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By Matthew Russell Lee & sources, Exclusive

UN GATE, Dec 8 – UNESCO, like the whole UN system under Antonio Guterres is falling apart in corruption and fraud.

  Inner City Press has been reporting on serious malfeasance by the French Audrey Azoulay administration at UNESCO in Paris, almost as bad as Antonio Guterres' corruption in and of the UN in New York. A fish rots from the head.

The UNESCO corruption series is more than 100 stories long. DG Azoulay's recent misconduct is raising concerns at UNESCO. That's why, last November 18, Inner City Press sent an e-mail to the President of UNESCO's General Conference, the Romanian Ambassador Simona-Mirela Miculescu (here) asking her opinion on the visit of the Director-General of UNESCO to Rabat as part of the official delegation of French President Macron during his bilateral state visit to Morocco.

Before publishing this article, we expected Ms. Miculescu to reply to our e-mail and clarify whether the General Conference was planning institutional measures under her leadership for this violation of UNESCO's Constitution by DG Azoulay.  Ambassador Miculescu did not respond to our request, although she is perfectly aware that it is absolutely abnormal for the head of a multilateral UN agency to be directly subordinate to the authority of a national presidency.

 In fact, Ms. Miculescu is even more familiar with the rules and workings of the UN than the other ambassadors to UNESCO. Not only was she Romania's Ambassador to the UN in New York, but prior to her position as Romania's Ambassador to UNESCO, she was also the UN Secretary-General's Representative and Head of the UN Office in Belgrade. (here ) 

The legitimate question, therefore, is why Ms. Miculescu did not take diplomatic action in accordance with her current prerogatives and left the matter unattended. Inner City Press' sources in the Cabinet of the DG provided a reading of it. After receiving our e-mail, instead of consulting her authorities in Bucharest or her fellow ambassadors in Paris, Ms. Miculescu, clearly perturbed by the unexpected heavy responsibility that landed on her shoulders, preferred to raise the matter confidentially with UNESCO's DG. Of course, as Audrey Azoulay prefers on her side to avoid any further noise about her trip to Rabat, Simona Miculescu slavishly agreed to it.

The end result is that DG Azoulay managed to convince the President of UNESCO's General Conference to keep her mouth shut and do nothing.  This is not the end of the matter. We will therefore be contacting the relevant Romanian national authorities, as officials are very sensitive to corruption or foreign influence, and the current developments concerning the cancellation of the presidential elections in Romania prove this once again. We will be seeking clarification of Ambassador Simona Miculescu's behavior at UNESCO and of any instructions from her capital in this regard. 

Other information provided by UNESCO insiders concerning DG Azoulay's trip to Morocco is even more appalling. Preparations for her visit to Rabat were kept secret until the last moment by her Cabinet. The only staff member involved in the organization of the travel was Flavio Bonetti, Chief of her Cabinet, who coordinated the visit with the protocol of the French presidency. UNESCO's one and only role was to provide Azoulay with a car to take her to Orly airport, where she boarded Emmanuel's plane flying to Rabat.  Not a single UNESCO file or project concerning cooperation between UNESCO and Morocco was prepared for her mission, not a single briefing note - which is even more unusual - not even an interim instruction announced internally.

All aspects of her absence during these days have been kept in the strictest secrecy. This should be enough for member states to understand the blatant misconduct.  Inside sources were unable to clarify whether Simona Miculescu was intimidated by Azoulay or whether she is naturally frightened by the idea of taking on the responsibilities of her current position. All eyes are now likely to turn to the Chairperson of the Executive Board, Vera El Khoury Lacoeuilhe, who was copied on our November 18 e-mail. Her opening speech at the last session of the Executive Board testifies to a clear understanding of UNESCO's poor situation today (opening speech – here ) 

This part of her speech is directly related to what is expected of a governing body’s President: “Speaking out never harms an organization. It is silence that harms an organization. It is silence that fosters a sense of impunity and arrogance that are detrimental to any organization. Let us not forget that UNESCO’s credibility is also built on the trust and confidence that Member States place in the Governing Bodies. They need an Executive Board that fully exercises its oversight role, ensuring that the Secretariat is held accountable”.  It couldn't be clearer. It also shows that, unlike DG Azoulay, Ms. Vera Lacoeuilhe possesses the sufficient level of political capital and support to say the right things publicly at the right time. It remains to be seen whether, in this particular case, she will choose to practice what she preaches.

The other option would be for her to downplay the situation Miculescu-style, but in that case, all her previous statements would be considerably discredited.  W

ith all this exposure, faster progress could have been made in clarifying the subordinate gaffe between President Macron and DG Azoulay, if principles of good governance had been applied instead of silent complicity on the part of certain ambassadors. Member states are fully responsible for the final outcome of developments in this regard. We will have more on that. Watch this site.

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