At least 34 UN staff members killed in attacks worldwide in 2008

UN staff in the World Conference Centre in Bonn, Germany

13 January 2009 – A radio reporter in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a schoolteacher in Gaza, seven food aid truck drivers in Sudan and Somalia and ten peacekeepers in Darfur are among the 34 United Nations staff members killed by malicious acts in 2008, the world body’s Staff Union said today.

Although the figure represents a slight decline from the previous year, “2008 was another harsh year for United Nations personnel around the world,” Staff Union President Stephen Kisambira said in a press release.

“The Staff Union is particularly concerned by the killing of many contracted workers who are increasingly being used as a substitute for United Nations staff in many dangerous areas in the world,” he added.

“The Staff Union once again appeals to Member States to guarantee the minimal security conditions necessary for the United Nations to carry out its life-saving work,” he stressed.

One of the most deadly incidents occurred when a joint police and military patrol was ambushed by at least 200 attackers on horseback and armed SUVs between Gusa Jamat and Wadah, North Darfur on 8 July, killing seven peacekeepers and wounding 22 from the African Union-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID).

On 29 October a security advisor and a driver for the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) were killed in a suicide car bombing of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) compound in Hargeisa, northern Somalia. Six staff members were also injured, two of them seriously.

In addition to malicious actions, air crashes also took their toll, the Staff Union said, with seven staff members dying on 3 March in a crash in eastern Nepal and another seven losing their lives when a plane carrying humanitarian supplies went down in the eastern DRC.

At least 10 UN personnel were taken hostage during 2008, and one was still missing in Somalia at the end of the year.

In addition, on 14 December, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Niger, Robert Fowler, his assistant and their UN driver went missing while driving near the country’s capital, Niamey.

IN RESPONSE TO BRAHIMI REPORT, COMMITTEE ON STAFF SECURITY

Press Release
3 July 2008

Hopes Brahimi Panel recommendations will be implemented more effectively
than those issued after Baghdad bombing


The Independent Panel on Safety and Security of UN Personnel and Premises World-wide, headed by Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, has released a sobering report which while it indicts the Organization for failing “to develop a culture of accountability in security management,” appears to insulate “the higher echelons of the hierarchy, including the Secretary-General from the System’s passivity observed by the Panel.

The report shows that the UN and particular individuals failed to do their duty, and in ways somewhat similar to the circumstances leading up to the 19 August 2003 attack against the United Nations in Baghdad. While the Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security took the honorable course of action by resigning, the Staff Union’s Committee on the Security and Independence of the International Civil Service does not believe that fault solely lies with one person.

In the name of accountability, the Committee calls on the Secretary-General to take fully responsibility for the insufficient implementation of the security management system approved by the General Assembly. It further calls upon him to immediately take action to prevent future tragedies from occurring and staff from being endangered; to immediately remove any individuals that failed in their duties; and to swiftly implement the reforms and recommendations of the Brahimi Panel. The Committee urges – for the safety of all staff – that more effective reforms be instituted that will prevent loss of life on the scale experienced in Baghdad or Algiers.

The Committee is not enthused by the appointment of Mr. Ralph Zacklin—an insider who has served as a legal counsel of the United Nations peacekeeping operations—to head an “independent” accountability group that will review the responsibilities of the key individuals and offices connected with the attack on the UN premises in Algiers. The apparent conflict of interest of some members of the group, and their track record at the UN, does not portend a restoration of confidence and morale among the staff. Reliance on senior UN officials to conduct a peer review on accountability issues has proven to be a failure in the past, a situation which the long overdue reform of the internal justice is expected to rectify.

The Committee welcomes the bulk of the recommendations of Mr. Brahimi’s panel, especially with regard to ensuring adequate and sustainable funding for security and safety; establishing the principle of “no programme without security; the urgency of reorganizing the constituent security management structures into a single unified system; the importance of having a reliable, appropriate, and robust information technology (IT) support system to develop information and knowledge, critical to security analysis and threat assessment; and the Panel’s reiteration that safety is half the mandate of DSS and that a dedicated Safety Unit should be established within DSS with competent staff and resources to enhance the safety of UN personnel and to develop a system-wide guidance on air safety.

