On Somalia, Past Arms Embargo Violations Forgiven in Zeal to Contain Islamic Courts

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN

UNITED NATIONS, December 1 -- The U.S. is pushing a Security Council resolution which would lift the arms embargo on Somalia, but only for those supporting the Baidoa-based Transitional Federal Government.

            Inner City Press asked U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, according to the transcript:

Inner City Press: What would you say to those who say that some in the transitional federal government are essentially the warlords and not selected by the Somali people?    Ambassador Bolton:  Unlike any other aspect of authority in Somalia that also hasn't been selected by the Somali people, it's a situation where in the interest of preventing further hostilities and associated displacement of persons and loss of life and the rest of it, that we're interested in making this proposal. 

            While the U.S.-sponsored resolution is widely viewed as taking sides with the TFG, many of those taking neither side have noted that there is less gun violence and chaos in the regions now controlled by the Islamic Court than was the case when the warlords / TFG were titularly in command. One of Inner City Press' sources writes that in Mogadishu

The Union of Islamic Courts have opened the city and roads to the hinterland, ports and airports, they've begun to established a proper Islamic judicial system, police stations etc. They've executed two murderers in five months and they have apprehended the pirates who hijacked a ship off El Maan last week (I saw them paraded at the port).  The Islamic Courts are beginning the process of returning properties stolen in the wars to their rightful owners, a huge job but the core issue in resolving the conflict. The majority of Somalis are Sufis and although they are concerned about crackdowns from the Wahabi elements I have never seen this form of Muslim worship performed so openly in the city (because before, pilgrimages etc were curtailed by insecurity). The economy is going through a mini-boom, with a lot of fresh construction. 1,700 workers (surprisingly a UN ILO -funded project) are clearing the rubbish of 16 years of war from the streets.

  And now another war looms. Following on the UN International Labor Organization reference, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric about the UN System's dealing with the Islamic Court. Mr. Dujarric mentioned that the UN has been urging the Islamic Courts to negotiate with the Transitional Federal Government, and that UN humanitarian agencies work with whoever controls territory. Video here, from Minute 11:10. He said that more information will be forthcoming; we'll see. Inner City Press Friday asked Ambassador Bolton, video here:

Inner City Press:  On Somalia, what's going to be the ramifications of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and apparently Uganda having violated the previous arms sanctions -- arms embargo on Somalia?   

Ambassador Bolton:  You know, it's a very complicated situation.  This resolution is a step toward resolving it, but we're not -- we don't pretend to say that this resolution alone will be a complete solution.  A lot more work remains to be done.  It's a very complicated situation.

            UK Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said much that same thing. With such a cavalier approach to past (and ongoing) violations of arms embargos, how does this reflect on, for example, the South Lebanon embargo? We'll see.

Hospital in Somalia

            Also on Friday, Doctor Dennis Makwege Mukengere of the Panzi Hospital in Eastern Congo spoke, along with Jan Egeland, at a UN press conference. He said, in response to questions about MONUC and Laurent Nkunda and Peter Karim, that such militia leaders are responsible for many of the rapes whose victims he treats, as is the Congolese Army. Video here, from Minute 20:55.

            Inner City Press again asked Jan Egeland about Karamoja in eastern Uganda, where UNDP funded a voluntary disarmament program which was not effective distinguished from violent, involuntary disarmament. Jan Egeland said that President Museveni agreed to meet with (his) military high command about the issue. On UNDP having funded UNDP's disarmament, Jan Egeland still said nothing.

            On UNDP, click here for the third installment in Inner City Press' necessarily ongoing UNDP Series, From Sleaze in Vietnam to Fights in DC-1, UNDP Appears Out of Control at the Top.

