Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Response Regarding the UN
I have no idea who this group is, but I received an e-mail from them asking me to print a response to my last posting. I haven't verified the stats given but they're certainly in the very believable range and the general theme of the writing is clearly anti-United Nations so I'm certainly okay with that.
Corruption and waste aside, the UN does not even remotely fulfil its role as a forum for disputes to be worked out fairly among democratic / free nations. Instead it has become (and has always been to some degree) a bureaucratic mélange of authoritarian states and socialist ideology. To say its basic sympathies are against free enterprise and the United States in particular would be a gross understatement.
Anyway…the e-mail I received in its entirety:
"Recently Mark Malloch Brown, the eloquent speaking number two at the
United Nations, said that "Middle America" did not know how the US is
constructively engaged with the UN because of UN detractors and too
much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping over too many years.
Friends, the UN deserves to be bashed and bashed hard. Please allow
us to give you a glimpse into how the United Nations is run:
Hirings and promotions routinely violate UN rules and revolve around
patronage and whom one knows rather than professional qualifications.
Poorly performing managers are simply moved into different management
slots while others are placed in senior positions only because of his
nationality.
Salaries for UN employees are free of taxes and come with six weeks
vacation, 11 holidays, 10 sick days that are used as vacation, plus 4
weeks of home leave, rental and housing grants to supplement an
already generous salary (we all make an average of $7,000-$10,000 a
month tax free), a pension at 8% of salary times years of service that
can be cashed out tax free, and educational subsidies for children of
UN employees. Many also participate in an "alternative work schedule"
in which they get every other Friday off. But don't even try to
apply. Your application will not be acknowledged nor will you ever
get invited for a job interview. You must know someone to work at the
UN.
Several of us have advanced degrees in management and have been
trained to manage large public organizations, yet we are blocked from
advancing by arrogant men in the 50s with no management training,
education, or experience - only sitting in their chairs because they
are friends with someone a higher position. We threaten them because
they know they are there based only on their connections.
And there is a profound lack of accountability within the UN regarding
resource allocation. Simple procurement that would normally take five
minutes using modern technology systems takes 2-3 months in the UN.
And many United Nations Development Program country offices pay "local
experts" outrageously high sums of money for products of dubious
quality. Such contracts would never be made by other international aid
agencies such as USAID that have much stronger internal controls and
oversight.
We are all familiar with outrageous examples of graft and corruption
within the UN system and yet time and again the scandal is covered up.
In fact, a recent article on internal management in the Financial
Times cited a UN-commissioned report released in 1994 that was
remarkably damning and yet, as the article noted, nothing has changed
which has led to this crisis in credibility of the UN.
Despite its dysfunctionality, if the UN were actually making a
difference, many would mutter to themselves but the UN deserves its
strongest bashing because of its profound inability to respond to
genocide, war, famine, natural disasters, and corruption.
Kofi Annan, current head of the United Nations who ironically lives in
a mansion in New York worth about $10 million, was head of
peacekeeping operations in 1994 in Rwanda when 800,000 people died. In
2004, he said "I believed at that time that I was doing my best"
despite that he held back UN troops from intervening to settle the
conflict and declined to provide more logistic and material support to
stop the slaughter. And don't forget that ten years ago thousands of
Bosnian Muslims were murdered by the Serb militias who were in a UN
protected 'safe haven' with hundreds of UN soldiers assigned to defend
them. Yet the UN stood by while the entire adult and teenage male
population was systematically butchered.
Kofi Annan was unable to stop mismanagement of the Oil-for-Food
Program that allowed Saddam Hussein's regime to embezzle $4.4 billion
through pricing irregularities and an additional $5.7 billion through
illegal oil smuggling. Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the
Swiss company Cotecna which won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil
for Food program.
Kofi Annan protected Ruud Lubbers, UN High Commissioner for Refugees,
against a report that found him guilty of sexual harassment by
declaring him innocent. This created a global protest against Annan,
resulting in Lubbers being forced to resign.
Kofi Annan accepted a $500,000 prize from the ruler of Dubai, courtesy
of a judges' panel rife with U.N. connections, one member of which
Annan then appointed to a high U.N. job (Annan was advised to take the
prize money by Malloch Brown who rents a home in Westchester County
from from his friend George Soros for $12,000 a month but can be
adequately covered by Brown's salary at $287,087).
Kofi Annan remains in power despite continuing sexual abuse scandals
by UN peacekeepers. A 2005 internal UN investigation found that sexual
abuse has been reported in at least five countries where UN
peacekeepers have been deployed including the Congo, Haiti, Burundi,
Cote d'Ivoire, and Liberia.
And Kofi Annan remains in power while genocide continues in Darfur,
while Zimbabwe tailspin into despotism, while up to a third of the
population of some African countries will die from AIDS, and while
corruption keeps the poorest countries in starkest poverty.
Kofi Annan and Mark Malloch Brown arrogantly ignore the fact that the
quality of life of several of us has come close to being destroyed by
the many bitter experiences we have experienced over the past decades.
Most who work for the UN are so used to its dysfunctionality that
they have NO idea how sick the organization is or they are unwilling
to come forward because UN labor laws and protections are abysmal.
And to add insult to injury, the newly created IOIS (the new
"independent" internal oversight panel established to "reform" the UN)
has been strong-armed by Malloch Brown and is not independent because
its budget comes directly from the UN, thus dissuading anyone from
within the UN from coming forward. Don't think that Malloch Brown is
an independent UN operative. Justin Leites – UNDP - was placed on
administrative leave to campaign for U.S. Presidential candidate John
Kerry - with MMB's approval.
And what really happened at UNDP? Why would Malloch Brown leave his
influential post as head of UNDP to spend a year defending the
scandals swirling around Kofi Annan and then announce that he would
resign when Kofi leaves at the end of this year? Duh! Because he
royally mismanaged UNDP! Everyone at UNDP knows this but is too
scared to share the details of what happened for fear of retaliation
by Brown. But ask UNDP Country Directors and UNDP Practice Managers
what happened under King Mark's reign and you will get a completely
different picture of his mismanagement skills and bombastic ways.
As the walls literally crumble down around them, those who work for
the UN and citizens who believe in the founding principles of the UN
have no understanding how bad it really is. Unfortunately, we
encourage young people who are seeking a career in international
affairs to avoid the United Nations at all costs. We wish there would
come a day when we would no longer make this recommendation.
Of course the senior leadership of the UN try to hide the profound
problems of the UN but shame on them for saying that Americans don't
know or understand how the US is engaged with the UN. If you and
everyone in Middle America truly understood what ails the UN, the US,
who funds $3.3 billion annually or 22% of the entire UN budget, would
shut off the money spigot. In sum, the UN should be shuttered,
allowing a brand new organization to emerge because the current UN is
broken beyond repair.
For more information, please contact Edward Patrick Flaherty at
info@iowatch.org who represents UN employees including our views here.
Written by a concerned group of current and former UN employees."
