Noted Peacekeeping Mission Whistleblower Available for Comment
(Washington, DC) – Earlier today, Transparency International UK's Defence and Security Programmereleased a new report, Corruption & Peacekeeping: Strengthening Peacekeeping and the United Nations. Government Accountability Project (GAP) client and pioneer UN whistleblower James Wasserstrom is available to the media to comment on the report's findings that need additional focus, and make recommendations about how the international body can take steps to achieve real accountability.
Wasserstrom made the following statement:
Transparency International has done a fine job in highlighting many of the issues of corruption in UN peacekeeping missions. This report is just the latest strong piece of evidence in a string that proves the United Nations lacks basic measures of real accountability in its peacekeeping missions and institutional headquarters, and continues to pay nothing more than lip service to transparency and accountability.
As one who has personally fought corruption in one such mission – the UN Mission in Kosovo – and paid the price for whistleblowing, I take an even firmer stance on the paramount issue of stemming wrongdoing in these critical tasks. The United Nations' failure over decades to seriously address its own obvious and long-standing deficiencies in fighting internal corruption is absolutely unacceptable. The band-aid approach to solving problems, all superficial acts for public consumption or appeasement of the international community, fall well short of real progress that achieves real accountability for international taxpayers and the billions they have provided to this just cause.
As one who has personally fought corruption in one such mission – the UN Mission in Kosovo – and paid the price for whistleblowing, I take an even firmer stance on the paramount issue of stemming wrongdoing in these critical tasks. The United Nations' failure over decades to seriously address its own obvious and long-standing deficiencies in fighting internal corruption is absolutely unacceptable. The band-aid approach to solving problems, all superficial acts for public consumption or appeasement of the international community, fall well short of real progress that achieves real accountability for international taxpayers and the billions they have provided to this just cause.
Wasserstrom is available to comment to members of the media on the report. Please contact GAP Communications Director Dylan Blaylock at dylanb@whistleblower.org, 202.457.0034 ext 137 or 202.236.3733 to arrange a phone interview. Please note that Wasserstrom is based in Asia.
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