UN-Truth

The dysfunctioning UN System of Internal Justice is about to be debated by diplomats in the UN General Assembly, even though the diplomats understand precious little about the matter.

The UN Staff Union has been arguing, if I understand correctly, that there must be an independent — a truly independent t — tribunal to hear grievances, to replace the present situation where the UN Administration is an often lousy manager, and then becomes defendant, prosecutor, judge and jury all at the same time. There is something truly wrong here.

It’s just unclear whether any attempt to right this wrong will be any improvement.

As this unfolds, these three items, one from AP and two published today in The Independent newspaper (London) offers some material for reflection. What does Diana’s death have to do with the UN, otherwise? Well, there is the fact that two of the more dominent UN Member States, who also happen to be two of the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council have been apparently unable to carry out a timely and impartial investigation. These two UN Member States are also very pro-active in supporting their own nationals, and their own interests, in the UN Administration.

So, here for the edification of readers of UN-Truth, here are excerpts from the two items:

The Associated Press report today:
“Al Fayed wins battle in Princess Di case”
1 hour, 34 minutes ago
“LONDON - Mohamed al Fayed won a court battle Friday to have a jury preside over the inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and his son Dodi Fayed. In an unusual ruling, three senior judges at London’s High Court overturned a decision by the deputy royal coroner Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss that she would sit alone without a jury. The judges decided that the coroner would hear the inquest and ’shall do so sitting with a jury’. Earlier this week, lawyers had challenged a Butler-Sloss’ decision, arguing her decision to act alone gave the appearance of impropriety. The legal appeal was launched by al Fayed along with the family of the couple’s chauffeur and lawyers for the al Fayed-owned Ritz hotel in Paris. Mohamed al Fayed, the millionaire owner of the Harrods department store, was dissatisfied with Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss’ decision that she would hear evidence and determine what caused the deaths of Diana and Dodi. The lawyer for the Ritz, Michael Beloff, argued that because Butler-Sloss had been the deputy coroner of the Queen’s Household, there would be the perception that she ‘lacked independence’ to assess the allegation that Diana and Fayed had been murdered. Butler-Sloss, Britain’s former top female judge and a member of the House of Lords, made the decision last month to sit alone during the inquest, which is expected to begin in May. Butler-Sloss said in her January decision that a jury could find it difficult to cope with the volume and detail of the evidence. The inquests could only begin after the investigations into the August 1997 deaths of Diana and Fayed, was complete. A two-year French investigation, a three-year Metropolitan Police inquiry and repeated legal action by al Fayed have delayed the inquest by nearly 10 years. Diana, 36, and Fayed, 42, were killed along with chauffeur Henri Paul when their Mercedes crashed in Paris’ Pont d’Alma tunnel. The only survivor, bodyguard Trevor Rees — formerly known as Rees-Jones — was badly hurt. [He not only suffers from amnesia, but he also lost his tongue in the accident, and cannot speak...] Al Fayed’s legal team had pressed the judge to call a jury, saying it was the only way the public would be satisfied that proper care was taken over the issues surrounding the crash.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070302/ap_on_re_eu/britain_diana_
inquest;_ylt=AsXd8aDzfuV.b2SckysZDWJw24cA

Then, the two items published in The Independent:
“Fayed wins Diana inquest victory“, by John Aston and Cathy Gordon, published: 02 March 2007:
“The Harrods boss Mohamed al Fayed today won an extraordinary High Court victory over the way the inquests into the deaths of his son Dodi and Diana, Princess of Wales are to be conducted. In an unprecedented legal action, Mr al Fayed won a ruling overturning deputy royal coroner Baroness Butler-Sloss’s decision that she would sit alone without a jury.
The retired judge and former president of the Family Division was also ordered by the High Court in London not to sit as deputy coroner of the Queen’s Household, and she must now find ‘another district’ with no royal connection in which to hold the inquest … [T]hree senior judges emphatically ordered that the coroner was legally obliged under the 1988 Coroners Act to summon a jury because recommendations might have to be made to end the danger posed to royals, celebrities and members of the public by ‘the paparazzi on wheels’. The princess, 36, and Dodi Fayed, 42, died when their Mercedes crashed in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris in 1997 as they sped away from pursuing paparazzi. The judges also said a jury would have to be summoned if Mr al Fayed’s accusations against the royal family were investigated at the inquest. They also referred to allegations made by Mr al Fayed that the Duke of Edinburgh ‘masterminded’ the deaths of Dodi and the princess with ‘agents of the state’ involved. The judges said if those accusations were investigated at the inquest ‘that consideration might be determinative in favour of summoning a jury’. Welcoming today’s victory, Mr al Fayed said: ‘This is not the end of the road, but an important step. The jury must now be allowed to hear the entirety of the evidence, but I fear there will be attempts to keep it from them. If so, that will be yet another battle I will have to fight’. He added: ‘I have already had to fight for almost 10 years to establish once and for all how they died, why they died, who ordered their murders and who slaughtered them with such awful brutality’… He called for senior members of the royal family, including Prince Philip and the Prince of Wales, to be called to give evidence at the inquest…Today’s ruling was a victory for Mr al Fayed, the Ritz Hotel Ltd and the parents of Henri Paul, the chauffeur who also died. All called for a jury to be empanelled. Prince William and Prince Harry have written to the coroner through their private secretary to say that they wish the inquest to be prompt, fair and transparent. It is due to start in May…A three-year inquiry, led by former Metropolitan Police chief Lord Stevens, found no evidence of a conspiracy to murder the couple. The inquiry report said Mr Paul was speeding and over the legal drink-drive limit. The police investigation was requested by royal coroner Michael Burgess when the inquests were opened and adjourned in January 2004. Mr Burgess subsequently stepped down, blaming a heavy workload.”
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article2320991.ece

