The U.N.'s Dirty Laundry
Should Kofi Annan shoulder all the blame, or do the problems go deeper?
A secretary general on the ropes. A powerful former backer agitating for change. Mounting scandals. Overdue promises of reform. A grasp at legacy. For Kofi Annan, it must look a lot like 1996. That was the year the United States called for the ouster of then U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. By the following year, Boutros-Ghali was out and the suave Annan was in, promising a new era of openness and accountability.
Now Annan, 67, finds himself similarly bruised, allegedly unable or unwilling to control the elephantine bureaucracy he was brought in to reform. Backers say it isn't for a lack of trying. And Annan has pushed, particularly recently, for major reforms. Brian Urquhart, a respected former U.N. under secretary general, says he still can't understand how, in the minds of some, Annan has suddenly become "this shady man everyone is calling on to resign." Adds Urquhart, "He is making a serious attempt at reform, but it takes two to tango, so the countries also have to get involved." But, as the oil-for-food scandal is increasingly illustrating, Annan, a career U.N. bureaucrat, has missed prime opportunities to change an ossified institutional culture that obstructs accountability.
Earlier this month, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, the old friend Annan appointed to look into misdeeds in the U.N.-run Iraq oil-for-food program, directly criticized the secretary general for failing to launch a formal investigation into the award of a large oil-for-food contract to Cotecna Inspection SA once Annan learned that the company had employed his son, Kojo, and was the subject of a Swiss criminal investigation pertaining to previous work for the United Nations.
Blind eye? To many Annan supporters, the Cotecna controversy is minor and one that solely concerns his son. But Volcker's report carries the ring, and sting, of truth. To critics, it's part of a pattern. Annan, himself exempt from staff ethics rules, recently allowed the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, Ruud Lubbers, to remain at his post despite a June 2004 internal report substantiating allegations of sexual harassment. Lubbers did not resign until February, when the scandal hit the papers.
Consider that two thirds of U.N. employees surveyed by Deloitte Consulting last year admitted being privy to unethical conduct--and that almost half said they were too scared to ever report it. Those who do air dirty laundry typically find themselves shunned, and their employment contracts often aren't renewed. Although new whistleblower shields are being proposed, those who step forward currently have few protections. And internal audits reveal how little has happened on Annan's watch when misdeeds are reported. From 1998 to 2001, a U.N. staff member forced defense lawyers to pay him kickbacks to process their payments at the International Criminal Tribunal for the genocide in Rwanda. In September 2003, frustrated investigators found that the man had not been fired but, instead, had been shifted to other clerical duties.
In another case, a staff member at the U.N.'s Geneva office was allowed to take early retirement after he was found viewing child pornography on his office computer. And auditors have long complained that U.N. peacekeepers believed to have committed serious crimes, such as rape, face little more than return to their home country as punishment. That's one outrage the United Nations has recently promised to rectify.
There is no time like the present. Last November, auditors reported that the number of serious allegations leveled against peacekeepers was rising at a fast clip and seemed only to abate when no one was there to answer the phone and take a report. This January, auditors again complained, noting that the sexual exploitation of young refugee girls by peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo continued even as they walked about the camp investigating those crimes. Investigators, who say the victims were often paid with food, reported that they continued to stumble over condoms and fresh allegations until the last days of their visit. The trip was marred by interference from troop commanders and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations' insistence that auditors not embarrass the countries whose troops were involved by actually naming them.
Why aren't wrongdoers fired? Blame the system, one no secretary general has yet been able to tame. A management review conducted in October found that it took, on average, two to three years to fire an employee for whatever reason. "Meanwhile, you still have to pay them; they just don't do any work," says one longtime U.N. staffer. "So normally you just keep them on and the standards go down in your office." And what if the employee actually commits a crime? "If you want to fire, it still takes years," he adds.
The system seems designed for failure. U.N. staff members say there is virtually no training for new employees and no clear career path. Promotions are based on seniority, not performance. And those in charge of complex issues may be chosen for whom they know, not what they know. "They throw people from this mass of incompetence into posts where they have no experience," complains a former U.N. worker, recalling a large peacekeeping operation in Africa where the chief procurement officer "was a former air conditioner repairman who just happened to be related to the right person." Sometimes it's even worse. In Kosovo, Jo Hans Dieter Trutschler was hired to a senior-level position requiring knowledge of public works engineering. A 2003 audit reveals that he was hired without any background check because he was a friend of the program manager. His resume turned out to be a lie. Trutschler was later convicted in a German court of diverting $4.3 million into an offshore account.
Deadwood. Simmering frustration has driven many good people from the U.N., particularly motivated young recruits. Although a September 2004 U.N. report saw fewer departures, "neither the quality of candidates nor career prospects for junior staff have improved." U.N. officials are considering buyouts to speed retirements. But clearing out the deadwood will end with just another lost opportunity, staffers say, unless there is a focus on recruitment, accountability, and a newly defined mission.
Such facts are arrows in the quiver for Annan's conservative American critics. They are bolstered by this week's anticipated confirmation of outspoken U.N. critic John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the world body.
In the end, Annan may be the easiest target, not the right one. The secretary general has only as much power as he is given by the countries that make up the United Nations. "Half the member states don't want reform, don't want democracy," says Nancy Soderberg, who represented the United States in the U.N. Security Council during President Clinton's second term. Sweeping reforms, particularly of the type now being proposed by Annan, would require member nations, particularly powerful ones like the United States, to agree on what sort of United Nations they really want and allow its leader to accomplish the mission. Even critics acknowledge that the secretary general can't clean up the institution alone.
Despite howls from many internationalists (and foreign governments) over Bush's choice for ambassador, Bolton could turn out to be a gift to the organization that he has so famously derided. If the Bush administration embraces Annan's reform plans, Soderberg says, "Bolton will be well placed to sell those reforms to conservatives in Congress" who have been calling for Annan's scalp.
"I think there is a strong temptation to lay all these problems at the feet of the secretary general," says former Attorney General Richard Thornburg, who conducted an extensive study of the U.N. bureaucracy in 1993. "But in fairness, he is really a captive of the culture and hamstrung by the pressure exerted by a 191-member-nation organization."
This story appears in the April 18, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.