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UN Staff Again Urge SG Guterres to Resign Amid Failures He Bemoans Leaks as Bans Press

by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack

UN GATE, May 26 –  How corrupt and decrepit has the UN system become under Antonio Guterres, in this case due to Guterres?

On May 13, 2025 he sent sent a letter to staff, leaked to Inner City Press, in which Guterres bemoans leaks: "I realize that “leaks” and rumours may create unnecessary anxiety. We are currently in the proposals development phase...  It is important to emphasize that these internal consultations and functional reviews are preliminary steps aimed at generating ideas and exploring options. They do not represent the final position of management." We'll see.

Inner City Press, which Guterres has banned from "his" UN, has been sent a copy of this staff letter, Part 1:

We are a group of United Nations staff from various duty stations across the world. We once again call for the resignation of the Secretary-General (SG) for his failure to preserve a credible and reputable UN and for triggering an unprecedented financial crisis for the organization. It seems that our reiterated calls for his resignation are ignored, and that the SG, with its close circle of Under Secretary Generals (USGs) and senior advisors supporting him, is ready to sacrifice thousands of staff and the integrity of the UN, just to maintain his and their grip on power. The so called UN80 is the latest in a series of decisions and proposals, by the SG and his acolytes, advanced purely to fulfil their ideological agenda, with total disregard for the organization and its staff. Therefore, we would like to make some points clear about the UN80 reform:  

1) It is not true that the staff are being consulted: on the contrary, the staff and the staff union are kept in the dark and in panic about the initiative. All decisions are taken by the SG and a few of his loyalists, without any meaningful consultations. This is the first time in the history or the UN that a reform is developed so hastily and imposed on staff and Member States, without transparency and consultations. The authoritarian nature of the SG and his inner circle is finally visible to all. 

 2) The SG has said that he wants to move quickly with the reform to ensure substantive reductions in the overall budget of the organization. In his plans, UN80 envisages major changes hat will require large numbers of staff to move from one duty station to another. Such structural changes are very expensive: it is, to say the least, suspicious to see that SG has not provided any cost estimate for the implementation of this reform. It is obvious that the cost involved will be very high and clearly offsetting any potential saving. Our question is simple: Does the SG have the resources for this reform? What are its estimated costs and envisaged savings? If this information is not provided, the speculation that this is just a smokescreen intended to preserve personal power, by sacrificing the organization, will turn out to be correct. 

 3) The SG also stated that the reform is aimed at eliminating duplications and putting an end to the wasting of resources. He indicated that his primary objective will be to reform the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, the Department of Peace Operation and the Office of Counter-Terrorism. However, we all remember that these three entities were created by the current SG himself during his first term. The SG basically seems to admit that his first reform was a failure that led to duplications and a waste of resources, but still wants to undertake a new reform, and wants to do it  when his mandate is approaching its natural end.  

We strongly believe that the SG does not possess the skills and capacity to reform the UN: therefore, we hope that such task is left to his successor. The most efficient and cost effective reform of the UN, in our opinion, would require the immediate resignation of the SG, the subsequent resignation of all current Under Secretary Generals and other senior political appointees, the selection of a new and capable SG, and the development of a meaningful reform plan, to be launched under a new leadership and in close consultation with us, the UN staff.

Will the UN answer the Press on Part I? Part II to follow

Guterres had the critical Press roughed up and thrown out. There has been no due process since, not even a response to Guterres' Melissa Fleming to a pro bono inquiry for Inner City Press from the law firm Quinn Emanuel. We'll have more on this.

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