Finally !

We had to wait sixty years for the importance of the United Nations Office at Geneva to be recognized. Sixty long years during which the UN staff in Geneva felt humiliated, relegated to second rank, considered as a country bumpkin by his cousins from New York. But from now on, things are going to change because like our kin from overseas we have been bugged.

Some time ago, the fact that our Secretary- General’s telephone was bugged hit the headlines of newspapers worldwide. Well, now we have discovered with some pride that we too are important because some spies hid microphones in the Salon Français, just to listen to you and me. I would very much like to know who these spies are just to thank them.

Is it one of our Member States? I doubt it, because what happens in this room – mainly reserved for video conferences between Geneva and New York – is not really a secret. Journalists? Not likely, because they usually know about things before they even happen. A staff member? Who knows! Somebody like me who really wants recognition, because I have to admit that since the discovery of those microphones even my mother-in-law thinks I’m important.

The other question which I am asking myself is how? How did one person plant microphones in a room which is almost always closed, in a Palais where there is an expensive video surveillance system, with a guard just one floor down, and an imposing checking system at the Palais entrance which only admits people above suspicion.

After careful inquiries, UN Special can inform its readers that if microphones have been hidden in the salon Français it is above all because the fence around the park is not high enough. In the very near future, the walls around the Palais will be so high that we will at last be able to talk in peace, unless of course those walls have ears.

In the meantime, so that nobody intercepts what it says the UN Special team whispers in your ears all its best wishes for 2005. May this new year bring you happiness, joy and good health and why not a promotion!

Editor-in-Chief, Jean Michel Jakobowicz