U.N. Development Program Violated U.N. Law,

Cross posted at Reject the UN

Routinely Passed on Millions to North Korean Regime

Business as usual at the UN. Instead of condemning North Korea and its crazy leader Kim Jong-il, they just pass on millions of dollars. Millions mostly from the United States. American taxpayers paying for the obscene lifestyle of this despot. But that is ok with the UN. It is not their money.

After more than two years of accusations and probes into the operations of the United Nations Development Program in North Korea, a weighty report finally reveals how routinely, and systematically, the agency disregarded U.N. regulations on how it conducted itself in Kim Jong-Il’s brutal dictatorship, passing on millions of dollars to the regime in the process.

The 353-page report, by a three-member “External Independent Investigative Review Panel” appointed by UNDP to investigate itself, was published with much fanfare last week after nine months of political maneuvering and research.

Of course with fanfare. It wouldn't be a UN Report without it. The corrupt officials (none of whom were ever elected by any people of the world) are proud of their achievements. They have to be proud of something.

The report depicts an organization that for years apparently considered itself immune from its own rules of procedure as well as the laws and regulations of countries that were trying to keep weapons of mass destruction out of Kim’s hands.

It also shows that UNDP apparently considered itself above the decisions of the United Nations Security Council itself when that organization tried — as it is still trying — to bar Kim from gaining the means to create more weapons of mass destruction.

That is the same Security Council whose decisions, U.N. officials argue, have the weight of international law when applied to the United States and the rest of the world.

But not to North Korea, Iran, or any other 2 bit dictator. They are above all laws.

“What this report shows is that UNDP has operated lawlessly for far too long,” said Mark Wallace, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who brought many of the original accusations against the U.N. anti-poverty agency to light in January 2007 after examining confidential UNDP internal audits of its North Korean operation.

“U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has indicated that integrity is a high U.N. priority," Wallace said. "It is now up to UNDP to follow that direction.”

Integrity is not a word that one can link with any organization of the UN. Lack of integrity, honesty or any of the human virtues is more of the norm at the UN. The idea that one has to have morals is something that any UN official isn't allowed to have.

But a close reading of the long and dense document, replete with mind-numbing footnotes, shows that Dervis is wrong.

Among other things, the report confirms that UNDP hired North Korean government employees to fill sensitive core staff posts, in violation of its own regulations, and that the Kim regime picked the staffers.

Previously this had been revealed by a report done by the United Nations Board of Auditors in May 2007 in the wake of Wallace’s concern. The 2007 report noted that the same violations had been reported in internal UNDP audits going back to 2001.

The UNDP office in North Korea paid the salaries of these staff directly to the government in hard currency — another forbidden practice. The report dryly notes, in a footnote on page 96, “It was not clear how much of these amounts were paid to the National Staff, if any.”

In an effort that may have been aimed at keeping at least some staffers from starving, UNDP gave them all hard-currency supplements in cash — another violation of its own rules.

The regime employees filled such critical jobs as UNDP finance officer; program officer slots that helped to design and oversee UNDP projects in the country; technology officer, who maintained all of UNDP’s internal and external communications and servers; and even the assistant to the head of the UNDP office, who presumably was in a position to see much, if not all, of the boss’ paperwork.

Millions of Dollars given by the United States. Dollars that could have been better spent here in the US instead of propping up Kim Jong-il's regime. Undermining the efforts of the United States to keep North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. And yet we are suppose to just smile like imbeciles and forget this too? The trouble is that we will do just that instead of cutting off the funds. Instead of leaving that Tower of Babel, House of Corruption once and for all.