‘Name That School’

In a February 2nd letter, [“Name That School”], Mr. Jeff Benkoe disputes my claim that there is no school named for George Washington in New York City.

I hate to be the bearer of what will certainly be heartbreaking news to Mr. Benkoe and other alumni of George Washington High, but their school no longer exists. It has been divided into four smaller schools, none of them named for the first president.

If he still has his doubts, I would suggest he visit the Department of Education website (nycenet.edu) and give their Find A School search engine a try. He will come up blank.

The Bloomberg administration, in my opinion, gets high grades on most fronts, including education. But its appreciation for Gotham’s long and consequential history, well, “Needs improvement.”

MICHAEL MISCIONE
Manhattan

‘No Pleasant Reading’

The New York Sun editorial “No Pleasant Reading” [February 4, 2005] gives a misleading impression of the press conference given last week by Mark Malloch Brown, Kofi Annan’s new chief of staff, in response to the interim report of the Volcker inquiry into the U.N.’s oil-for-food program in Iraq.

Mr. Malloch Brown was not seeking to belittle the gravity of the inquiry’s findings or to deny the Secretariat’s responsibility. On the contrary, both he and Mr. Annan take these findings very seriously and are determined to make whatever changes are necessary to ensure that such failures are not repeated in any other U.N. program, present or future.

The Secretary-General has already initiated disciplinary action against Mr. Sevan. Mr. Annan has also said, many times, that he would waive the diplomatic immunity of any UN official who faces criminal charges on the basis of the inquiry’s findings. So far no criminal charges have been brought against Mr. Sevan; and the report, while criticizing him in the strongest terms for unethical conduct and breaches of the UN Charter, rules and regulations, does not contain proof that he has committed a crime. It does say, however, that the inquiry committee “continues to investigate.”

The findings in the report about the procurement process by which contracts were awarded in 1996 to a French bank and two inspection companies (one British, one Dutch), are of a different order. Here too, it appears that UN officials broke rules – and one of them is also now the subject of disciplinary action as a result. The suggestion is, however, that they did so not for motives of personal gain, but rather in obedience to political pressures from members of the Security Council. This was what Mr. Malloch Brown was referring to when he described the report as “a critique of the politicization of decision making in this institution.”

Edward Mortimer
Director of Communications
Office of the Secretary-General
United Nations Manhattan

‘Denying Terrorism’

Re: “Denying terrorism,” Daniel Pipes, Foreign, February 8, 2005. Certainly the connection to terrorism in all these crimes is present and certainly the authorities would be well advised to have looked further in every case.

But there are at least two more recent cases that still urgently need the attention of law enforcement and government officials – both in France.

Sebastian Sellam, 23, was a popular disc jockey at a hot Parisian nightclub called Queen. At about 11:45 p.m. on Wednesday November 19, the young man known as D.J. Lam C left his parents’ apartment in a modest building in Paris’ 10th arrondissement for work. In its underground parking lot, a Muslim neighbor slit Sellam’s throat twice and completely mutilated his face with a fork. Even his eyes were gouged out. The family has sought legal assistance to force prosecutors to pursue the investigation, but to no avail. The assailant – who mounted the stairs following his crime and announced to Sellam’s horrified mother, “I have killed my Jew. I will go to heaven” – has been hospitalized for mental illness, and will apparently never stand trial.

Within the previous year, Sellam’s mother said, the family found a dead rooster outside their apartment door with its throat slit, and their Jewish Mezuzah was ripped from their door post. Leaving dead roosters is a traditional Islamic warning of impending murder.

Earlier that evening, another gruesome murder, also allegedly committed by a Muslim, occurred. Chantal Piekolek, 53, was working in her Avenue de Clichy shoe store when Mohamed Ghrib, 37, stabbed her 27 times in the neck and chest. Piekolek’s 10-year-old daughter hid in the storeroom behind the shop with a girlfriend and heard the entire crime.

French officials, if they were serious about either terrorism or anti-Semitism, would investigate and fully prosecute both anti-Semitic crimes.

ALYSSA A. LAPPEN
Brooklyn

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