Thu 4 November, 2004 01:05
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States has asked Secretary-General Kofi Annan to explain why he cleared U.N. refugee chief Ruud Lubbers of sexual harassment charges after a U.N. probe found the complaint valid. The U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services, in a report last week, supported the accusations against Lubbers, a former Dutch prime minister, and recommended "that appropriate actions be taken accordingly." The incident involved a 51-year-old American, who alleged Lubbers groped her as she was leaving his office in Geneva after a meeting late in 2003. The woman's lawyer has said he would appeal Annan's decision. U.S. delegate Tom Repasch told the General Assembly's administrative and budgetary committee that Annan had "decided that the complaints could not be substantiated by the evidence and therefore closed the matter." "The United States would appreciate an explanation from the secretariat on this apparent contradiction," Repasch said on Wednesday. Questioned about the controversy, U.S. Ambassador John Danforth told reporters, "We don't understand the basis for that disjuncture and we would be interested in learning more." Lubbers has denied the allegations and dismissed the watchdog report. "The facts could not be substantiated at all," he told Reuters in New York last week. "I found it a very weak report. U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said that Annan had rejected the OIOS report after seeking his own legal advice. "He did not say there was no evidence. He said he found the allegations unsustainable on a legal basis," Eckhard said. The spokesman revealed last year that Lubbers had donated some $300,000 annually to the refugee agency since he assumed his post in 2001, an amount roughly equivalent to his salary and expenses. Lubbers, who was Dutch Prime Minister from 1982 to 1994, winds up his term at the end of next year as the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The agency has an annual budget of close to $1 billion (540 million pounds) and 6,000 staff in 115 countries to deal with some 17 million refugees around the world. |
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