GAP Commends UN Ethics Director and Secretary-General for Defending UNDP Whistleblower

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Bea Edwards, International Program Director
Phone: 202.408.0034 ext 155, 202.841.1391
Email: beae@whistleblower.org

Contact: Shelley Walden, International Program Officer
Phone: 202.408.0034 ext 156
Email: shelleyw@whistleblower.org

GAP Commends UN Ethics Director and Secretary-General for Defending UNDP Whistleblower

(Washington, D.C.) – The Government Accountability Project (GAP) applauds United Nations Ethics Office Director Robert Benson and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for defending a whistleblower who was denied due process by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

On June 27, the United Nations Ethics Office found that UNDP whistleblower Artjon Shkurtaj was not permitted to respond to allegations made against him by the External Independent Investigative Review Panel (EIIRP). The decision stated that the ad hoc EIIRP panel – which investigated Shkurtaj’s much-publicized disclosures regarding UNDP wrongdoing in its North Korean office, and the retaliation he faced for exposing this – violated the Investigative Guidelines of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food-Programme. The Ethics Office Director recommended that Shkurtaj be compensated as a result.

This past Tuesday, the spokeswoman for the Secretary-General announced that the UN Secretariat stood behind the decision of the Ethics Office. In taking this position, the Secretary-General has challenged UNDP’s treatment of a whistleblower. UNDP exempted itself from the jurisdiction of the UN Ethics Office and the whistleblower protection policy last August after Benson ruled that there was prima facie evidence of retaliation against Shkurtaj by UNDP.

“Ban Ki-moon’s support for this decision is a reversal of a year-long backslide in whistleblower protections at the UN,” stated Shelley Walden, GAP International Program Officer. “We applaud the Secretary General’s defense of this whistleblower and hope that the Secretariat will strengthen the due process and free speech rights of other whistleblowers by restoring the system-wide jurisdiction of the Ethics Office and whistleblower protection policy.”

UNDP responded to the Benson decision by claiming that the due process errors cited are the fault of the now-disbanded EIIRP and not of UNDP itself. However, the specific error for which Benson faulted the panel was its unilateral attack on Shkurtaj, which it included in its final report and released to UNDP without allowing Shkurtaj to defend himself. UNDP is also at fault for the same reason: UNDP posted the report on its Web site without allowing Shkurtaj to correct serious errors of fact in the report that were defamatory.

“The EIIRP report demonstrates investigative incompetence, ignorance of the standard of proof in whistleblower cases, and the gratuitous defamation of a whistleblower who tried to protect UNDP from misconduct,” said Bea Edwards, International Program Director. “As an independent review, this exercise is such an embarrassment that even UNDP is now trying to disown it. Rather than connect the retaliation dots, the Panel tried to erase them.”

The erosion of whistleblower rights began last November, when the Secretary-General issued a bulletin that allowed UNDP to ignore the rulings of the Ethics Office. Instead of respecting Benson’s decision on the Shkurtaj matter, Kemal Dervis, Administrator of UNDP, established a separate Ethics Office for UNDP, as well as a weaker whistleblower protection policy. Other UN agencies followed suit, and the November bulletin resulted in a proliferation of whistleblower policies and ethics offices in the UN system that do not meet the independent and comprehensive standards set out in the original 2005 UN policy to comply with a mandate of the General Assembly.

GAP, which has advised Shkurtaj throughout his ordeal, believes that there were due process violations in the EIIRP investigation serious enough to invalidate its findings. Most importantly, the panel demonstrated its ignorance of the relevant standard of proof in a whistleblower case. UNDP failed to establish that its action rescinding Shkurtaj’s appointment as Operations Manager of its North Korea office, after he reported wrongdoing, was not retaliatory. Under the UNDP whistleblower protection policy, once Shkurtaj had been designated a whistleblower, UNDP had to prove with “clear and convincing evidence” that it did not retaliate. But UNDP presented no substantive evidence at all, other than the statement of the officer responsible for the withdrawal of Shkurtaj’s appointment that she did not retaliate. In short, at this point in the proceedings, Shkurtaj did not have to prove that the withdrawal of the appointment was retaliatory. UNDP had to prove that it was not.

