STROMATA BLOG: - Whose Side Is Mynheer Melkert On?

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Sunday, June 17, 2007
Whose Side Is Mynheer Melkert On?
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Adrianus Petrus Wilhelmus Melkert, affectionately known as "Ad", is a left-wing Dutch politician, noteworthy in his homeland for having, five years ago, led the Labor Party to its worst-ever election showing. After that fiasco, he landed cushy jobs as an international bureaucrat, first as a director of the World Bank, then as the number two man at the United Nations Development Program. In the former post, he played a key role in driving Paul Wolfowitz from the Bank's presidency on trumped-up ethics charges. His conduct regarding Mr. Wolfowitz was duplicitous and sinister, possibly including perjury. As the Wall Street Journal observed at the time,
One of the main "witnesses" against Mr. Wolfowitz is Ad Melkert, another Dutch politician who had previously run the bank board's ethics committee that advised Mr. Wolfowitz to give the raise to his girlfriend that is now the basis for the accusations against him. . . .
Mr. Melkert has played an especially craven role by running from his own responsibility in the case. As head of the ethics committee in 2005, he refused to let Mr. Wolfowitz recuse himself from dealings with Shaha Riza [Mr. Wolfowitz's inamorata], who had been long employed at the bank. Then Mr. Melkert advised him to ensure that Ms. Riza got a new job that included some kind of raise or promotion to compensate for the disruption to her career. Now, however, Mr. Melkert claims he was an innocent bystander who knew nothing about Ms. Riza's raise.
\n\u003cblockquote\>How very European. This is the same Ad Melkert, who on October 24, 2005, after Ms. Riza had been told of her new job and salary, wrote in a letter to Mr. Wolfowitz that "Because the outcome is consistent with the [Ethics] Committee's findings and advice above, the Committee concurs with your view that this matter can be treated as closed."\n\u003c/blockquote\>\n\u003cblockquote\>And it is the same Ad Melkert who absolved Mr. Wolfowitz after inspecting two whistleblower emails from an anonymous "John Smith" that circulated around the bank in early 2006 and charged malfeasance. A January 21 whistleblower email included a reference to Ms. Riza's "salary increase of around US$50,000" and was sent to the entire bank board.\n\u003c/blockquote\>\n\u003cblockquote\>On February 28, 2006, Mr. Melkert wrote to Mr. Wolfowitz, saying that he and the ethics committee had "reviewed two emails from 'John Smith'" as well as relevant "background documents." He went on to write that "On the basis of a careful review of the above-mentioned \ndocuments . . . the allegations relating to a matter which had been previously considered by the Committee did not contain new information warranting any further review by the Committee."\u003c/blockquote\>\n\u003cblockquote\>Either Mr. Melkert is lying now, or he was negligent when he wrote that letter. But there's no excuse for his current Sgt. Schultz routine from "Hogan's Heroes" that "I know nothing. Nothing!"\u003c/blockquote\>\n\u003cp\>Myheer Melkert's fondness for knowing nothing is now hampering inquiries into a more serious question, whether the UNDP gave North Korea the hard currency it needed to keep its nuclear weapons program on course. As reported by \n\u003ca href\u003d\"http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,283075,00.html\" target\u003d\"_blank\" onclick\u003d\"return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)\"\>Fox News\u003c/a\>,\u003c/p\>\n\u003cblockquote\>New specific concerns were added last week in . . . two closed door meetings between the U.S. and . . . top UNDP officials. . . . According to leaked reports of the information, which was first given in congressional briefings, [\n",1]
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How very European. This is the same Ad Melkert, who on October 24, 2005, after Ms. Riza had been told of her new job and salary, wrote in a letter to Mr. Wolfowitz that "Because the outcome is consistent with the [Ethics] Committee's findings and advice above, the Committee concurs with your view that this matter can be treated as closed."
And it is the same Ad Melkert who absolved Mr. Wolfowitz after inspecting two whistleblower emails from an anonymous "John Smith" that circulated around the bank in early 2006 and charged malfeasance. A January 21 whistleblower email included a reference to Ms. Riza's "salary increase of around US$50,000" and was sent to the entire bank board.
On February 28, 2006, Mr. Melkert wrote to Mr. Wolfowitz, saying that he and the ethics committee had "reviewed two emails from 'John Smith'" as well as relevant "background documents." He went on to write that "On the basis of a careful review of the above-mentioned documents . . . the allegations relating to a matter which had been previously considered by the Committee did not contain new information warranting any further review by the Committee."