Feedback: editorial [at] innercitypress.com

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UNDP, Drunken Mis-Managers on the Make Praised and Protected, Meet UNDP's Kalman Mizsei

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN, 2d in a Series

UNITED NATIONS, November 30 -- Drunk on a plane to Turkey, making racialist comments in a taxi in Johannesburg, engaging in sexual harassment and the awarding of jobs in expectation of sexual favors at the UN's Headquarters in New York. These are snapshots of the director for Europe and the CIS Countries for the UN Development Program, Kalman Mizsei, before he was finally asked and allowed to resign in September of this year.

            A number of UNDP sources, including in Central Europe, have described for Inner City Press the tenure of Kalman Mizsei (pronounced, Mee-Jay) which included overseeing serious corruption at UNDP's Moscow office, in which funds from the European Union for rehabilitating the Moscow planetarium went missing, and UNDP served as a veneer for sole source contracts in exchange for 10% of the money passing through. Kalman Mizsei, a neo-conservative economist, was a proponent of these financial schemes, in which UNDP made money (built up "local resources," in the agency's parlance) for serving as a conduit on projects including by the World Bank for such things as irrigation and sewage projects.

            Since UNDP had no technical expertise in these areas, it was easy for money to be stolen. But since so few journalists, at least at and around UN Headquarters, cover UNDP, and since UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis makes himself unavailable to the media, not having held a press conference in 14 months, the well-meaning agency continues to be run into the ground. This is part two in Inner City Press' periodic series, Profiles in Kemal Dervis' UNDP.

Kalman Mizcei, before the Fall, takes questions

            First, the current set up. On November 27, Inner City Press sought to question Kemal Dervis in the entrance of UN Headquarters. "I don't take questions like this," Mr. Dervis answered. On November 29, Inner City Press sent questions by email to Mr. Dervis and his communications staff, including

Question: Was Kalman Mitzei fired or otherwise relieved or removed from his position with UNDP?  If so, on what grounds?

            On November 30, the following was sent from UNDP:

Subject: RE: Press questions, on deadline, re UNDP [and] Kalman Mitzei, etc.

From: [at] undp.org

To: Inner City Press

Sent: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:28 AM

Matthew, Below are the responses to your questions: [Question: Was Kalman Mitzei fired or otherwise relieved or removed from his position with UNDP?  If so, on what grounds?]

Response: No. As stated previously, at UNDP -- like at other organizations -- with time colleagues retire, move on or are reassigned. After serving six distinguished years at UNDP, Mr. Miszei is now Professor at Central European University’s Department of Public Policy in Budapest.

            The six distinguished years included an incident on a plane to Turkey, in which a drunken Kalman Mizsei assaulted a stewardess and the police were called, until the UN system helped extricate Mizsei from the problem. Inebriated or not, there were racist comments by Mizsei in a taxicab in Johannesburg, in earshot of a(nother) close associate of Mark Malloch Brown, then-head of UNDP and now Deputy Secretary-General.  Sources indicate to Inner City Press that Kalman Mizsei's antics, including sexual harassment and violation of hiring rules in search of sexual favors, were "legend" within UNDP. That nothing was done for so long, and that UNDP continues to this day in response to direct questions about why Mizsei left to cover it up, is indicative of more serious problems.

            In his capacity as Director of UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS, Mizsei presided over mismanagement by UNDP Russian of a World Bank-funded sewer project. (The direct mis-manager, it is reported, is still working at the UN Office of Project Services, UNOPS, more regarding which later in this series.) The next UNDP Russia manager, Fred Lyons, made the mistake of firing a local-hire Russian employee. After that, Mizsei sent a fixer, a 33-year old Bulgarian who moved Fred Lyon out of the way (to Afghanistan) and took his job -- and then went on the lam himself, embroiled in a smaller, only $1 million UNDP Russia scandal with one Tatiana Gorlov.

