http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?
xml=/news/2005/07/17/wun17.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/17/ixnewstop.html
UN number two dismisses abuse of power claims
By Charles Laurence in New York
(Filed: 17/07/2005)
Britain's most senior official at the United Nations claimed to be
the victim of "character assassination" last night after staff urged
a boycott of a reception celebrating his promotion to number two in
the organisation.
UN official Mark Malloch Brown: 'This is just a ridiculous
sideshow'
As chief of staff to Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General, Mark Malloch
Brown is now to be considered the power behind the throne. But even
as luminaries ranging from Bono, the U2 singer, to President Bill
Clinton and Colin Powell, the former US Secretary of State, heaped
videogram accolades on Mr Malloch Brown at the party, "guerrillas"
within the UN were mounting a bitter personal attack.
Writing anonymously on an internet weblog site, they accused Mr
Malloch Brown, who is charged with reforming the scandal-plagued
institution, of an "obsession with consolidating power" for himself
and his "Democratic cronies" and of "riding roughshod" over
regulations. He had a "reckless approach", they alleged, which "fits
into a long-standing pattern of abuse and conflict of interest".
Mr Malloch Brown, the former head of the UN Development Programme
(UNDP), told The Sunday Telegraph yesterday that the "scurrilous,
politically motivated attacks" had come from "deserved victims of
change". He has cut a flamboyant path through the UN since his
promotion, which came at a sensitive time as the Iraqi oil-for-food
scandal threatened to sideline the UN as a credible inter-national
force.
Mr Malloch Brown has defended the UN, making clear that the era in
which hostile countries could use the institution as a tool against
the interests of the West was over, while telling US leaders to stop
their political interference.
He admitted that he was furious about the attack, both personally
and because of the damage it would cause the UN, which is already
facing a struggle for survival.
"This is just a ridiculous sideshow but it is extremely hurtful when
one has made personal and financial sacrifices to work here," Mr
Malloch Brown said.
The official reception in the exclusive delegates' lounge in the UN
tower in New York was held to mark his departure as head of the
UNDP, announced in January.
The party was crowded with guests and staff, enabling Mr Malloch
Brown to claim victory over the call for a boycott. Yet the 12 UNDP
staff members behind what they say is a whistle-blowing campaign
about their former boss have at least cast a shadow over the
charismatic Mr Malloch Brown's rise to the top.
Many of their concerns centre on claims of political conflicts of
interest at the UN, which bans staff from partisan political
activity.
They claim, for example, that Mr Malloch Brown lives in a large home
in the West-chester suburbs of New York rented from George Soros,
the financier and philanthropist, at a cost of $120,000 (£68,500) a
year, even though his salary at the UN is $125,000. Mr Soros, they
point out, is a major partner in UNDP projects and financed a
campaign to defeat President Bush in last year's elections.
The disgruntled staff members also claim that Mr Malloch Brown
has "whitewashed" a case they reported against a UNDP aide, Justin
Leites, who they say broke the rules by working for the Kerry-
Edwards political campaign for presidency while working at the UN.
They further allege that Mr Malloch Brown himself broke UN rules
when he stood as a candidate for an SDP seat in Britain in 1983
while he was a staff member of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees.
"We would not say we don't like your apparently charming and
disarming personality but we simply don't like the things you've
done to UNDP and the UN," the staff members wrote in their weblog
last week. "In your obsession with consolidating power around you
and in the UN system, you surround yourself with Democratic and like-
minded cronies and protégés, whether or not they have any knowledge
of UNDP's mission, namely, human development. We have no confidence
in you as the SG's [secretary-general's] chief of staff to see
through UN reform, part of which should precisely aim at eliminating
such abuse and conflict of interest."
Mr Malloch Brown agreed that he pays Mr Soros, whom he has known for
more than 10 years, $120,000 a year in rent, but added that his
critics had one key fact wrong. He is actually paid $240,000 a year,
tax-free.
"So I pay 45 per cent of my salary in rent - it is a huge pain, but
a lot of us in New York do, and we have to live with it," he
said. "I subsidise my life with earnings from before I joined UNDP."
A former political editor of The Economist and World Bank
communications chief, he was previously a partner in an
international consultancy, the Sawyer-Miller Group.
William Orme, UNDP's head of communications, said he suspected that
the protesters might be no more than a handful of diehard UN
conservatives. "It's like mosquitoes buzzing around the elephant's
tail," he said.
Yet American conservatives, who want swifter and deeper UN reform,
are unhappy about the Soros connection.
In an editorial, The New York Sun, a conservative daily newspaper,
mixed compliments with complaint.
"We don't mind saying that we have a great regard for Mr Malloch
Brown," it said. "He represents what possibility there is for
internal reform at the United Nations.
"We don't suggest he (or Mr Soros) is unethical. We simply suggest
that [he] made an error of judgment - and not a minor one."
The target of their complaint is exasperated by the anonymous
criticism. "My frustration," said Mr Malloch Brown, "is that little
guys losing their jobs under change can team up with Right-wing
media and declare open season on character assassination."
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