Either Mr. Melkert is lying now, or he was negligent when he wrote that letter. But there's no excuse for his current Sgt. Schultz routine from "Hogan's Heroes" that "I know nothing. Nothing!"
Myheer Melkert's fondness for knowing nothing is now hampering inquiries into a more serious question, whether the UNDP gave North Korea the hard currency it needed to keep its nuclear weapons program on course. As reported by Fox News,
New specific concerns were added last week in . . . two closed door meetings between the U.S. and . . . top UNDP officials. . . . According to leaked reports of the information, which was first given in congressional briefings, [
\n\u003cp\>At the meetings, the U.S. representatives asked for access to UNDP records, so that they could determine the accuracy of these disturbing allegations. Given that the U.S. is the UNDP's biggest donor, its right to review what is done with our money seems pretty obvious. But not to Mynheer Melkert. According to an indignant letter of protest written by Ambassador Khalizad after the meetings,\n\u003c/p\>\n\u003cblockquote\>Mr. Melkert suggested to Ambassador Wallace that UNDP viewed United States inquiry relating to such new information as justifying some kind of "retaliation" against the Government of the United States.\u003c/blockquote\>\n\n\u003cp\>He also refused the request for access to the records, insisting that we should first turn all of the documents on which the allegations are based over to him. Since the U.S. is presumably relying on intelligence sources for its information, Mynheer Melkert in effect asked that those sources be exposed to the \nU.N., after which there can be no assurance that their names will not be passed on to Kim Jong-Il.\u003c/p\>\n\u003cblockquote\>The UNDP position that it would only respond to U.S. queries once documented evidence was turned over to it was termed "irresponsible" yesterday by a foreign diplomat at the ",1]
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U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay] Khalilzad himself and [Mark] Wallace [another member of the U.S. delegation] asked [UNDP head Kemal] Dervis and Melkert about specific payments funneled through UNDP of $2.7 million in "goods and equipment" to a vendor with ties to Tanchon Commercial Bank, a North Korean organization that has been on U.S. Treasury sanctions lists since 2005 as helping to finance North Korean sales of ballistic missiles. The U.S. also said that UNDP had given some $7 million to North Korea's National Coordination Committee for UNDP (NCC) . Another $8 million of different U.N. agencies' money also had gone to the North Korean regime — and about $2.8 million of that had in turn been used to buy houses in France, Britain and Canada.
At the meetings, the U.S. representatives asked for access to UNDP records, so that they could determine the accuracy of these disturbing allegations. Given that the U.S. is the UNDP's biggest donor, its right to review what is done with our money seems pretty obvious. But not to Mynheer Melkert. According to an indignant letter of protest written by Ambassador Khalizad after the meetings,
Mr. Melkert suggested to Ambassador Wallace that UNDP viewed United States inquiry relating to such new information as justifying some kind of "retaliation" against the Government of the United States.
He also refused the request for access to the records, insisting that we should first turn all of the documents on which the allegations are based over to him. Since the U.S. is presumably relying on intelligence sources for its information, Mynheer Melkert in effect asked that those sources be exposed to the U.N., after which there can be no assurance that their names will not be passed on to Kim Jong-Il.
The UNDP position that it would only respond to U.S. queries once documented evidence was turned over to it was termed "irresponsible" yesterday by a foreign diplomat at the
\n\u003cblockquote\>The issue of what is in UNDP records has been the crux of the dispute with the U.S. since questions about UNDP's role in helping Kim out of his cash squeeze were first raised by Ambassador Wallace last June. At that time, Wallace based most of his concerns on secret UNDP audits that are even kept confidential from countries like the \nU.S. that pay large amounts of UNDP funding and sit on the organization's executive board. Wallace's questions led to a preliminary investigation by a three-member team from UNDP's external board of auditors, which reported two weeks ago that Wallace's initial concerns were well grounded.\n\u003c/blockquote\>\n\u003cblockquote\>According to the auditors, UNDP had in fact made unauthorized hard currency payments to the North Korean government, not only for its own work in North Korea but for a variety of other U.N. agencies — at least $72 million in the period from 2002 to 2006.\n\u003c/blockquote\>\n\u003cblockquote\>UNDP also had hired 22 of its 31 staffers locally, in some cases in crucial oversight roles. The local employees were not only nominated by Kim's dictatorship, but remained North Korean government employees while the UNDP paid them. The auditors also declared that many inspections of UNDP development projects in North Korea were only carried out under North Korean escort, and in some cases by the same local employees North Korea had provided. A substantial number of UNDP projects in North Korea in any given year were not inspected.\n\u003c/blockquote\>\n\u003cp\>And how did the UNDP respond?\u003c/p\>\n\u003cblockquote\>The UNDP's position, strongly articulated by Melkert, is that UNDP did nothing wrong, and that the audit supports that contention, no matter what the actual language of the report seems to indicate. . . .",1]
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U.N. who has followed the issue. The U.S. has asked only that UNDP turn over its own records on the transactions, and "this is the first time that an agency that is voluntarily funded by countries that are its members has said it will not look at its own records," he said. The U.S. contributes some $100 million to UNDP's budget.
