FREETOWN (Reuters) – The United Nations was pressured by the president of Sierra Leone to cut short the tour of its mission chief ahead of an election later this year, the envoy said in a letter seen by Reuters yesterday.
Michael von der Schulenburg, who had been expected to stay until next year but has just left, told his headquarters in a Dec 22 letter that the United Nations’ credibility and success story in the West African state risked being undermined if it caved in to “unreasonable and unjustified pressures”.
A spokesman for the United Nations would not comment on the letter while a spokesman for President Ernest Bai Koroma denied he had ever called for the United Nations to withdraw the mission chief.
The election, slated for November, will be a test of what the United Nations has touted as a success story for a reconstruction effort following 11 years of war that ended in 2002.
The removal of the outspoken Schulenburg risks disrupting international oversight of the vote as his replacement will have little time to become established in the local political scene.
“There can be little doubt, that the decision by the President to force my early departure will be seen – rightly or wrongly – by virtually every Sierra Leonean as an effort to remove a potential obstacle to his re-election and as opening the door to manipulating the election outcome in his favour,” Schulenburg wrote in the letter.
“I also feel that we should engage the President directly over his sudden flair of hostility towards me before giving in to his request for my departure,” he added in the letter to Lynn Pascoe, UN undersecretary-general for political affairs.
Schulenburg was expected to run the UN’s Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone until after November’s elections, but left this month.