And, here is an earlier comment from columnest for The Independent (of London) newspaper, Mary Dejevsky: “I’m with the conspiracy theorists on Diana’s death: Too many people have tried too hard to convince us for us to accept it was an accident” (Published: 12 December 2006) — “…[T]he establishment, joined for once by the metropolitan chattering classes, has done its best to dismiss us sceptics on the Diana question as fantasists and fools. Perhaps we are. Then again, look at the delays. Look at the elements that still have to be explained. Look, finally, at the efforts ‘they’ have applied, even at this late stage, to trying to ‘prove’ us wrong.
We know that French police and French ministers might not be the easiest partners in an investigation. We suspect France might not be the best-ordered country in a crisis such as the one that brought the mortally injured princess to hospital in the small hours of the morning. But why has it taken the best part of nine years for an inquest to be held? Why did the Fayed family have to threaten court action for even the preliminaries to the inquest to be held in public? If any death is of public interest, surely it is that of Diana. Then those nagging details. It concerns me not at all whether Diana was pregnant, and if so, by whom. I am profoundly uninterested in Dodi’s intentions when he bought that ring. I am not even sure that the prospect of the Fayeds being brought into the royal circle supplies a motive for murder. Other things trouble me more: the small, elementary things that do not add up. Why were none of the CCTV cameras at the Paris Ritz working that evening? What about that small white car that some saw in the tunnel? Why should the driver, drunk or sober, have been in the pay of the French secret services, and why - as we now learn - were Diana’s phone calls monitored by US intelligence? Why did it take so long to transport Diana to hospital? What about the speed with which the tunnel was cleaned, and why were Mercedes mechanics not permitted to examine the car? Time and again we are told that the conspiracy theory has been discredited. But it is not discredited just because the BBC reports DNA evidence that ‘proves’ the driver’s blood sample was really his. Drunk or sober, an agent has his uses. The BBC protests too much. By leading the weekend news on this detail, it imposed argument on fact. I felt hectored by an item that essentially promoted Sunday’s documentary. This, too, was strange. How Diana Died was the first of a series on conspiracy theories. It was shown the weekend before Lord Stevens publishes his report. How neatly it all hangs together. If the Diana conspiracy is classed as just one of a half a dozen daft theories swallowed by the gullible, it must soon be discredited with the rest. This conspiracy, however, is not so easily dispatched. Diana herself claimed that there was a plot to kill her in a car crash less than a year before she died, and the method is a staple of security services the world over. My personal conspiracy theory stops short of suggesting who did it, but motive there surely was. By breaking free from the Royal Family and behaving as indiscreetly as she did, Diana was subverting the monarchy, and thus the state…I do not generally favour conspiracy theories, preferring the cock-up school of history. I never blamed the US government for the Oklahoma bomb and divined no darker secret behind the planes that smashed into the World Trade Centre. I don’t see Dr David Kelly’s death as anything other than suicide. I don’t even believe the Prime Minister lied about Iraq’s lethal weapons; I fear he believed in every last tonne. Nor can I offer any explanation for the poisoning of the former spy, Alexander Litvinenko. I just do not think it was in Putin’s interests to have ordered it. Diana’s death is different. There has been too much secrecy. Too many people have tried too hard to convince us we should not believe what we do believe for us to accept that it was only an accident. Which reminds me of something else I don’t believe: that only one in three Britons shares this view.” m.dejevsky@ independent.co.uk http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/mary_dejevsky/
article2067629.ece

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