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By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive, CJR Letter PFT

UNITED NATIONS GATE, Sept 5 – After a partial expose of part of the UN's corruption but not that of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was dropped on UNRWA by his often partner Al Jazeera, Guterres at a press stakeout he banned Inner City Press from announced he was putting Christian Saunders in as UNRWA Deputy.

  This too is corrupt. Saunders was the UN official who oversaw the roughing up of Inner City Press on 3 July 2018, video here. A few short days later he came across First Avenue and told Inner City Press to be careful about the articles it had been writing.

  Now after Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric has refused to answer banned Inner City Press' written questions about UNRWA, this invitation, to an event the actual Press is banned from, at the UN Censorship Alliance: "Hi Matthew​ - I hope you can make it. If so, please let me know by responding to this email.     RSVP Contact: Rubenstein 
Media Alert:  Press Conference on UNRWA Mandate Renewal  In 1949, the United Nations General Assembly established the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), with a temporary mandate to provide shelter and service for half a million Arab refugees from the 1948 war. Today, more than 70 years later, UNRWA serves more than five million descendants of Arab refugees in camps.  The UN General Assembly, this fall, will consider the extension of the UNRWA mandate for yet another five years. On September 5, 11AM, at the UNCA, the United Nations Correspondents Association and the Center for Near East Policy Research will conduct a press briefing on the subject:  "UNRWA Mandate Renewal: Under the Condition of Tight Transparency"  Who:  Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean and Director of the Global Social Action Agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, registered as an NGO at the United Nations
Bassem Eid, a Palestinian human rights pioneer whose family lives in an UNRWA refugee camp in Jerusalem
Dr. Arnon Groiss, an expert on Arabic language textbooks who will present his hard hitting new study of Palestinian Authority teachers manuals offered this year for instructors in Palestinian Authority and UNRWA schools   David Bedein, MSW, director of the Center for Near East Policy Research, who has investigated UNRWA since 1987 
What: UNRWA Mandate Renewal: Under the Condition of Tight Transparency  When:  Thursday, September 5, 2019                              11:00 AM 
Where:   UN Correspondents Association ***Media Coverage Welcome***"
 
  Welcome?

Past 4 pm on Friday, August 30 the UN issued a denial of accreditation with no reasoning other than that accreditation had previously been revoked:

"From: malu <malu@un.org>
Date: Fri, Aug 30, 2019 at 4:23 PM
Subject: U.N. eAccreditation request for Matthew Lee Ref # M5413398 has been declined
To: Inner City Press:

Greetings Matthew Lee from Inner City Press,  Your media accreditation request, with reference no: M5413398, has been declined for the following reason: Media accreditation was withdrawn on 17 August 2018."

  This is Kafka-esque, and corrupt. We will have more, much more, on this.

Saunders is a censor, an appropriate representative of the corrupt Guterres to one of the many agencies Guterres is destroying, helped along now by  two publications, one of which works with Guterres to get the investigative Press roughed up and thrown out of the UN.

The faux expose concerns UNRWA and the murky travel budge of its Commissioner General - without a single mention of the entirely untransparent and more expensive budget of Guterres, and his concealing through censorship of that and his financial links to convicted UN briber CEFC China Energy.

Perhaps for that reason, Guterres' long vacationing spokesman Stephane Dujarric delivered up an answer for the story to one to whom, despite virtually never being at the UN except to work with Xinhua on a fraudulent prize this faux expose is probably timed to get, he and Guterres give office space along with the grateful answers.

  Here's Dujarric from late June but only published yesterday and today (Dujarric has been on vacation in France for all of July, refusing Inner City Press questions including on UNRWA) - "As he has shown in the past, the Secretary-General is committed to acting swiftly upon receiving the full report." There is no comment after this, no mention that Guterres travels more, and more murkily, and is covering up for himself, his Deputy and a range of officials including right now Colin Steward at MINURSO.

  The expose "alleges that the 'inner circle' is made up of Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl, Deputy Commissioner-General Sandra Mitchell - who resigned from her post in late July - Chief of Staff Hakam Shahwan - who left the agency in early July - and Senior Adviser to the Commissioner-General Maria Mohammedi." Some allegation: it's called an organigram. Guterres' inner circle involves, never reported not by Al Jazeera, Amina J. Mohammed, harasser Fabrizio Hochschild, and the list goes on. Watch this site - Al Jazeera colluded with Dujarric to get Inner City Press roughed up in mid 2018 after Inner City Press dare cover and criticize the Guterres' regimes favoritism of Qatar's state media including giving in a private briefing in the UN Press Brieifng Room which at noon on July 26 had not questioners at all. Likewise, no one at Al Jazeera has answered any of the written questions that have been directed at them about their role in getting Inner City Press roughed up and banned from the UN. This is the UN Censorship Alliance.

