After Herfkens Exposed Taking Dutch & UN Money, On Bachelet & ILO Panel

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 27 -- For an Organization that preaches accountability, the UN system displays little of it. Three years after Eveline Herfkens of The Netherlands was exposed for violating UN system rules by accepting a substantial UN salary as well as $7,000 a month from her government -- allegedly as an entertainment budget -- and she was forced to step down, she had reappeared on the UN Advisory Group on social protection chaired by Michele Bachelet, convened by the International Labor Organization.

At a UN press conference Thursday, Inner City Press asked if Ms. Herfkens' past had been ignored in giving her this new UN system post. Ms. Herfkens was in attendance, in the front row, but did not answer. The ILO's Juan Somavia said yes, there was a "controversy," but Herfkens' "experience" was deemed to trump it.

So high officials in the UN can violate the rules but be quietly recycled back into UN system "advisory" jobs based on their experience.

Herfkens on UNTV in 2005, before the fall (c) UN Photo

This is only one example. After the deadly bombing of the UN compound in the Canal Hotel in Baghdad in 2003, then Secretary General Kofi Annan's spokesman said that Ramiro Lopes da Silva would be required to resign but could "return to his 'D-2' (Director) post in World Food Programme," emphasizing that "his future assignments will not include any responsibilities for security matters."

Two weeks ago, WFP staff contacted Inner City Press to complain that despite this history, Ramiro Lopes da Silva had been put in charge of WFP security by chief Josette Sheeran. On October 17 Inner City Press sought an explanation from four WFP official, including spokesman Greg Barrow and Ms. Sheeran herself:

"please respond to criticism of having put Ramiro Lopes da Silva in charge of security for WFP, given his role in Iraq in connection with the Canal Hotel bombing."

Only after a week had passed, and Inner City Press has published a first story, did WFP respond, through its spokesman Greg Barrow:

In response to your questions: DED Ramiro Lopes da Silva is one of WFP's most experienced senior managers, and we have the utmost confidence in him.

This did not in anyway respond to Ramiro Lopes da Silva's role in Iraq in connection with the Canal Hotel bombing, much less Kofi Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard's statement that Ramiro Lopes da Silva's "future assignments will not include any responsibilities for security matters."

Inner City Press wrote back to Barrow, and wrote directly to Ramiro Lopes da Silva

"I have asked WFP without much substantive response the question below, now having found your contact information in fairness and hoping for a response I ask you: please respond to criticism of having put Ramiro Lopes da Silva in charge of security for WFP, given his role in Iraq in connection with the Canal Hotel bombing. Please respond - on deadline."

Ramiro Lopes da Silva not having responded, Inner City Press asked the spokesman of Ban Ki-moon, who has inissted that UN system staff security is important to him, whether he gave Ramiro Lopes da Silva a waiver from the action of Kofi Annan after the Canal Hotel bombing, or if there was simply no UN system follow through. Spokesman Martin Nesirky said on October 25 that he would answer. But two days later he has not. Watch this site.

Footnote: Herfkens' fall was in early 2008, before the global financial blow out later that year. On Thursday Inner City Press asked Michelle Bachelet about the place of privatization and, in essence, Wall Street in social protection plans. She said that the Report is for "all countries," but did not squarely address the privatization question. To be continued.