UN-Truth

…whether or not new SG BAN KI-MOON is unable to break away from old traditions, as the NY Sun suggests in an article today.  In the first place, it would be almost impossible for even the canny BAN, and even with his sharp South Korean-led transition team, to be well-versed, yet, in the UN’s “old traditions”.  BAN’s nomination of a Mexican, Alicia Barcena, to head the U.N. management team, is cited by the NY Sun as one example.  

The NY Sun is reporting that “Ms. Barcena, who was the chief of staff for a former U.N. secretary-general, Kofi Annan, got an early boost in the early 1990s, when she became an aide to the Canadian oil tycoon and U.N. environmentalist Maurice Strong. Before resigning in the aftermath of the oil-for-food scandal, Mr. Strong served as Mr. Annan’s personal envoy to the Korean peninsula.  Mr. Ban told the London Times recently that in his official capacity as South Korean foreign minister, he met Mr. Strong only a few times. Nevertheless, diplomats saw Ms. Barcena’s appointment yesterday, to a position in which she will be responsible for internal changes, as a gesture toward Mr. Annan’s old circle of friends.  Staffers expressed disappointment that Ms. Barcena received a promotion just a day after the president of the U.N. staff union, Stephen Kisambira, met with Mr. Ban and called for a ‘fundamental change in the mind-set of senior management,’ demanding an end to a relationship between staff and management that has been based on ‘dominance, disregard, and fear’.”  http://www.nysun.com/article/46082

The former UN spokesperson announced at the UN’s daily Noon Briefing for journalists on 23 October 2006 that “from our end, the people who will lead on that issue [the transition to the new SG] are the Chef de Cabinet, Alicia Bárcena Ibarra; and Robert Orr, the Secretary-General’s Director of Strategic Planning.  In this task, Barcena apparently made a good impression on BAN.

The influence of Canadian Maurice Strong through a number of UN Administrations has been somewhat of a mystery.  He was the first Senior Adviser named by Kofi Annan after he became UNSG ten years ago.  And, there was a recent unexplained [the former UN spokesman said he didn't have to explain this, it was private] Kofi Annan-Maurice Strong walk-in-the-woods with no aides present, somewhere in Asia, just before Annan left office.  The one thing that can be said with some certainty is that Strong has a remarkable international network of “friends”. 

One commentary that I read mentioned, interestingly, that Kofi Annan had good relations with the U.S. Democratic Party, while BAN KI-MOON also had links to the Republicans.   While readers in the rest of the world may not care about the intricacies of American politics, the UN is still based in New York, the American media by default has become the main concern of the UN bureaucracy, and Washington is still the major contributor to the UN budget — even though it forced through a reduction in its scale of assessment from 25% to 22% of the regular budget, and from 30% to 25% of the Peacekeeping budget.

Maurice Strong and Ted Turner (whose cash donation resulted in the establishment of the UN Foundation) are only part of the many layers of influence affecting UN.  George Soros had a strong link to just-departed Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown.  And, there are many, many others.  Who affects what in any given situation probably more closely resembles a diagram of atomic molecules bouncing around.

In any case, a baby-faced Briton, John Holmes, who is reportedly [the NY Sun says so, for example, in the article cited above] close to Prime Minister Blair, and who is also currently UK Ambassador to France, has also just been named to head the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OHCA), replacing the Scandinavian Jan Eliasson. 

One important imminent decision concerns who will head the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), which is currently being “led”, if that term could properly be used, by Jean Marie Guehenno of France.  

On this, The NY SUN article reports today that “Americans have traditionally overseen the U.N. bureaucracy [this means the Department of Management, in recent years -- not long ago, the traditional American post was heading the Department of General Assembly Affairs; so-called UN "traditions" are actually quite ephemeral] , but as soon as Mr. Ban emerged as the front-runner for secretary-general last year, America, which supported his candidacy, told the Korean diplomat it was seeking the leadership posts of other top U.N. offices.  America particularly had its eye on the increasingly powerful peacekeeping department, which for decades has been led by French officials, or the political affairs department, which traditionally has been considered British domain.  Mr. Ban is said to be weighing several structural changes. One option is to split the peacekeeping department into an operational arm and support and logistics arm; another is to unite peacekeeping with the political department; and yet another to mix in an office currently charged with disarmament, which may add to its roster the responsibility of dealing with terrorism and proliferation…But U.N. officials say the signals from Washington about which of the offices it seeks aren’t clear, as Mr. Ban is making the major decisions.”

As reported here yesterday, there is already a de-facto division of DPKO into two branches — one headed by Assistant Secretary-General Hedi Annabi of Tunisia, who had been in the Department for years and had risen through the ranks; the other one headed by relative new-comer Jane Holl Lute [and guess where she came from?  According to an official UN bio, Ms. Lute Immediately prior to her appointment with the United Nations, Ms. Lute was "Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the United Nations Foundation and the Better World Fund; the entities established to administer Ted Turner’s $1 billion contribution to support the goals of the United Nations"].  She is a former U.S. Army officer [official UN bio: with a Ph.D in Political Science from Stanford University, and a J.D from Georgetown University, who also served frin 1991 to 1994 as director of European Affairs in the National Security Council staff at the White House], for whom a second Assistant Secretary-General post was created, to handle day-to-day operations, including sexual exploitation and abuse scandals.  

It is not her fault, however, that the administrative division of DPKO into two parts has done little or nothing to improve either the management of the Department, nor the handling of its scandals.

In a press conference on 11 January, SG BAN was asked directly by a journalist about his appointment of Alicia Barcena:

“Journalist:  Can you please explain the appointment for the position of UN management, Ms. Bárcena, the selection process that you went through specifically with her, and how that selection can explain concerns out there that this individual does not have the financial wizardry and other skills that perhaps her predecessor, Mr. [Christopher] Burnham, had, to ensure that the Organization is moving along financially in the right direction, and also to assure the global taxpayers that they are getting their money’s worth with your selection of managers, and staff itself, to ensure that your staff ? many of whom have complained about issues, from accountability to the justice system and other key areas to ensure that there is proper accountability within the Organization ? how does that person fit that particular role?

SG: If you want to find a perfect person who would be able to know everything about what is happening in the world, it may be impossible. Even for the post of Secretary-General, you may not be able to find a perfect person. I do not claim to be a perfect person, to know everything that is happening within the UN system.   As for the post of Under-Secretary-General for Management, one can have strength in finance; one can have strength in human resources; one can have strength in overall management leadership. I have valued her longstanding management experience while she was working as Vice-Minister in Mexico, while she was working as Deputy [Executive Secretary] of ECLAC and while she has been working as Chef de Cabinet. The post of Chef de Cabinet is one of the most important positions in the United Nations system, who deals with almost all aspects of the United Nations, advising the Secretary-General. Therefore, I have full confidence that Ms. Bárcena will perform her duties more than anybody else, than her predecessors.”

Filed under: BAN Ki-Moon, Kofi Annan, Kofi Annan Watch, Transition, UN Administration, UN Peacekeeping, UN Secretary-General, US in UN