            Beyond these so-called smaller scandals, UNDP's business model in the Mark Malloch Brown era grew to include using UNDP's "excess administrative capacity" to become a middleman for project funded by others, about which UNDP knew little. Fees of up to 10% were paid to UNDP, for holding money for as little as one day. UNDP would provide the veneer of a legitimate bid-out and tender process, but in many cases the winner was pre-selected, and money even wired to them, before the supposed competition was held. This was and is called "mobilizing local resources," and was praised from the highest levels of UNDP.

            One aside and interim update about Brian Gleeson, who yesterday was "redesignated" from heading up UNDP's Office of Human Resources to a Senior Advisor to Surge position: some Gleeson supporters, while not disputing that Kemal Dervis attempted to fire Gleeson as, in September, Kalman Mizsei was fired, say that along with the other issues, Gleeson refused to quash one or more investigations that Dervis wanted stopped. Brian Gleeson's office was called to discuss just this type of nuance. Watch this space.

            But back to Kalman Mizsei. After a series of complaints, finally in September 2006, sources say, Mizsei was advised to resign or fire himself. Since returning to Hungary, he has bragged about, among other things, being a personal adviser to George Soros, even a nephew. Despite a number of UNDP sources placed at different levels of the agency saying that Mizsei was a disgrace and even a laughing-stock, an email query to Kemal Dervis and his communications staff this week resulted in the claim that Mizsei's service was distinguished and his departure entirely voluntary. If these are UNDP's and Dervis' standards, it is a sad day for the world's poor.

            Because a number of Inner City Press' UNDP sources go out of their way to express commitment to serving the poor, and while it should be unnecessary, Inner City Press is compelled to conclude this second installment in a necessarily-ongoing series by saluting the stated goals of UNDP and many of its staff. As they used to say on TV game shows, keep those cards and letters (and now, emails) coming.

UNDP Sources Say Dervis Fires Malloch Brown-linked Officials, Then Offers Hush-Up Jobs

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN

UNITED NATIONS, November 29 -- Kemal Dervis, the administrator of the UN Development Programme, sent out an email mid-afternoon on November 29 stating that the Director of UNDP's Office of Human Resources, Brian Gleeson, was taking a lower-level job as a Senior Advisor. UNDP sources tell Inner City Press that the Special Advisor position was quickly created after two events. In the first, UNDP moved to fire Brian Gleeson for having funneled high-paying jobs, outside of normal channels, to associates of UN Deputy Secretary-General, and former UNDP Administrator, Mark Malloch Brown.  According to these UNDP sources, alternative grounds for firing or requesting resignation involved sexual harassment or the outright sale of jobs for cash, or first month's salary. Then, between 11 a.m. and Mr. Dervis' 2:20 p.m. email, something changed. Some say Mark Malloch Brown intervened. Other say Mr. Gleeson went to the office of Kemal Dervis and showed evidence of other improprieties at UNDP which he would release if the firing proceeded. Suddenly the Senior Advisor position was offered, effective immediately.

    This is also a story about an agency and its personnel being unable or unwilling to answer simple factual questions on a timely basis.  By telephone and email, and in person in the case of Kemal Dervis, Inner City Press sought comment on these UNDP issues. The agency's head of Communications William Orme was told that these were questions on deadline, but made no response. Brian Gleeson was called and a detailed message was left with his secretary. Given the lack of subsequent response, only this film, click here, can be offered, expressing dissatisfaction at "certain political leaders" and at reporters for not telling the UN's story. You have to return calls, some reporters say.

  In the UN Headquarters building, the UN spokesman was asked to seek comment, including from Mark Malloch Brown. Was Malloch Brown consulted prior to Mr. Gleeson's redesignation? Did Malloch Brown play any role in this process? These are yes or no questions.

            It was at 2:20 p.m. Wednesday that Mr. Dervis wrote to "colleagues" that "this is to inform you that Brian Gleeson, Director, Office of Human Resources (OHR), Bureau of Management (BoM), has been designated to serve as Senior Advisor for the Surge Project in the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery... on Thursday, 30 November, 2006." Mr. Dervis' email also thanked Brian Gleeson for having "done a difficult job well." If the swirl of Gleeson issues remains, this written praise by the head of UNDP seems more like cover-up than diplomacy.

