Ban Should Steer Clear of the Democrats

Envisioned as a meta-governmental institution, the United Nations has always aspired to steer clear of national political campaigns like the American one ending tomorrow. In real life, Turtle Bay's meddling in American politics reached new heights during the last two years of Secretary-General Annan's term in office.

To be blunt, Mr. Annan's team was too closely identified for its own good with the Democratic Party, leading to constant friction with Republican-controlled Washington.

Friends of Mr. Annan, all Democrats, convened to shape Turtle Bay's inner circle in a famously secret meeting in late 2004 at the Manhattan apartment of aspiring Democratic Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke. There, a personal friend and house-tenant of Republican-bashing George Soros, the Briton Mark Malloch Brown, was crowned as Mr. Annan's top aide and de-facto Turtle Bay boss.

A Canadian version of Mr. Soros, the energy tycoon Maurice Strong, who currently operates in China after getting his name dragged into the oil-for-food scandal, also remained influential.

Recently, the United Nations announced that two current officials, Mr. Annan's adviser Robert Orr and chief of staff Alicia Barcena, will join two aides to secretary-general-designate Ban Ki-moon to form a transition team. Ms. Barcena, a Mexican national, is a protégé of Mr. Strong. Mr. Orr is a former official with the Clinton administration who worked under and is close to Mr. Holbrooke.

Naming these two to help reshape Turtle Bay sends the wrong message that influence by outside politicos might continue, concerned U.N. staffers tell me.

It also does not help that the current administration seeks to leave its mark by frantically creating last-minute facts on the ground. According to one plan, the current representative in Beirut, Geir Pedersen, will soon be elevated to oversee the U.N. Lebanon policy; another envisions a new influential political office, the Mediation Support Group, to be created in Oslo before the end of Mr. Annan's term.

U.N. officials have answered critics of Democratic Party influence on Mr. Annan's team by pointing to a Republican, Christopher Burnham, who has recently resigned his post as the top-ranked American at Turtle Bay.

But while Mr. Burnham has run into early trouble by declaring loyalty to America, his job kept him away from world politics. Instead, he doggedly fought internally to clean up U.N. corruption. (Last week's arrest of a procurement department official, Sanjaya Bahel, Mr. Burnham promises, is merely the first falling domino piece.)

By contrast, on the eve of the 2004 presidential election Mr. Annan wrote a letter, which was immediately leaked to the press, warning President Bush's administration against attacking militants in Fallujah. A dramatic illustration of the Turtle Bay-Washington rift on Iraq, the letter's timing was also largely interpreted as an attempt to meddle in the presidential campaign.

It also indicated that the team at the executive 38th floor had placed its bets, gearing itself to improved relations with friendlier President Kerry and Secretary of State Holbrooke. It was, of course, a bad bet that added ammunition to U.N. critics inside the victorious Bush team.

Criticism of meddling in American politics, however, has not stopped Mr. Annan's inner circle, where Mr. Orr is hardly the only adviser to rise from Democratic ranks, and where Mr. Malloch Brown reigns. It soon steeped itself in such issues as the Senate fight over the John Bolton ambassadorial nomination.

The U.N. charter calls on officials, including the secretary-general, to steer away from national politics. A staff rule forbids officials from conducting any political activity that might threaten "the independence and impartiality required by their status as international civil servants."

Mr. Ban would do well to correct a course that got Mr. Annan's aides too close to violating those provisions.

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A personal note:

A certain author I know and like has joined hands with the above aides in a campaign to smear Turtle Bay reporters, including me, questioning my journalistic integrity in a book soon to hit stores. Even after the author's own journalism was exposed as shoddy, forcing him to insert an erratum slip in each of his book's copies, he has chosen to leave intact a disparaging remark about a legitimate question I asked during a press conference.

Perhaps taking a cue from some of his intimate sources on the 38th floor, this author also sought to marginalize The New York Sun by slamming my reporting skills without mentioning my name. I will therefore not help boosting book sales by mentioning his. If interested, readers can find out more here: http://timesonline.typepad.com/un_eyes_only.