The Panel itself was not appointed in an independent manner. Its members lacked the impartiality and expertise needed to investigate these disclosures properly, as demonstrated by the fact that members inappropriately devoted a significant portion of their report to attacking Shkurtaj rather than investigating the retaliation described above and easily verified. In fact, the panel’s report was, in itself, retaliatory.


Government Accountability Project

The Government Accountability Project is the nation’s leading whistleblower protection organization. Through litigating whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal reforms, GAP’s mission is to protect the public interest by promoting government and corporate accountability. Founded in 1977, GAP is a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.

UNDP Whistleblower Details Comprehensive Wrongdoing in Somalia Projects

May 14, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Shelley Walden, International Program Associate
Phone: 202.408.0034 ext 156
Email: shelleyw@whistleblower.org

Contact: Bea Edwards, International Reform Director
Phone: 202.408.0034 ext 155, 202.841.1391
Email: beae@whistleblower.org


UNDP Whistleblower Details Comprehensive Wrongdoing in Somalia Projects
Evidence Shows Lack of Oversight, Retaliation, and Program Ties to Terrorist Groups


(Washington, D.C.) – A whistleblower represented by the Government Accountability Project (GAP) is alleging that actions taken by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) have allowed continued wrongdoing in the Somalia Office, which threatens to jeopardize the ability of remittance companies to comply with international anti-terrorism regulations.

GAP’s client, Dr. Ismail Ahmed, has shared a detailed dossier with the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) that provides substantial evidence regarding ongoing fraud and corruption in the UNDP Somalia Remittances Programme over the last five years. This dossier details, among numerous other serious problems:


Corrupt practices and fraud used to award contracts to a consulting firm that established an improper relationship with UNDP country office management and program staff
UNDP’s failure to fully investigate repeated formal complaints of wrongdoing
Devastating impacts of the wrongdoing on the Somali remittance industry
Retaliation against Dr. Ahmed for his repeated attempts to expose wrongdoing

On March 28, 2008, Dr. Ahmed made an external disclosure to OIOS, as he believes that UNDP’s investigative unit – the Office of Audit and Investigations (OAI) – has a conflict of interest in this case. OAI has failed to fully investigate prior complaints of wrongdoing in this program and contracted with the consulting firm it is supposed to be investigating. OIOS has not yet determined if it will investigate the ongoing wrongdoing and retaliation that Dr. Ahmed exposed.

To read a letter detailing OAI’s conflicts of interest, and the reasons that OIOS should take jurisdiction of this case, click here: http://www.whistleblower.org/doc/2008/GAPLetterOIOS.pdf

“An urgent, independent investigation of this case – only by OIOS – is needed to prevent further wrongdoing in the UNDP Somalia Remittances Program,” stated Shelley Walden, GAP International Program Associate. “The failure of OIOS to do so could have devastating repercussions for the people of Somalia, the fight against money laundering, and whistleblowers across the UN system. OAI is definitely not the proper unit to investigate this case.”

Background on Dr. Ahmed & Remittances Program

Dr. Ahmed is an expert on economic issues in Somalia and a former UNDP staff member whose contract was allowed to expire in November 2007. He has over 20 years of work experience on Somali development issues and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of London.

At UNDP, Dr. Ahmed worked as a financial services compliance advisor. In this position, he was responsible for providing guidance and support to the Somali Transmitters Association (SOMTA) in the development of a self-regulation system, as part of UNDP’s Somalia Remittances Programme. This program was launched in 2002 following the closure of Al-Barakaat, the largest Somali money transfer company, by the U.S. Treasury Department for alleged links with terrorist organizations.

In 2004 the Financial Services Development Project (FSDP) was launched with funding from the European Commission (EC) and Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK to expand the activities of the initiative that commenced in 2002. The overall objective of the FSDP was to strengthen Somali remittance companies’ ability to comply with international regulations that combat money laundering and terrorist financing,

UNDP Somalia is based in Nairobi, Kenya. The absence of effective central authorities in Somalia and the fact that the UN agencies are based outside the country have led to increasing concerns of accountability.