            The demotion announced Tuesday is the most recent of moves by Mr. Dervis against officials previously installed by Mark Malloch Brown. In UNDP's Office of Finance, covering all European and CIS countries, the Hungarian Kalman Mitzei was fired, Inner City Press is told by UNDP sources, for sexual harassment and favoritism and was replaced by one of Mr. Dervis' colleagues from when he was at the World Bank, a before that from Belgrade. Observers question the wisdom of this selection, for Balkan(ized) geo-political reason and otherwise.

            It's worth noting that both Mark Malloch Brown and Kemal Dervis formerly worked at the World Bank. Those who know him say Mr. Dervis envied Malloch Brown's ascent to the top of UNDP. Now that he rules UNDP, with surprisingly little oversight, Mr. Dervis is putting his own hand-picked associates in place.

Kemal Dervis, speechifying, refusing questions, then emailing:

From: Kemal Dervis [mailto:kemal.dervis@undp.org]
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 2:20 PM
Subject: Appointment of Brian Gleeson as Senior Advisor for BCPR Surge Project

Dear Colleagues,

This is to inform you that Brian Gleeson, Director, Office of Human Resources (OHR), Bureau of Management (BoM), has been designated to serve as Senior Advisor for the Surge Project in the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR). On behalf of the organization, I would like to thank Brian for doing a difficult job well for more than two and a half years and to wish him success in his new assignment While the selection process for the appointment of a new OHR Director is underway, I have asked Romesh Muttukumaru, Acting Deputy Director of the Bureau for Resources and Strategic Partnerships (BRSP), to serve as Officer-in-Charge of OHR. These transition arrangements will come into effect on Thursday, 30 November, 2006. I urge all staff to please cooperate during this transition period.
With best regards, Kemal

            Mark Malloch Brown, of course, is still asserting himself. His close ally Bruce Jenks remains in place at UNDP's Bureau of Resources and Partnerships (Mr. Jenks was traveling on Wednesday and would not be able to comment, Inner City Press was told, until next week at the earliest) and his Cape Verdean associate Carlos Lopez has been selected to give briefings to incoming Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

   Some call it Shakespearean, this hard-ball dueling between ex-World Bankers Kemal Dervis and Mark Malloch Brown. But how is it, these people ask, that high-paying UNDP jobs are given outside of official channels, in some cases, such as that of one Nancy Barnes, without even showing up in databases of employees? In UNDP's European Union  and CIS shop, corruption is said to be endemic. The European Union in Brussels funnels funding through UNDP, a funding stream never reviewed even by UNDP's Executive Board. Nor is oversight being given by UNDP auditor Jessie Mabutas, whose role in jobs-for-pay may be more participatory than investigative. More on this next week.

            For now we note: on November 27, Inner City Press attempted to ask Kemal Dervis questions in the General Assembly hall, after a meeting about the Millennium Development Goals. As Inner City Press recounted at that day's UN noon briefing, Mr. Dervis said, "I don't answer questions this way, walking out of meetings." Inner City Press reiterated its request, made for more than five months now, that Mr. Dervis come to a press conference and answer questions, which he hasn't done since a single press conference when he got the UNDP job, 14 months ago. Mr. Dervis indicated that it would take a "special event" to get him to a press conference. Might these events be considered special? We'll see.

            Inner City Press sought to reach Brian Gleeson on Wednesday afternoon. His office expressed surprise that word of his (down) shift to Special Advisor had "spread to the UN." Some thought that UNDP was part of the United Nations. UNDP is the UN's main representative to most countries. But UNDP these days is apparently run as a fiefdom unto itself. In seeking UNDP's explanation for Mr. Gleeson's abrupt downshift, and UNDP's response to this story, messages to the UNDP Communications Office went unanswered, as has become a pattern. An attempt to reach Kalman Mitzei yielded that he has returned by Hungary. A 6:45 p.m. call to Romesh Muttukumaru, Brian Gleeson's interim replacement at the helm of UNDP Human Resources, yielded an outgoing message that Romesh Muttukumaru was busy on the phone; a message seeking comment, or UNDP's official explanation of the change at the top of its Office of Human Resources, was not returned.

