and that nobodycan investigate or punish her.  The work environment in UNMIK is very unhealthy and detrimental to staff, due to her abuses.  Many staff find themselves in need of counselling in order to be able to conduct their work. It is very easy to verify it directly with the former Staff Counselor, Ms. Maria Murillo. She is in a position of authority but does not deserve the honor to serve under the United Nations flag. This is what happens in UNMIK.Ms. ARNOLD is the mastermind of the corrupted process of rostering exercises  for CJOs  and PSJOs in DOS and in the Mission. For the last three years she oversees these selections, which are a monopoly for friends and friends of friends. In a time where the UN is reducing posts and expenses everywhere, she creates posts for friends like the new positions of P5 Chief Service Delivery and P5 Chief Supply Chain. The Mission has limited logistic activities with no aircrafts and limited movcon activities with only site to run (Mitrovica) and she gets a new P5 post. More important, she gets free business class ticket to go home whilst she is recruiting friends plus dsa.  She tells to everybody that she  is drafting all assessment tests, creating the panels, marking everything at P4, P5 and D1level at DOS and then always sitting or chairing the interview panels. It is well known that she calls for decreasing the passing score at exams in order to allow friends to pass it or to call to fail others that passed it. She did also for the P4 Administrative post in Pristina where she cleared the wife of a Colleague (external) and a lady at F6 just to give them the clearances.   Is this situation normal? Or must it be accepted because the CMS is providing expensive gifts to any persons that counts and she is including in the roster only the desired persons?A clear example is in UNMIK where for any position, even at FS5 level where hundreds of rostered candidates are present, she ALWAYS got the permission from FPD for PSJOs. Without even considering to recruit anybody coming from closing or downsizing missions.A P4 post in Administration was kept vacant for more than two years (nobody was physically present in UNMIK) and then an FS5 was recommended by her for a PSJO post FS6 in Belgrade and then promoted in two years to P4. From FS5 to P4 in two years if you are part of the clan.Mr. Adylor will also enjoy a relocation grant from Belgrade to Pristina, authorized by Ms. Arnold, of which he has no title for it. This gift from the UN is actually ongoing and should be stopped.Many of her friends were also cleared by her for P4 Administrative roster, diminishing the passing score, and assessing them at the interviews. The fact that her friends and girlfriend have a specific role in HQ, gives her the power to do whatever she wants in terms of recruitment and for rostering purposes both in the Mission and HQ. She calls and then somebody has passed or failed the exam.It is imperative that an investigation, ruled by persons outside UNMIK, is conducted as soon as possible with interviews of staff and protective measures are put in place to protect witnesses from retaliation.It is required that Ms. Arnold`s Delegation of Authority and presence at any stage of recruitment  will be withdrawn in order to prevent the reiteration of the above mentioned abuses and mismanagement. FPD should make any possible efforts in having a full rotation of panel members for CJOs and should be vigilant for any PSJOs that are done uniquely to selects friends and not the best candidate.The authorof this email chose to write under an anonymous name for fear of reprisal which has been already occurred and occurring in UNMIK.This email will be  shared in order to stop this ongoing situation and to prevent" -- retaliation, so common in Guterres' increasingly corrupt UN.

  In Guterres' UN there has been entirely unaddressed bribery, including offers of weapons for oil by UN non governmental organization China Energy Fund Committee of Ye Jianming which Guterres refuses to even audit - while roughing up and banning the Press which asks him about it. On December 21 after Guterres and his spokesman had not answered a single one of Inner City Press' 35 written questions during the week and Guterres prepared  to take off on another 11 day trip to Lisbon, still-banned Inner City Press reported and shows that Guterres has essentially killed off the UN's already weak public financial disclosure system. Guterres' own most recent online disclosure is from 2016, here, and it omits for example his listed role through 2018 in the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Now this, which we have reported exclusively, well before the July 2019 reporting that CEFC's Y Jianming gave an expensive diamond to Hunter Biden - the China Energy Fund Committee, implicated in the UN bribery conviction of Patrick Ho, has been linked to Guterres' Gulbenkian, see photos here and for first example here: "Partex Oil and Gas (Holdings) Corporation will be sold to the CEFC China Energy group, confirmed António Costa Silva, the chairman of the oil company of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, speaking to Portuguese daily newspaper Público.

Costa Silva said the “complex negotiation is underway” and added “I think there is a great possibility of it coming to fruition,” and the newspaper reported said that this deal could be worth 500 million euros.

“It is a large Chinese conglomerate that started in refining, terminals, logistics, recently started exploration and production in the Middle East, Russia, and chose Partex as a kind of platform for investments in the first segment,” said the chairman of Partex." So this is a direct conflict of interest by Guterres: he has been on the board of Gulbenkian, which made a sale to CEFC which Guterres now refuses to audit. (Inner City Press asked in January 2018, here, before Guterres had it roughed up and banned; it asked again after the verdict on 5 December 2018, here). Guterres' wife, too, is linked to Gulbenkian, here. This is called corruption.

  Consider also Guterres' Cameroon and Central Africa envoy Francois Lounceny Fall. His last disclosure was signed in November 2017, and included three properties in Guinea, at at least one of which he was just a landlord, banking in Togo with shares in Ecobank Transnational Incorporated. Photo here. Where is the November 2018? Not filed or put online as of December 2018. A fish rots from the head.

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...

***

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 2006-2020 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com for