Harassment,intimidation and secrecy-UN chief engulfed in sex scandal

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Independent
By Kate Holt and Leonard Doyle
18 February 2005


One of the United Nations' most senior officials is likely to face fresh pressure to resign over allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation after The Independent obtained a confidential internal report into the claims.

Ruud Lubbers, the UN's high commissioner for refugees, was found guilty of misconduct involving sexual harassment by an official investigation carried out by the UN's watchdog, it can be revealed. The secret document has never before been released.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, took internal and external legal advice after studying the 15-page report on the allegations, before deciding he was unable to take action against Mr Lubbers. Instead, he issued him with a strong warning about his conduct.

As high commissioner, Mr Lubbers, 65, formerly the longest serving Dutch prime minister, is responsible for marshalling the aid effort for the world's 17 million refugees. The investigation ­ carried out by the UN's office for internal oversight services (OIOS) ­ began after a complaint of sexual harassment by a female employee at the refugee agency. She alleged Mr Lubbers placed his hands on her waist, pulled her back towards him and pressed his groin into her at the end of a meeting with male colleagues in Geneva on 18 December 2003.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=612211

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1. UN Scandal: Accounts of meeting mired in contradiction

Independent
By Daniel Howden
18 February 2005


It should have been a routine meeting: the United Nations administrative professional could hardly have foreseen the coming scandal on a cold December morning at the Palais des Nations, an austere warren of offices in Geneva that houses the organisation's humanitarian operations.

That afternoon the 51-year-old American with nearly 20 years of experience at the UN attended a meeting at the office of the 65-year-old former prime minister of the Netherlands, Ruud Lubbers, head of the UNCHRand among the most powerful men in the city.

She was the only woman. As the session, a humdrum discussion on human resources, closed, she rose with the others to leave.

In the words of the investigatorswho would later record her testimony for a confidential report, this is what happened next: "Without a word, he abruptly put both of his hands on her waist ... pulled her back towards him and took a step forward and pushed his groin to her buttocks and held her briefly in that position." Too shocked to say anything, she left the room.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=612210

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2. Dutch see Lubbers as their Maggie Thatcher, a tough Conservative

By Elizabeth Davies
18 February 2005


When Ruud Lubbers was appointed as the ninth United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on 1 January 2001, he was known as a wily politician, a learned economist and an impressive statesman. He had the perfect profile for the position: clever, experienced and, above all, impeccably respectable.

Nobody could have predicted that this long and distinguished career would be overshadowed by allegations of sleaze and sexual harassment.

Mr Lubbers took up his post at the UNHCR, then celebrating its 50th anniversary as one of the world's main humanitarian agencies, at a hopeful time. His three-year term was extended by two years on the recommendation of the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan. Now heading more than 6,000 staff in 115 countries, Mr Lubbers soon became well-known on the international stage, overseeing UNHCR programmes in places such as west Africa, Angola and Afghanistan.

The allegations of sexual harassment are especially shocking to the people of the Netherlands, whom he had served as Prime Minister from 1982 to 1994 and who regarded their longest-serving premier as a Dutch Margaret Thatcher.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=612209