Perelli Firing Ignites Dispute at U.N.
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
UNITED NATIONS – U.N. and American officials were puzzled yesterday at the timing of Secretary-General Annan’s decision to fire Turtle Bay’s most senior elections expert, Carina Perelli, who has been praised for her efforts in Iraq. American ambassador John Bolton said that the move – on the eve of a crucial election in Iraq – once more proved the need for deep reform of the organization.
The decision to fire Ms. Perelli was a result of a year-old complaint by underlings who accused her of management inadequacies. Ms. Perelli’s assistance to Iraqi elections has been praised, by among others, President Bush and the U.N. chief of staff Mark Malloch Brown, who yesterday defended the decision to fire her.
Ms. Perelli, meanwhile, sat at home yesterday, contemplating legal strategy as U.N. officials tried to deliver papers informing her of her termination. She is expected to meet this morning with management chief Christopher Burnham.
“This began last December,” Mr. Bolton told reporters, referring to the Perelli case. Saying he wondered why the decision arrived only now, 10 days before the Iraqi national election, Mr. Bolton said of the U.N. management team, “If you’ve got to make a decision, make it at a time that it doesn’t disrupt your programs.”
Mr. Annan, meanwhile, prepared for a new round of attacks against him yesterday. The congressional Committee on International Relations, headed by Rep. Henry Hyde, a Republican of Illinois, will deliver its much anticipated report tomorrow in Washington. The committee is expected to unseal documents it received from a former investigator, Robert Parton, who resigned from the U.N.-appointed investigating team under Paul Volcker, criticizing its findings as too soft on Mr. Annan.
The most senior official involved in yesterday’s firing, Mr. Brown, acknowledged to staffers during a recent meeting that handling their complaints about alleged sexual harassment and intimidation by Ms. Perelli would be delayed for political reasons. She was “badly needed” and “indispensable,” he explained. No other U.N. official has been willing to go to Iraq to do her work, he said, according to a participant in the closed-door meeting with employees of the political department, where Ms. Perelli worked.
Ms. Perelli learned about her pending dismissal from an Associated Press report over the weekend. The 48-year-old Uruguayan yesterday described herself as a victim of those who are more interested in diplomatic niceties than in results.” I’ve been known to say that there are two U.N.’s: those who wear blue jeans and those in cufflinks,” she told The New York Sun yesterday. “I am the one in blue jeans.”
President Bush cited Ms. Perelli last year in his State of the Union address, praising her role in leading assistance in Iraq’s election. Last month, Ms. Perelli was in Iraq, working with local officials on the referendum vote. One of her underlings, Craig Jeness, is “continuing to lead our efforts” in Iraq, U.N. chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric said yesterday.