Alleged Wrongdoing by KMPG

Soon after Dr. Ahmed began working as a program officer at UNDP in October 2005, he witnessed irregularities and corrupt practices related to contracts issued to the Nairobi-based accounting firm, KPMG East Africa. Since the launch of the Remittance Programme, KPMG had won all the professional services contracts awarded by the program. Moreover, a senior partner of KPMG East Africa who had prepared the Programme documents and served as the principal consultant for some of the contracts awarded to the firm was appointed as UNDP Chief Technical Adviser, responsible for managing the same program. This employee was apparently awarded his post without any competition or advertising, and was listed as a lead consultant on the project he was overseeing, meaning that the payments he approved were going to himself as a consultant and shareholder of KPMG. Dr. Ahmed also learned that KPMG had been awarded several contracts without a competitive bidding process and had submitted a plagiarized report to UNDP. Dr. Ahmed’s dossier provides details of five of the KPMG contracts and presents evidence supporting the allegations of wrongdoing.

UNDP Support to Company with Suspected Links to Terrorist Organizations

Dr. Ahmed’s dossier also contains information about UNDP Somalia supporting Dalsan, a Somali remittance company with suspected links to terrorist organizations, potentially in violation of UNDP and international regulations. Dalsan was co-founded by the former spokesman of Al-Ittihad al-Islamiya (AIAI), an organization placed on a list of terrorist organizations by the U.S. in 2001 and by the UN Sanctions Committee. Dalsan senior managers included Abdilkadir Hashi Farah “Ayro”, who was the chairman of the company when it collapsed in May 2006. Abdilkadir is the younger brother of Aden Hashi “Ayro”, the top al-Qaeda commander in Somalia. Aden Hashi “Ayro” was killed earlier this month in a U.S. missile attack.

From early 2003 to late 2005 the UNDP Somalia Office provided Dalsan critical support that may have helped the company to flout international regulations and commit a major fraud in which hundreds of Somali migrants and remittance recipients lost an estimated $30 million dollars. The support provided by UNDP to this company ranges from the release of frozen funds, to helping senior company officials obtain visas and travel documents. Most importantly, UNDP supported the nomination of the UK managing director of Dalsan, Mukhtar Sheikh Osman, to become the Chairman of the Somali Financial Services Association (SFSA) Europe and assume the overall responsibility for the establishment of self-regulation systems for the Somali remittance industry.

Retaliation

In March 2006, Dr. Ahmed put together evidence of the corruption involving KPMG and the UNDP country office, and submitted evidence of wrongdoing anonymously. UNDP’s investigations unit failed to conduct a thorough investigation at that time and the wrongdoing subsequently intensified.

In October 2006, Dr. Ahmed submitted a detailed dossier to UNDP Country Office management documenting his concerns. The next month, UNDP abruptly transferred Dr. Ahmed to Dubai. UNDP proceeded to deny issuing him a mobilization payment and residency visa. His family was forced to leave Dubai after two months because UNDP failed to secure residence visas for them.

A year later, Dr. Ahmed learned that his dossier had never been forwarded to UNDP management in New York and that no investigation had been launched. He was told by his supervisors that the dossier was in a “secure” location and that he would not be able to retrieve it. Dr. Ahmed also discovered that all the hard copies of key correspondences, proposals and bidding documents regarding consulting contracts in the last four years had been removed from the folders in the Somalia office. Dr. Ahmed decided to compile a new dossier, which he submitted to the UNDP Administrator on November 22, 2007.

In October 2007, however, Dr. Ahmed was informed that because of new instructions from senior UNDP management in New York regarding the Financial Services Development Project (FSDP), his contract was not going to be renewed and that FSDP activities would be closed down immediately.

Dr. Ahmed faced severe retaliation for his disclosures. First, UNDP transferred him and denied issuing him an agreed-upon mobilization payment, work permit and residency visa. Then, UNDP failed to renew his contract. A UNDP representative also attempted to blacklist him by telling Somali remittance companies, several of which had already offered Dr. Ahmed a job, not to hire him. All the companies subsequently withdrew their job offers. UNDP then withheld two months of Dr. Ahmed’s salary and other outstanding payments, blocked his pension fund contributions and launched an investigation against him.

UNDP’s Ethics Office

In December 2007, after Dr. Ahmed learned from OAI that they had not yet made a decision about whether his case warranted formal investigation, he forwarded a copy of his complaint to the UNDP Ethics Advisor. In January 2008 the Advisor found a prima facie case of retaliation that warranted an investigation.