       Given what UNDP sources say of Mr. Gleeson, now downshifted to advisory status with "the Surge Project in the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery," it's worth noting that a recent UNDP job ad for a position with this Surge Project in the BCPR lists, among required "corporate competencies," that the employee (and presumably advisor) "Treats all people fairly without favoritism" and "Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN values and ethical standards." Developing...

Other Inner City Press reports are available in the ProQuest service and some are archived on www.InnerCityPress.com --

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At the UN, Misdirection on Somalia and Myanmar, No Answers from UNDP's Kemal Dervis

UNDP Dodges Questions of Disarmament Abuse in Uganda and of Loss of Togo AIDS Grant, Dhaka Snafu

At the UN, The Swan Song of Jan Egeland and the Third Committee Loop, Somalia Echoes Congo

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In the UN, Uzbekistan Gets a Pass on Human Rights As Opposition to U.S. Grows and War's On in Somalia

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Human Rights Council Has Its Own Hanging Chads; Cocky U.S. State Department Spins from SUVs

Child Labor and Cargill and Nestle; Iran, Darfur and WHO's on First with Bird Flu

Press Freedom? Editor Arrested by Congo-Brazzaville, As It Presides Over Security Council

The Place of the Cost-Cut UN in Europe's Torn-Up Heart;
Deafness to Consumers, Even by the Greens

Background Checks at the UN, But Not the Global Compact; Teaching Statistics from Turkmenbashi's Single Book

Ripped Off Worse in the Big Apple, by Citigroup and Chase: High Cost Mortgages Spread in Outer Boroughs in 2005, Study Finds

Burundi: Chaos at Camp for Congolese Refugees, Silence from UNHCR, While Reform's Debated by Forty Until 4 AM

The Chadian Mirage: Beyond French Bombs, Is Exxon In the Cast? Asylum and the Uzbeks, Shadows of Stories to Come

Through the UN's One-Way Mirror, Sustainable Development To Be Discussed by Corporations, Even Nuclear Areva

Racial Disparities Grew Worse in 2005 at Citigroup, HSBC and Other Large Banks

Mine Your Own Business: Explosive Remnants of War and the Great Powers, Amid the Paparazzi

Human Rights Are Lost in the Mail: DR Congo Got the Letter, But the Process is Still Murky

Iraq's Oil to be Metered by Shell, While Basrah Project Remains Less than Clear

Kofi, Kony, Kagame and Coltan: This Moment in the Congo and Kampala

As Operation Swarmer Begins, UN's Qazi Denies It's Civil War and Has No Answers if Iraq's Oil is Being Metered

Cash Crop: In Nepal, Bhutanese Refugees Prohibited from Income Generation Even in their Camps

The Shorted and Shorting in Humanitarian Aid: From Davos to Darfur, the Numbers Don't Add Up

UN Reform: Transparency Later, Not Now -- At Least Not for AXA - WFP Insurance Contract

In the Sudanese Crisis, Oil Revenue Goes Missing, UN Says

Empty Words on Money Laundering and Narcotics, from the UN and Georgia

What is the Sound of Eleven Uzbeks Disappearing? A Lack of Seats in Tashkent, a Turf War at UN

Kosovo: Of Collective Punishment and Electricity; Lights Out on Privatization of Ferronikeli Mines

Abkhazia: Cleansing and (Money) Laundering, Says Georgia

Post-Tsunami Human Rights Abuses, including by UNDP in the Maldives

Citigroup Dissembles at United Nations Environmental Conference

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