Redaction as a Management Tool :

Redaction as a Management Tool : Author's Name Redacted

As I start to write something on the subject, our TV news feeds are focussing on the Jeffrey Epstein empire and how the rich and famous were specifically targeted and manipulated, and how the weak and vulnerable were 'used'. It's enough to turn one's stomach inside out.

Because there are – allegedly - more than 3 million documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein, and because there has been a theoretical desire to ensure that victims cannot be identified from these documents, teams have been busy redacting names and other data likely to identify such people, from the documents. Their work does not seem to have been universally successful because some names have had to be redacted post publication. The problem also seems to be that some of the redactions appear to be aimed at the rich and famous 'friends' of Epstein.

One can't help but wonder whether this is simply shoddy work or intentional ?

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When I first decided to work for UNICEF, I must have been wet behind the ears because I believed that all UNICEF staff operated within the Mandate and observed formal UN Rules and Regulations. Little did I realise that the great god 'money' tends to make people greedy and that they often would regard the Rules and Regulations as applying to 'others', and not to themselves, irrespective of professional level, whether national staff or expatriates.

In my second posting, I discovered what the results were when the great god 'sex' was allowed free rein. I could have had a lucrative second income writing airport racy-reads about it but, alas, one was not permitted a second income unless explicitly approved by the UN Secretary General. It was in this same posting that I saw how the great god 'greed' also operated.

Writing about these predilections comes with a caveat. Whatever the truth of the matter, one is not permitted to name many of the staff concerned, or the XUNICEF Editors will not place such an article on the blog. While I understand the need to be scrupulous in writing only about the facts, even when I had the proof, I was still barred from exposing corruption or scandal. What were they trying to hide ?

This leads to a further 'problem' when being critical, especially of senior staff at the time I was a staff member. It seemed that there was a coterie within parts of the P5/L1/L2 professional levels where criticism of one of them caused an instant coalescence to keep the coterie intact – irrespective of the logic of the criticism.

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For some odd reason, one of the XUNICEF Editors asked me – out of the blue as I had never met him before – whether I would be willing to submit myself to an interview with 'Communications' about my experiences during my career in UNICEF. Having had some bruising encounters with 'Communications' while working for the agency, I declined the offer indicating that if what I said was having to be filtered by writers specialised in reporting ever improving situations when I knew full well that they were writing fairy stories, I wanted no part of it. If he wanted the unvarnished truth, I possibly could help him, but if one word was changed from what I had written, I would not put my name to it.

There was a delay while he digested this.

He came back finally asking if I had written anything which might be interesting ? Well, as a matter of fact, I was in the process of writing an account of some of my experiences aimed at my grandchildren to tell them that I was a real crazy so that they shouldn't follow in my footsteps. Almost 200 articles later, I find myself wanting to get back to writing for the grandchildren because they can handle facts even if XUNICEF finds it difficult.

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My last posting as a UNICEF staff member was to REDACTED where there was so much to write about that I wrote just one article – not intended for the XUNICEF blog – which was more than 20 pages long, while the vast majority of my articles were 2 or 3 pages long. Every time I re-read that article, I find myself shaking my head because what happened professionally in REDACTED while I was there did next to nothing to further the interests of children. There was a toxic atmosphere for the whole period of that posting.

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For those who might be curious about the last paragraph, it should be noted that the 'REDACTED upheaval' took place at the same time as my posting to REDACTED The 'upheaval' followed the switching of the Representatives in REDACTED and REDACTED, and an audit which identified many participants in the alleged corruption, so a major cleanout occurred. The Regional Director was fired along with about 30 others, which included both of the switched Representatives.

Naturally, as the Regional Director was – theoretically – the supervisor of Representatives in his region, this implied that the REDACTED Representative had no effective supervisor during this period. Small wonder the Rep felt untouchable. One should understand that anybody taking over the role of Regional Director in REDACTED was likely to tread very warily, so that REDACTED was allowed to operate to the whims of its Representative even after a replacement Regional Director had been appointed.

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Wasn't UNICEF all about the welfare of children, rather than creating a 'Lord of the Flies' situation where senior professionals could behave however they felt they could or wished ?

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* REDACTED  is in Witness Protection and cannot be contacted.