GROSS NEGLIGENCE AT THE UN II

LARS HJELMQUIST

In my “testimony” published in the October, 2006 issue of this magazine, I described the lengthy and difficult mission of seeking justice at the United Nations’ “internal justice system.” Well, more than a year has passed and I’m here to report that nothing much has happened since then. The Administrative Tribunal Judgement from January 31, 2005, that ordered the UN Administration : “...to pay all outstanding expenses promptly...” have still not been acted upon. Some of these (medical) expenses dates back to the 1990’s...

Not long ago, the editor of this fine publication asked us to share a funny or absurd UN story. I hope the following account – of what happens when decision-making administrators don’t act responsibly to the integrity of their office and its rules and processes – qualify as being flagrantly absurd.

First, a highly simplified recap : On 17 August 1992, while on mission with UNGCI in northern Iraq, the patrol-vehicle in which I traveled was ambushed. I was hit twice from high-velocity rifle fire. Severely injured, I endured a “medical evacuation” that included ten (10) “stopovers” and a total time of fifty-seven (57) hours between the shooting and initiation of emergency surgery. In the spring of 1996, I was deemed incapacitated for further service with the United Nations and given a full disability pension benefit.

 

A History of Shame
In my fifteen (15) year long struggle with the UN Administration ; they still refuse to owe up to what I have paid for in blood, physical pain, deformity, and psychological trauma. The latest in a long list of benefits that have been denied me over the years is the initiation of the Malicious Acts Insurance Policy.

“17. As for insurance coverage, the United Nations has entered into an agreement with an agency to obtain life/accident insurance from Lloyds of London for staff required to serve at hazardous duty stations. In 1980 the ILO Administrative Tribunal adjudged that international organizations bear responsibility for the assignment or travel of staff members to potentially dangerous areas, and ruled that an employee is not obliged to run abnormal risks for the benefit of his employer, at any rate, unless he/she is given adequate insurance coverage”¹

From what I understand, the above insurance coverage did only apply to a select group of UN employees. It did not apply to the “regular UN worker.” In other words, for someone like myself, it wouldn’t matter how shot up or dead I would be serving the UN in a designated hazardous duty station. My family or I wouldn’t receive a penny. But, then, ten (10) years later there was change :
“Effective 1 January 1990, insurance coverage was obtained on a system-wide basis for those staff members required to work at duty stations which the United Nations Security Coordinator had identified as potentially hazardous.”²

Tragically, there is reason to remind those UN managers accountable for handling the MAIP business, that the Malicious Act already happened out there in the fields of fire. The last thing one needs after being the subject of a malicious act is continued malignancy when coming home. At that point it is painful to watch top bureaucrats screw around with the rules, screwing up your life, sadly, as we shall see, not only with the Staff Rules&Regulations and Appendix D, but also with the MAIP.

After having read the previous quotation, one would think that the following was announced somewhat around the time for implementation – back in 1990 – it was not. The following bulletin is from 9 August 2004: “Payment of insurance proceeds under the malicious acts insurance policy”

The Secretary-General promulgates the following :
The purpose of the present bulletin is to formally advise staff members of the persons to whom the United Nations shall pay the proceeds of the malicious acts insurance policy to compensate for damages suffered by staff members as a result of malicious acts at designated hazardous duty stations.”³

This is how it looks to me :
First, the ILO Admin. Tribunal orders the UN Administration – BY LAW – to protect its staff members sent out in harm’s way with – “adequate insurance coverage.” The Administration delays the implementation of the law to – include all staff members – for another ten (10) years. Then, the UN Administration waits another fourteen (14) years to “formally advise staff members” of the very existence of the law. Why wait all these years to give practical effect to the MAIP ?

Having found out about the existence of the MAIP, I tacked it on to my already existing list of ridiculously delayed and unlawfully denied claims and submitted them to the UN Administration. After a year or so, I got the following response :
“The MAIP claim is twelve years old. The statute of limitations has run out. Why wasn’t the claim filed at the appropriate time?”

Now, have a look at this excerpt from the existing MAIP rules at the appropriate time :
“The policy provides benefits for three main categories of staff. Coverage is automatic. There is no action required on the part of the staff member to activate this policy.”²

“Claims under this policy will be submitted to UNSECOORD by the employing organization and must include the following documentation...”²

The obligation to activate and submit the insurance claim was the UN Administration’s – ENTIRELY. The UN Administration pretended it didn’t know about this. That’s hypocrisy. By now you got to wonder ; who are the Administration interested in protecting – The Private Insurance Company to whom it pay expensive premiums, or, the permanently injured staff member ?

So, I pointed out the above, re-submitted the claim and included the question : How can you ask me to file an insurance claim at an earlier date when you keep the existence of the insurance policy secret ?

Perhaps the most extravagant example of bureaucratic maneuvering in this MAIP scheme came in the revealing response : First, the Administration admitted that an insurance claim should have been submitted on my behalf ten-fifteen (10–15) years ago and compensation should have been paid to me – BACK THEN. Then they claimed that my PHYSICAL INJURIES made up only a fraction of the total loss of function. The greater part of my injuries was PSYCHOLOGICAL.

So, between 1992 and 1995, I go back and forth between Sweden, where I am sent for surgeries, and New York, where I lived and worked before the surgeries. The surgeries are performed on the trunk of my BODY not on my BRAIN. No lobotomy, or otherwise, are ever performed.

I was deemed permanently incapacitated for further UN service because of my physical injuries, although, I was and is suffering from incapacitating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as well. Around this time, 1996, PTSD didn’t quite exist as a disorder, and much less as a disorder of any permanence suffered by UN staff members. According to the Department of Medical Services that is.

Still, ten-fifteen (10–15) years later, when the UN decides its time to pay the money down, the greater part of the permanently incapacitating injuries are psychological ?

In the past, I requested the UN to present a more specific definition of my disabilities. No such information ever materialized. This time around, I demanded the Administration to disclose the secret document that hold mysterious percentages decided by a person – the Medical Director – whose other decisions proved to be wrong – reprehensible in fact – when scrutinized at the Administrative Tribunal in 1998.

Same story, no such document surfaced. Then again, if this mysterious document should suddenly be brought out into the light one of these days, would it really have any legitimacy after all these years ?

Finally, I would like the reader to pay attention to the fact that, every now and then, conspiracy theories actually turn out to be true...

Best Regards

 

References
¹ Draft, June 2006, Manual of the United Nations Human Rights Special Procedures
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/special/docs/Manual_English_23jan.pdf
² Malicious Acts Insurance Policy (Note : This is an early, sort of generic five-page version that predates most of what’s out there. I have the hard copy version only.)
³ United Nations Secretariat, ST /SGB/2004/ 11, Secretary-General’s bulletin 9 August 2004