Annan Sends Mea Culpa Letter to Staff

Stewart Stogel
Wednesday, Apr. 21, 2004

NewsMax Link

"I bear the ultimate responsibility for the security of the United Nations staff." So proclaimed Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a letter to the U.N. staff obtained by NewsMax.

The Annan letter was a follow-up to moves he took in reaction to last August's bombing of the U.N. center in Baghdad, the worst attack on the U.N. in history, left 22 dead and more than 150 wounded.

Among those killed, was the chief of the U.N.'s Iraq mission, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

In his letter, Annan claimed he had to "impose severe penalties on valued friends."

Many inside the U.N. would beg to disagree; The U.N.'s staff union has repeatedly complained that security problems which led to the Baghdad attack still exist and in some instances have gotten worse.

While the U.N.'s chief of security Tun Myat was retired (with full pay), Annan did little more than move personnel around the world body's civil service system.

The S-G refused to accept the resignation of Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette, despite serious criticisms levelled by two investigations into the Baghdad bombing.

Annan tells the staff that:

"The United Nations must now deal with the fact that it is directly targeted in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and potentially in other countries. This involves a quantum rather than incremental increase in the strain on our security systems, which is why addressing systematic aspects of security must be a top priority of member states, as well as of the entire United Nations system."

While the Bush administration expects the U.N. to significantly increase its presence in Iraq after the Coalition returns power to a provisional government on July 1, Annan insists he will not be prematurely pushed:

"...although we may be required in time to deploy a new mission there (Iraq), as mandated by the Security Council, rest assured that this will be done only after a thorough security assessment assures me that personnel will not face unreasonable risk."

Acknowledging that his efforts to address staff concerns since the Baghdad attack have fallen short, Annan explains:

"United Nations staff will not be asked to serve in a dangerous environment except when I am absolutely sure, first, that the mission is of an importance commensurate with the risk, and second, that every possible measure is being taken to minimize that risk."

While insisting that he is moving forward in addressing security matters, sources inside the U.N.'s human resources department tell NewsMax that such reforms are moving slowly, if at all.

As previously reported by NewsMax, the U.N.'s center in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire), "is a disaster waiting to happen," say sources who have visited the facility.

Security, it is reported, is so poor as to be almost nonexistent. This in a facility that houses almost 600 workers operating in a nation in the midst of a bloody civil war.

"it is ripe for a terrorist attack," claimed one recent visitor who frets that another incident, even worse than Baghdad, is simply a matter of time.