| In
Corrupt UN of Guterres UNESCO Grabs
Cameroonian Cover Up Man Assiene from WFP
By Matthew
Russell Lee &
sources,
Exclusive
UN
GATE, January
24 – UNESCO,
like the whole
UN system
under Antonio
Guterres is
falling apart
in corruption
and fraud.
Inner
City Press has
been reporting
on serious
malfeasance by
the French
Audrey Azoulay
administration
at UNESCO in
Paris, almost
as bad as
Antonio
Guterres'
corruption in
and of the UN
in New York. A
fish rots from
the head.
In
this issue on UNESCO: 1) DG Azoulay didn't
resign at the end of the day; 2) last week's
obscure visit to Japan by the ADG for Culture,
Ernesto Ottone, with no official purpose other
than to campaign for himself; 3) the almost
deadly moral harassment of staff by the
Director of Legal Affairs Santiago
Villalpando; 4) the saga of the appointment of
a new Director of Human Resources, and 5) the
toothless Director of IOS, Bernardin Assiene,
emptying the Service of leading investigators
who got either moved or sacked.
1) On November 24, 2023, Inner City reported
about the spectacular election of the
Executive Board Chairwomanship of UNESCO
(here) Brazil lost and St Lucia won as the new
President of the Board. Having dramatically
for her lost this diplomatic battle, Drama
Queen Audrey Azoulay is now desperately hoping
to salvage the end of her mandate by avoiding
a damaging lame-duck period of stalemate with
serious consequences for her political career
in France, if there is one, after ending her
ill-fated stint at UNESCO in 2025. On
December 14, 2023, Inner City reported that
according to a member of the French Permanent
Delegation to UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay has
openly stated on several occasions her
intention to resign as DG if Saint Lucia is
elected (here
).
As it turned out, this empty declaration was a
bluff, pure and simple, to win a few votes
against Saint Lucia. Providentially, Drama
Queen Azoulay will not be resigning and will
enjoy her job to the full until the end of her
term. Inner City Press has already
published numerous articles on the problems
associated with Chilean Ernesto Ottone
Ramirez's abuse of power in UNESCO's Culture
Sector. 2) Inner City Press has already
written extensively on the problems associated
with Chilean Ernesto Ottone Ramirez's abuse of
power in UNESCO's Culture Sector (here
).
The Culture sector has become progressively
the paragon of experimentation by DG Azoulay's
administration on how to operate in total
ignorance of rules and procedures. For
several years now, the assistant director
general (ADG) for culture, Ernesto Ottone
orchestrated and supervised the intentional
disruptive effort to demotivate staff and
reduce activities. Ottone has proven to be
ill-prepared for this high position and
especially for working in the complex
international environment of
UNESCO. Notorious for his baseless
temper tantrums, feeling easily thwarted in
the work process as evidence of his
incompetence, regularly yelling at his
subordinates, Ottone Ramirez has now another
bigger ambition – to become the next Director
general of UNESCO. With the implicit agreement
of Drama Queen Azoulay and some member states,
Ottone Ramirez is methodically organizing his
campaign. A few days ago, Ottone visited Tokyo
in the company of the Japanese Ambassador to
UNESCO, Takehiro Kano, who opened a number of
institutional doors for him.
It's interesting to note that Ernesto
Ottone wasn't even pretending to go to Japan
on a mission related to his sector. It was
simply a campaign trip for himself to prepare
for next year's election as Director General
of the Agency. The use of UNESCO's public
funds to pay for his mission doesn't seem to
bother his boss. Perhaps it will bother the
newly elected presidents of the governing
bodies. It is also important to note the role
played by Japanese ambassador Kano in this
visit, certainly at the request of the
Azoulay, since ambassadors, according to
protocol, only travel when the DG is
officially visiting the country. For example,
the ADG for Education visited Japan twice last
year (for the G-7 Education Ministers' meeting
and again in December for a representation
function), but the Japanese ambassador was not
in her luggage. This week, therefore, it
became abundantly clear that the purpose of
the trip was to discuss the candidacy of
Chilean ADG Ottone.
3) Another case for member states to consider
is the attempted suicide of the assistant to
the Director of Legal Affairs, Santiago
Villalpando. In September 2023, H.M. (name
available), suffering from severe burn-out as
a result of enduring moral harassment and
unfounded criticism from her boss Villalpando,
attempted to jump out of her 5th floor office
window. Fortunately, the attempt was
unsuccessful, and UNESCO firefighters
prevented it at the last moment. Frenchwoman
Azoulay and her cabinet did everything in
their power to hush up the affair, which was
so unpleasant for their reputation. They even
went so far as to promote the woman's husband,
who also works at UNESCO and was starting to
make too much noise by asking questions about
his wife's working conditions. It worked - Mr.
M.D. got his P-5 job and his wife's case ended
there, without any investigation or
disciplinary proceedings against Santiago
Villalpando. The legitimate question
Member States might ask is: if the office of
the Director of Legal Affairs is the scene of
such moral harassment, what does this mean for
the rest of the Agency? Santiago
Villalpando's wife certainly has no reason to
commit suicide, on her side. Against all norms
and practices, she has been appointed to the
P-5 level by Audrey Azoulay - so that both
‘Villalpandos’ can ably serve Drama Queen
Azoulay for the remaining term of less than
two years now. The Director of Legal
service Villalpando, defends UNESCO before the
UN tribunal in Geneva. So much for the facts
concerning the moral and ethical value of the
person chosen by Azoulay for this job. In a
clear act of abuse of power, Santiago
Villalpando, after trading with DG Azoulay his
full support in exchange for a favor,
succeeded in getting his wife Marina Silberman
appointed to UNESCO. Inner City Press has
already confirmed that she has secured a P5
position in the Financial Management Branch
(BFM). This is another major conflict of
interest - a reward for impunity in breaking
the rules - that deserves the full attention
of member states.