GAP subsequently wrote to the UNDP Ethics Advisor requesting interim relief for Dr. Ahmed, which the Ethics Advisor is authorized to provide. In a letter, the UNDP Ethics Advisor said that he could not grant this request, saying that:

“because Mr. Ahmed wrote to me on 17 December 2007 (17 days after his contract had expired), it was not possible for me to recommend suspension of the action as that action had already taken place. It was obviously also not possible to recommend that Mr. Ahmed be reassigned or that he be placed on special leave with full pay as he had already separated from the organization.”

This fails to acknowledge the fact that OAI, which was responsible for receiving complaints of retaliation in November 2007, received Dr. Ahmed’s complaint before he separated from the Organization. Considering that the UNDP Ethics Advisor assumed his functions on December 1, 2007, and Mr. Ahmed’s contract expired at the end of November, Dr. Ahmed could not have submitted a complaint to the Ethics Advisor before his contract was terminated.

“Dr. Ahmed thought that he would be protected by the UNDP whistleblower policy when he came forward with allegations of severe wrongdoing and retaliation,” said Walden. “Instead, UNDP penalized this whistleblower because of flaws in its protection system. This demonstrates the inadequacy of UNDP’s new whistleblower rules and the need for a unified whistleblower protection policy in the UN system.”

In 2005, then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a whistleblower protection policy that was a breakthrough for freedom of expression at intergovernmental organizations. But in 2007, after the UN Ethics Office established by this policy ruled in favor of a UNDP whistleblower, UNDP claimed that the policy was never meant to apply system-wide. UNDP then proceeded to create its own whistleblower protection policy, which offers substantially less protection. Dr. Ahmed is one of the first whistleblowers to test this new policy.

“By turning a blind eye to wrongdoing and threatening to cancel the remittance program because of its own blunders, UNDP has wasted funds, undermined genuine efforts to combat money laundering, and damaged its own credibility,” said Walden. “The United Nations must show its commitment to accountability by urgently investigating this case and ending the intense retaliation against this whistleblower.”

Government Accountability Project

The Government Accountability Project is the nation’s leading whistleblower protection organization. Through litigating whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal reforms, GAP’s mission is to protect the public interest by promoting government and corporate accountability. Founded in 1977, GAP is a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.

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Government Accountability Project • www.whistleblower.org
National Office
1612 K Street, NW Suite #1100
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UNDP's credibility is in Queation over Somalia

http://www.mareeg.com/fidsan.php?sid=5691&tirsan=3
London (mareeg) - A former employee of the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) has accused the agency of throwing him out for blowing the whistle on corruption in its operations in Somalia.

Ismail Ahmed, a British national, said the UNDP first transferred him to another office and later ended his contract and set out to blacken his reputation, including by accusing him of the wrongdoing he had tried to expose.

He also said in a detailed dossier, which he made available to Reuters, that the UNDP supported a Somali money transfer company with suspected links to Islamist militants.

This support included intervening to help the firm win U.S. licences and unfreeze funds blocked in Switzerland on suspicion of money laundering and terrorist finance, Ahmed said.

The company, Dalsan, collapsed in May 2006 and depositors lost more than $30 million, a blow to the Somali economy which depends more than any other country on remittances from nationals living abroad.

UNDP spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: "Clearly UNDP takes all these allegations extremely seriously and we are in fact investigating them thoroughly."

He said the agency's Office of Audit and Investigations had already produced a report on the alleged retaliation for Ahmed's whistleblowing. Its new ethics adviser, who began work on December 1, would review the report and decide what action to take.

An investigation team would fly in mid-June to Nairobi, where the UNDP's Somalia programme is based, he said.

"This man has brought some very serious charges which we want to look into completely," Dujarric said. "We want to make sure we get to the bottom of this as thoroughly as possible."

A U.S. Senate panel in January found communist North Korea had abused UNDP bank accounts to make deceptive cash transfers.

It said the agency was not complicit in or aware of the transactions, and cleared it of any financial wrongdoing, but identified problems such as poor controls and insufficient protection for whistleblowers.

COMPLAINT DOSSIERS

Ahmed worked for the UNDP between 2005 and 2007 as an expert on Somalia's financial system.