The issue of what is in UNDP records has been the crux of the dispute with the U.S. since questions about UNDP's role in helping Kim out of his cash squeeze were first raised by Ambassador Wallace last June. At that time, Wallace based most of his concerns on secret UNDP audits that are even kept confidential from countries like the U.S. that pay large amounts of UNDP funding and sit on the organization's executive board. Wallace's questions led to a preliminary investigation by a three-member team from UNDP's external board of auditors, which reported two weeks ago that Wallace's initial concerns were well grounded.
According to the auditors, UNDP had in fact made unauthorized hard currency payments to the North Korean government, not only for its own work in North Korea but for a variety of other U.N. agencies — at least $72 million in the period from 2002 to 2006.
UNDP also had hired 22 of its 31 staffers locally, in some cases in crucial oversight roles. The local employees were not only nominated by Kim's dictatorship, but remained North Korean government employees while the UNDP paid them. The auditors also declared that many inspections of UNDP development projects in North Korea were only carried out under North Korean escort, and in some cases by the same local employees North Korea had provided. A substantial number of UNDP projects in North Korea in any given year were not inspected.
And how did the UNDP respond?
The UNDP's position, strongly articulated by Melkert, is that UNDP did nothing wrong, and that the audit supports that contention, no matter what the actual language of the report seems to indicate. . . .
\n\n\u003cblockquote\>That drew an immediate rebuttal from U.S. Ambassador Richard Miller, the American diplomat who sits on the Executive Board. Miller declared himself "astounded and dismayed" by Melkert's characterization of the audit report. He termed UNDP's "glossy review" of the audit to be "disappointing" and declared that Melkert's statement that he and his boss would take action when allegations were "substantiated" was "not good enough." Miller added: "We look for them to be as offended by these audit report findings as we are."\n\u003c/blockquote\>\n\u003cp\>A little joke, Mr. Ambassador?\u003c/p\>\n\u003cp\>There is one small clue, inserted in parentheses, as to which side is right in this controversy:\u003c/p\>\n\u003cblockquote\>(In January 2007, however, UNDP ended both its hiring and hard currency payment practices in North Korea, and withdrew all its international employees last March when the Kim regime refused to accept the revised arrangement.)\n\u003c/blockquote\>\n\u003cp\>So everything was just fine in the past, and the UNDP altered its practices for no particular reason. That, at least, is Mynheer Melkert's story. He also denies having threatened to "retaliate" against the U.S. We've already seen, in connection with the Wolfowitz affair, how much his memory is to be relied upon.\n\u003c/p\>\u003c/div\>\u003c/div\>\u003c/div\>\n",0]
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That drew an immediate rebuttal from U.S. Ambassador Richard Miller, the American diplomat who sits on the Executive Board. Miller declared himself "astounded and dismayed" by Melkert's characterization of the audit report. He termed UNDP's "glossy review" of the audit to be "disappointing" and declared that Melkert's statement that he and his boss would take action when allegations were "substantiated" was "not good enough." Miller added: "We look for them to be as offended by these audit report findings as we are."
A little joke, Mr. Ambassador?
There is one small clue, inserted in parentheses, as to which side is right in this controversy:
(In January 2007, however, UNDP ended both its hiring and hard currency payment practices in North Korea, and withdrew all its international employees last March when the Kim regime refused to accept the revised arrangement.)
So everything was just fine in the past, and the UNDP altered its practices for no particular reason. That, at least, is Mynheer Melkert's story. He also denies having threatened to "retaliate" against the U.S. We've already seen, in connection with the Wolfowitz affair, how much his memory is to be relied upon.