4) Last July, Inner City Press wrote
about the intention of DG Azoulay to appoint a
Director to the HR position from the
Netherlands (here
). As normal recruitment procedures assume
that the director's nationality is not known
prior to the selection process, this
appointment was hastily abandoned after it was
made public. A second recruitment procedure
was launched and the new HR Director, Jennifer
Linkins, was appointed last week. She holds
dual US citizenship and, according to internal
sources, is also a French national. She is due
to take up her post on March 18. What a
surprise, if confirmed, another Frenchwoman?
But why not, if the member states are happy
with this state of affairs? As far as
HRM is concerned, another reform was
implemented just before the arrival of the new
Director Linkins, as if it couldn't wait for
her appointment. Led by Belgian Annick Grisar,
who is due to retire in mid-2025, the reform
created additional tension within the HR
department. Few will regret the departure of
Grisar, one of the Organization's most
dishonest staff members, who over the last few
years has skilfully managed HR orientations in
such a way as to create a climate of prejudice
and discomposure for staff, and actively
contributed to getting rid of those who held
strong views on the need to preserve a certain
critical mass of skills within the Agency,
despite Azoulay's destructive management
policy, which they had openly opposed.
With the help of Annick Grisar, she almost
succeeded in disrupting UNESCO to the point of
no return. But the Agency will survive her, as
it has survived many others who have done the
damaging work of dismantling what works
properly and creating obstacles for all the
staff who defend respect for rules and
regulations. Assisted by Alexander Duganis,
Annick Grisar, along with Legal Affairs
Director Santiago Villalpando and IOS Director
Bernardin Assiene, led the campaign to scare
and dissuade staff from protesting or
challenging, even though contesting is one of
the fundamental rights of staff members and is
normally protected by the rules. But not at
UNESCO.
5) At IOS, the situation is clearly going from
bad to worse. The case of fraud and abuse of
authority involving the Director of UNESCO’s
Internal Oversight service (IOS) Bernardin
Assiene from Cameroon, revealed by Inner City
Press (here
) was not even addressed by DG Azoulay. The
role of Bernardin Assiene, who is normally
responsible for proposing sanctions in the
event of violations of the rules, should also
be questioned and challenged in his behavior
of covering up the misdeeds of senior
officials appointed by Azoulay to
UNESCO. According to our sources within
the World Food Program (WFP), the Cameroonian
Bernardin Assiene had a wide reputation there
as a totally dishonest man. That is why, for
many WFP staff, his appointment to UNESCO came
as a surprise. Most of them thought that
UNESCO had not checked his previous
transgressions, but in fact UNESCO did, and
that is probably the main reason why he was
appointed to the post by the Frenchwoman
Audrey Azoulay.
Bernardin Assiene, as director of
investigations at the WFP, covered up several
other high-level officials, always using the
same technique - he kept all the complaints by
staff in his desk drawers without sharing them
with the members of the investigation team and
then discredited and discouraged the
complainants from the beginning of the
procedure, which was totally against the
rules. Bernardin Assiene became an expert in
violating these rules and was covered in all
his misdeeds by Inspector General David
Johnson, who himself was fired in 2017 for
leaking confidential documents. Former WFP
Executive Director Erharin Cousin, between her
junkets back to Chicago, took advantage of Mr.
Assiene's qualities and kept him in office
with full impunity as the "useful idiot"
needed in every UN organization to cover up
the mess of the powerful.
Today, Bernardin Assiene enjoys the same
impunity at UNESCO. The question is whether
member states will wait for Audrey Azoulay's
departure to push him out, or whether they
will become indignant and do it right away.
Member states should ask themselves a very
simple question. Is it possible to leave
someone in this position who is gradually
phasing out the IOS? For example, since his
appointment, Mr. Assiene has got rid of the
chief of the investigation unit (transferred
to the human resources department) and
dismissed the second investigator because of
his physical disability. Today, there is not a
single qualified investigator working at the
IOS. The work is carried out by consultants
hired by Assiene according to his personal
preferences. Is this situation okayed by the
member states? Bernardin Assiene himself
was under investigation for abuse of power. He
was having an affair with a Nigerian
investigator who worked for him during his WFP
days. And guess what, by pure coincidence
certainly, the same Nigerian investigator was
hired at UNESCO to assist Mr Assiene in his
work. This is a blatant case of favoritism on
the part of the IOS Director. It is in the
same vein as the cases of the former Head of
Azoulay’s Cabinet Nicolas Kassianides and ADG
Ottone's mistresses. The question is, who will
investigate the principal investigator of
UNESCO?
If he himself is corrupt to that extent, what
are the chances of fighting corruption within
the agency. Drama Queen Azoulay keeps
ignoring all warnings and evidence of
inappropriate and abusive management and
behavior by ADGs and other officials appointed
by her. The end-result is that she has
intentionally allowed humiliation and
misconduct to spread throughout the agency,
killing staff morale and destroying the
agency's credibility. At present Member
States can oppose this situation in which
senior managers exercise total abuse of power
and control over staff, including through
intimidation and harassment that force staff
members into desperate depression, fear and
obedience. This is where UNESCO stands today.
We will have more on that. Watch this site.
***
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