Posted on 10/19/2005 5:02:59 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A United Nations employee whose sexual harassment claims led former refugee chief Ruud Lubbers to resign now alleges that she was the target of retaliation, and plans to sue him and Secretary-General Kofi Annan, she said Wednesday.
Cynthia Brzak, 52, said she hopes her case against Annan and Lubbers, the former prime minister of the Netherlands, will set a precedent example for whistleblowers in the U.N. who believe its internal justice system doesn't protect them against punishment.
"My goal is that I don't think anyone in the world is above the law," Brzak said in an interview with The Associated Press. "If it's the prime minister of the United Kingdom or the president of the United States, nobody's above the law - except in the U.N., they are above the law."
Brzak alleges that in the year and a half since she filed her claims against Lubbers - claims backed by U.N. internal investigators - she has been denied performance evaluations, given an unfair workload and humiliated when Lubbers purportedly disclosed confidential information from her medical file about her and her family.
Officials at the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, where Brzak has worked for 25 years, tried to get her to accept a job in Amman, Jordan, and have denied her a meeting with Lubbers' replacement, Antonio Guterres, she said.
Lubbers, who has denied both the harassment and retaliation claims in the past, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Annan's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said Brzak is on an indefinite contract, and while her job had earlier been considered for cuts, it was not going to be eliminated. He said he would not comment on the lawsuit until it is filed.
"As far as we are concerned, her employment is not in jeopardy, not now, not ever," Dujarric said.
Brzak's case has become a major embarrassment to the United Nations and Annan. It cast a spotlight on the workings of the world body's internal justice system, whose rules for protecting whistleblowers are weak and rarely enforced.
An integrity survey conducted last year revealed widespread disillusionment with the performance of senior managers and displeasure about the lack of a comprehensive whistleblower policy.
Brzak filed a complaint in April, 2004 claiming that at the end of a staff meeting four months before, Lubbers had put his arms around her waist, pulled her back toward him and pressed his groin against her. An investigation by the internal U.N. watchdog backed Brzak's claims and found a pattern of sexual harassment by Lubbers.
Yet Annan rejected the report's conclusions because he said the allegations couldn't be substantiated and refused to fire Lubbers. Lubbers later resigned because of the attention the scandal received.
Brzak's Geneva-based lawyer, Edward Flaherty, filed a request to President Bush on Oct. 4 asking he lift the blanket immunity accorded to the United Nations and the U.N. refugee agency, as well as that of Annan, Lubbers and at least three other current and former U.N. officials.
The United Nations has been drafting a new whistleblower policy in response to concerns its current one is unclear and poorly enforced, and it should be ready by the end of the year.
Who does this Lubbers guy think he is....Bill Clinton?
Just another skeleton in the closet...
And John Kerry still would give deference to these slimeballs.
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