Ban ki-Moon put on
notice
By Thalif Deen at the united nations
NEW YORK - Perhaps in hindsight Jayantha Dhanapala
should be happy he is not the next Secretary-General of the United
Nations — notwithstanding the fact that he ran an unblemished
campaign and never attempted to "buy" votes or "stuff"
ballot boxes (as most Sri Lankan politicians are adept at).
The Wall Street Journal, a vociferously right
wing newspaper that has routinely hounded the current Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, last week took a passing shot at his newly-anointed
successor Ban ki-Moon, the outgoing Foreign Minister of South Korea.
Commenting on the latest corruption scandal at the UN, the Journal
editorial said: "It would be nice to think we can expect better
from Mr. Ban."
![](../images/col2.jpg) |
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon
(L), the next United Nations secretary general, speaks with
Francophony Secretary General and former Senegalese president
Abdou Diouf, 03 November 2006 in Paris before a meeting. AFP
|
But the newspaper, which has strong ideological
links to the Bush administration, also put the new Secretary-General
on notice, even before he could take office next January. "But
it is telling that the South Korean Foreign Minister helped secure
his new post with blandishments and pledges of aid to some of the
Security Council countries that voted on him."
In a corruption plagued institution, the charges
were akin to a time-bomb set to explode much later. The London Times
has already elaborated on these charges which the South Koreans
have vehemently denied. In an age of public accountability and good
governance, all senior UN officials, including the Secretary-General,
have to be squeaky clean — or appear to be one. Otherwise,
their political past will come back to haunt them — particularly
if they stand up to the big powers and tell them where to get off.
The bottom line for any UN Secretary-General is
clear: if you don't play ball with the US, you are a dead man walking.
Annan learnt it the hard way when he told a BBC interviewer that
the US-led war in Iraq was "illegal" because it did not
have the blessings of the Security Council. The right wing neo conservatives,
the strongest supporters of the Bush administration, hounded Annan
— and will continue to hound him until December 31 when he
steps down after a 10 year tenure.
Last week's warning from the Wall Street Journal
is ominous because it gives the impression it already has the "dirt"
on the new Secretary-General. If he is not vulnerable to manipulation
by the US and refuses to cave in to the White House, the right wingers
will surely go after him — as they did Annan.
Former Under-Secretary-General Gamani Corea remarked
more than a decade ago that he didn’t know why anyone in his
right mind would want the job of Secretary-General. But more than
10 years later, the situation has changed for the worse. In today's
political climate, every Secretary-General will have to virtually
live in a fishbowl. Every move, every action will be politically
scrutinized, and at times with ulterior motives.
The Journal — specifically its editorial
page — fired another shot at Annan last week over the continued
scandal of UN corruption. The latest expose is the indictment of
a UN procurement official from India, Sanjay Bahel (no relative
of Sanjay Kumar, the Sri Lankan ex-chief executive officer of Computer
Associates, who was sentenced last week to 12 years in federal prison
for accounting fraud).
Bahel is accused of diverting some $50 million
in contracts to an Indian company. An act of misguided patriotism?
Or a payback for a cut price apartment in New York city? The investigators
are probing a litany of charges. Annan, whose office is cooperating
with US law enforcement officials, has already lifted Bahel's diplomatic
immunity. But every new case of corruption, waste, mismanagement
and fraud is occasion to hang Annan.
The same will be true of Ban after he takes office.
The culture of mismanagement and waste is rigidly embedded in the
UN system. Whether Ban will succeed in rooting it out is left to
be seen. By all accounts, it is a formidable challenge for any new
Secretary-General.
Last month, the UN Office of Internal Oversight
Services (OIOS), the Organisation's 12-year-old watchdog body, uncovered
a rash of financial irregularities, including misappropriation of
funds, waste, breaches of regulations, wire fraud and conspiracy
to commit money-laundering.
Of the more than 60 UN entities under investigation,
at least five pose "particular oversight challenges owing to
their high financial exposure and/or to their complexity as a result
geographical dispersion or a broad scope of work."
The five UN bodies or departments under intense
OIOS scrutiny include the Department of Management, the Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Office of the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Joint Staff Pension
Fund and the UN Compensation Commission.
Of the investigations relating to UN procurement,
the chairperson of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and
Budgetary Questions has already been charged with money laundering.
His criminal case is currently pending at the US Attorney's Office
for the Southern District in New York.
In a second investigation relating to procurement,
a staff member had set up an offshore company that facilitated the
illicit and secret payments of currency by outside companies to
himself, and arranged for those companies to be awarded procurement
contracts by the United Nations. Last year, the staff member pleaded
guilty to violations of the US code relating to wire fraud and conspiracy
to commit money laundering. He is currently awaiting sentencing.
With such a catalogue of charges against the UN,
it's a pity that the remarkably good humanitarian work done by the
world body — particularly in the fields of health, education,
population, children, refugees — is lost in the shuffle. |