  Today's UN is so corrupt that, having ordered roughed up and banned Inner City Press which asked Guterres how he spent public money, hid money connected to UN briber CEFC China Energy and the golden statue he took from killer Paul Biya of Cameroon, his spokesman's noon press briefing on July 26 had not a single in person question. Yes, the corruption of the UN system under Guterres has extended to UNRWA, the "Relief and Works Administration." There, whistleblowers reached out to Inner City Press which for its questions has under Guterres been roughed up and banned 391 days with the story below. Note that Dujarric and his deputy refused to provide any answer, given that Inner City Press also inquires into Dear Leader Guterres: "Dear Matthew Lee,  I would like to write you about the potential irregularities and corruption during the UNRWA recruitment numbered 17-FO-LB-17, Vacancy called the Deputy Director of UNRWA Affairs (Organizational Support), P-5.  This Vacancy advertised during the month of April 2017, and the part of Vacancy announcement included a rigorous definition of the qualification requirements. This included an Advanced university degree at master’s level in the following defined fields [Business or Public Administration, International Relations, Law, Finance, or Human Resources Management or related areas].  Later on, during the summer 2017, the recruitment completed and selected incumbent appointed.  I would like to attract your attention to the fact that selected candidate did not fulfill the required qualification requirements, specifically the master’s degree in one of the Agency’s organizational support broad academic fields. Vice versa, Mrs. Daniela Leinen, the incumbent selected for the post, holds a Master degree in the Literature and she is qualified as the Teacher of the German and English at the elementary school level  according to the information made publicly available by her. This seems as complete mismatch of required qualification. In addition this can be seen as eliminatory and discriminatory to the other more suitably qualified applicants whose academic credentials fulfill the vacancy requirements.   This implies a suspicion related to  irregularities and corruption in this particular recruitment. It is also undermining an overall UNRWA recruitment process transparency and fairness at all. Any such deemed and unclarified irregularities in recruitment of the United Nations officials under the Civil Servant status can undermine a reputation and cause further disruptions in humanitarian operation same as put the flow of Donor’s funding for Agency under the threat.    Thank you for your attention!"  We'll have more on this - since Guterres and his spokespeople, the lead one Stephane Dujarric vacationing in France for all of July after banning Inner City Press along with his partners who breathlessly report about busses being late in New York. The UN under Guterres has become truly disgusting, as well as dysfunctional.

  Guterres' corruption has also spread into UN Capital Development Fund, UNCDF. Today Inner City Press publishes this exclusive regarding Somalia and Somaliland, including a cover up under the fig leaf of "respect the hierarchy," and inaction by UN headquarters: "Dear Matthew, I have gathered documents detailing corruption, theft, abuse of power and abuse of office by UN officers Anka Kitunzi (P5), Dmitry Pozihdaev (P5) and Paul Simkin (P5).   I have written to the UNCDF officers in New York, who then said they had triggered an investigation by the UN OAI. Due to the lethargic approach by the UN, I wrote to the Donors of the programme, the Swedish SIDA and especially UK DfiD. Unfortunately, the donors claim they are awaiting the investigations by the UN. This investigation is nothing but a cover up.  The gross abuse by UNCDF officers based in Somaliland, where an individual withdrew funds from UN sponsored accounts for personal use, has led the Somaliland Government to remove from office the Mayor of Borama town, who participated in the fraud. Copies of the bank statements and letters from UN were shared with the donor, DFiD, but the donor does not care what happens to funds sent to Somalia. The funds are treated as a free-for-all. The said UNCDF officer who actually withdrew some US$38,000, which were likely distributed as kickbacks to the UN officers based in Nairobi in office.

The response of the UNCDF has been to demand that the District refunds the funds which have been misused, thus driving Somaliland into greater poverty.   Mr. Anka Kitunzi, the Head of Office for UNCDF Somalia, has spent most of 2016 in New York while earning an annual salary of US$ 300,000+ and additional allowances of US$ 30,000 as DSA in New York, pretending to work on Somalia issues while undergoing medical care at UN expense. Anka flies First Class on holidays to Uganda, his home, yet claims substantial allowances while pretending to work from Kampala. The UNDP Somalia has written e-mails protesting this behaviour, but Judy Karl, the Executive Secretary in charge of UNCDF in New York, goes out of the way to protect Mr. Anka.

