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By Matthew Russell Lee & UNESCO sources

UN GATE, July 16 – On June 25, Inner City Press wrote about the fierce opposition of France and its allies and their sabotage efforts against good governance and in support of DG Azoulay plans to keep the Agency closed as long as possible using the COVID-19 pretext. 

As an issue of great concern for UNESCO was underscored the unauthorized immersion of the secretariat in the work of member states. Prior to the board session, the Assistant DG for Africa, Firmin Matoko from Congo, himself rewrote the Draft decision prepared and submitted by the African states on the “Priority Africa” item submitted for the approval by the executive board. By doing so, DG Azoulay was expecting the decision to be modified in favor of the French national narrow priorities - that is, FrancAfrique. 

Even for those ambassadors who usually keep their eyes wide shot in front of the political mess and diplomatic malpractices of Azoulay’s administration, this was too much. Still, confident about his total impunity, Firmin Matoko did not bother even to consider necessary to erase his name as author of the document submitted to the Africa group, on his behalf, by Ethiopia, Senegal and Gabon. “The perpetrated traffic of political influence by F. Matoko for modifying the legitimate and independently prepared by the African group draft decision is a political fault deserving severe disciplinary measures. The same is valid for all other senior managers who work to impose, on behalf of DG Azoulay, the modified by them draft decisions initially prepared by member states.

Such traffic of influence is getting out of any form of control and is against all rules and governance practices. This senior team is driving the organization to its full-blown collapse”, said a senior UNESCO official to Inner City Press.   However, all those efforts by ADG Matoko and DG Azoulay proved useless.

The decision was adopted as prepared by the Africa group, and the French amendments were  rejected. Therefore, the debate that took place last week, evidenced that on important issues, member states are not following uncritically France anymore and this is a bad signal for DG Azoulay and her team at this point of time. 

Even more, when the discussion reached the controversial Priority Africa item on the objectives set by the Africa Union with regard to the repatriation of all African cultural heritage, the debate got really nasty. Member states did not hesitate even to blame openly France that its old colonial reflexes are never far away.

 Still, France opposed by all possible diplomatic alliances the adoption by the executive board of the text related to the support of the African  countries’ legitimate quest  to “fully repatriate their stolen cultural heritage, and suggest measures that UNESCO could undertake  in  this  regard,  using the frameworks of the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting  and  Preventing  the  Illicit  Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in case of Illicit Appropriation (ICPRCP)”. (full text available here).

  In that lost cause, France was assisted during the debate mainly by Germany, Italy, Benin and Senegal. By deciding to collaborate with France on that sensitive political issue, the two African countries put at stake their credibility and faced the indignation of their adamantly opposed to France African colleagues. 

Several ambassadors said they could understand France influencing Benin, since the ambassador is about to leave office in the coming weeks. Others are more cynical, “aware of his alleged taste for luxury bits and bobs, obtaining the support of ambassador Irénée Bienvenu Zevounou was hardly an insuperable task”, said a source from the agency to Inner City Press.

  But Senegal was a different occurrence especially taking into account the strong position of the Senegalese government in favor of the full repatriation of their stolen cultural heritage. The support to the French amendments by the ambassador of Senegal, Souleymane Jules Diop, came as a surprise for all African delegations. “No one ever expected that a former Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister of Senegal would dare going publicly against the position of his own government as directed by the President Macky Sall.

There is clearly a private hidden agenda behind the game of the Ambassador”, said a source inside the Africa group to Inner City Press. “France is using him too much in their political conspiracies and he will definitely face difficult times ahead”.

Ohers were blunter in their assessment: “During the debate on Priority Africa, the Ambassador of Senegal got politically ‘carbonized’ by France for no gain at all. If they continue doing so, soon there will be no support left in the African group for their DG reelection plans”.  The debate also demonstrated the intellectual inability of ADG Matoko to defend the political orientation fixed by his boss Azoulay.

Supposed to retire and leave the Paris based Agency in few months, he “kept demonstrating his high standards of brain-sterility and docile incompetence.

Clearly, ADG Matoko is not an asset to this administration”, said an ambassador usually sympathetic to the French regime. “They are losing it all”.  Even so, at this board session, by supporting and praising the nonexistent work done by the French DG Azoulay, ambassadors of EU member states and those from the former colonial French-Africa, corroborated their taste for “swimming” in the “cesspool”. 

This is where UNESCO stands today, a Zombie-land propitious to the flourishing of corruption, embezzlement, abuse of power and nepotism.  This is Antonio Guterres' UN - corrupt colonialism. We will have more on that. Watch this site.

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