I guess I’ll just have to learn to lower my expectations even further.
We are about to learn the meaning of “ethics†in the United Nations administration of Ban Ki-moon. Eight months after Secretary-General Ban took office, promising to “restore trust,†he has been presented with a simple test, via the case of a former employee of the U.N. Development Program, Artjon Shkurtaj.
So far, amid a welter of U.N. delays, denials, evasions, and broken promises, it looks like Ban is about to flunk.
Who is Artjon Shkurtaj? Thirty-six years old, Albanian born, but fluent in English, he goes by “ Tony.†He is a U.N. whistleblower caught up in the scandal over the U.N. Development Program — flagship agency of the U.N. — funneling hard cash to the regime of Kim Jong Il in North Korea. Shkurtaj worked for years for the UNDP, and from 2004-2006 served as the UNDP’s chief of operations and security in North Korea. From there, witnessing one UNDP outrage after another, he tried to do his part to restore trust, by prodding his bosses at the UNDP to behave with integrity and follow their own rules. They told him not to make trouble.
Shkurtaj finally blew the whistle outside the UNDP, one of a number of voices calling attention earlier this year to such UNDP abuses as the funneling of hard cash to the rogue regime of Kim Jong Il. He also called attention to the UNDP’s curious habit of keeping $3,500 in unreported counterfeit U.S. banknotes for years inside its office safe in Pyongyang. This March, the UNDP fired him.
Shkurtaj protested that he had been sacked in retaliation for his whistle-blowing. UNDP officials denied this, saying Shkurtaj was on a short-term contract that had simply expired.
Oh well, flush and repeat.