His account is backed by the Washington-based Government Accountability Project. Shelley Walden, international programme associate at the non-profit group, said the UNDP had turned a blind eye to wrongdoing and damaged its credibility.

"The U.N. must show its commitment to accountability by urgently investigating this case and ending the intense retaliation against this whistleblower," she said.

Ahmed said that in March 2006 he submitted an anonymous complaint of corruption and conflicts of interest in the Somalia programme over dealings with a contractor. UNDP investigators cleared those involved of any wrongdoing.

Ahmed openly filed a complaint dossier in October 2006, but it was not sent on to UNDP headquarters in New York, he said. Instead it prompted a "systematic destruction of documents that could be used to provide evidence of wrongdoing".

He said he was moved from the UNDP Somalia office in Nairobi to Dubai but the agency did not obtain a work permit or residence visa for him. He called this a deliberate attempt to make his life difficult and force him to quit the job.

The UNDP allowed Ahmed's contract to lapse on November 30, 2007. Eight days before the expiry, he submitted a second complaint dossier to the UNDP's administrator and audit office.

Ahmed said a UNDP representative then launched a campaign "aimed at destroying my name and reputation in the Somali remittance industry", and that this led to the withdrawal of three job offers he had received from the industry.

UNDP spokesman Dujarric said he could not respond to specific allegations. "We're going at this with a very open mind. What we will find, we will find...I can't prejudge what the investigation team will find," he said. source Reuters africa

U.N. union seeks own probe of Algeria attack

U.N. union seeks own probe of Algeria attack

Washington Times

By Betsy Pisik - NEW YORK — The U.N. Staff Union leadership decided to authorize $150,000 to underwrite its own investigation of the al Qaeda attack on the organization's Algeria headquarters, saying that it has little confidence in the official survey group appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The Staff Union, which represents some but not all of the organization's New York employees, made the decision late last week, according to a member present, days before Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, declared the United Nations a legitimate target of violence.

"The United Nations is an enemy of Islam and Muslims: It is the one which codified and legitimized the setting up of the state of Israel and its taking over of the Muslims' lands," al-Zawahri said in an audio file released on sympathetic Web sites Tuesday.

Responding to a question about the innocent people killed by al Qaeda bombings in Algeria, Iraq and Morocco, al-Zawahri responded, "We haven't killed the innocents — not in Baghdad, nor in Morocco, nor in Algeria, nor anywhere else."

He later added, "If there is any innocent who was killed in the mujahedeen's operations, then it was either an unintentional error or out of necessity."

An Algerian terrorist group aligned with al Qaeda slammed a car bomb into the U.N. compound in Algeria's capital city of Algiers on Dec. 11, killing 22 and wounding 40, one of two deadly attacks that morning.

Insurgents similarly destroyed the U.N. compound in Baghdad in August 2003, killing 17 staff members, among others, and triggering the organization's temporary withdrawal from Iraq.

Al-Zawahri, answering questions submitted online by the organization's friends and members, vowed that bin Laden is alive and well, and vowed to attack Jews both in and outside of Israel.

In Romania for the NATO Summit yesterday, the U.N.'s Mr. Ban told worried staff members that the allegations made by al-Zawahri are "baseless and false," according to officials traveling with the secretary-general.

In New York, spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Mr. Ban discussed the message with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and "dismissed" it.

"Both noted, contrary to that message, the contributions that the United Nations has made to the Muslim world," she told reporters.

Diplomats also were aghast that the United Nations, again, was singled out.

Al Qaeda figures have explicitly targeted the United Nations since at least 2002, when bin Laden called the international organization a tool of the Western powers.

The United Nations shuffled its security office in 2005, appointing the former head of Scotland Yard's counterterrorism office to oversee staff safety in the field, reinforce headquarters buildings, and adopt minimum security standards. That office's budget and size also were doubled.

Mr. Ban appointed a new team of seven law-enforcement experts and diplomats to survey staff security around the world. The panel was appointed in the wake of the Algiers bombing, but is not specifically assigned to determine why such a well-anticipated tragedy was not countered.

It was not immediately clear last night when the Staff Union's alternative investigation into the deadly bombing on the Algiers offices will commence, nor who will work on the project.

Staff Union President Stephen Kisambira refused to comment.