Instead of investigating the flights and Daily Subsistence Allowances filched brazenly by Mr. Anka, Ms Judith Karl has sent in a UN accountant Mr. Birre Abebe from Ethiopia to come and cook up books to clean Mr. Anka's terrible records. The man from Ethiopia is being paid US $12,000 a month to do the cover up. This cooking of books shall continue until end of August, then the OAI inspectors are expected to arrive in Nairobi in September 2019 to declare that there is no problem, and thus the UN white washing will have been accomplished. Even as all this takes place, the Somalia donors representatives living in the cool leafy suburbs of Nairobi while pretending to oversee Somalia, are not concerned about the abuse of funds by UN staff based in Nairobi at great costs to the UN, and pretending to work in Mogadishu. Mr. Anka for example, has managed to be a Head of Office for Somalia while spending annually about two weeks only in Somalia, flying into the capitals and NEVER visiting any project. Mr. Anka has spent over nine years in the Nairobi office, while international staff have to be redeployed every four years. This abuse has been sanctioned by Exec. Sec. Judith Karl, based in New York, who is happy to receive officially over US$ 420,000 annually from UNCDF Somalia (7% of all funds raised by UNJPLG from donors for Somalia (about US 6 million given annually to UNCDF), are remited to New York).  The familiarity of Mr. Anka and Dr Dmitry with the actors in Somalia and Puntland over the decade has led to strange relationships open to abuse. In 2019, contractors based in Puntand wrote to the UN complaining that the Official who was working directly with the UN JPLG had created a number of companies that he owned through proxies, and others he controlled, and that all tenders were funneled to these companies.  As usual, UNCDF continues to work with the same companies which the ILO pretends to oversee bidding and BQs. The quarrels over the US$ 4 million funds is at the heart of the expulsion of ILO from Somaliland, but the paymaster is Mr. Anka Kitunzi, going strong for a decade now reigning over Somalia..

 Then, after some back and forth by Inner City Press, banned by corrupt Guterres from entering the UN for 383 days and with his spokespeople refusing all written questions about corruption, this:

Dear Matthew,  Thank you for your response. I thought about this and have decided to forward the e-mails to you.  It is sad that the UN basically acts as the Government in Somalia, taking control of 'elections' where carefully chosen elders select candidates who then select the 'President'. The President is then guarded against his people by African Union forces, which number of thirty thousand, and are FULLY paid for by EU/UK/USA... The sadness is that the UN in Somalia, which provides the rationale and justification for donors, is unaccountable. Very little funding finds its way to the villages of Somalia, except for famine relief and food aid. Poverty begets desperation. The terrorist organizations of Al Shabaab an affiliate of Al Qaeda, actually does more for villagers than the corrupt UN machinery, an issue that UN acknowledges. How will the terror threat be contained, when UN and its agencies are looting the little donor funding for poor Somalia? Paying huge salaries ad allowances, first class flights, holidays in NY etc, to people who never leave the comfort of Nairobi is actually obscene!  UN meanwhile continues to be accused of racialism, elitism, and a refusal to employ ethnic Somalis. All top positions are by Europeans who like to sit in Nairobi. UNCDF is managed by an African from Uganda, which supplies the bulk of AU forces, so is beyond reproach. He is managed by a Russian/Serbian person based in Uganda.  UNCDF and JPLG (Joint Programme of Local Government) are important because they are supposed to pump millions of dollars to local projects. Most of the UN and UNDP programmes are hollow 'capacity building' programmes which are basically repeats of same workshops and seminars, or channeling salaries to politicians, police etc.   UNCDF annually sends US$ 6 million to local projects in Somalia. This is a small figure internationally, but it is a huge % of all funding to projects in poor Somalia. It is sad when these funds are stolen. 

 Among the emails: "Mon 11/19/2018 1:24 PM Dear Adan, I myself use UNCDF MONEY FOR TRAVEL. I HAVE BEEN GIVEN RENTED CAR AND DSA. THIS IS UNCDF MONEY, IT IS NOT MY MONEY. SO I AM REQUIRED TO CONSIDER VALUE FOR MONEY.  Best regards, Sahal Abdullahi  Mon 11/19/2018 1:28 PM Dear Sahal  I don't understand what you are talking about and don't talk about the issue you are talking about please respect the hierarchy  Regards  Adan."

  "Respect the hierarchy, as elsewhere under Guterres, means "cover up" and "retaliate against critics."

The response from Guterres' UN? A UN official replied, "Please give this some room prior to notifying DFID as a cancellation of DFID funds will close the whole of JPLG."

 That is, cover up corruption so Big Tony and his crew can keep getting paid public money. We'll  have more on this.

***

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