| That's one. |
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because an official announcement is not expected until Monday, said Carina Perelli was being dismissed from the United Nations.
In August, the United Nations formally accused Perelli of harassing her staff after a four-month review into the claims of an abusive and sexually offensive environment in her division. She was given the opportunity to respond, but her reply was delayed because she was involved in parliamentary elections in Afghanistan in September and Iraq's constitutional referendum in October.
Perelli, a Uruguayan, won wide praise for her work in helping organize elections in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian territories and had been considered one of the young rising stars at the United Nations. But she had been under investigation since April, after a U.N.-commissioned management review quoted staff as saying ``sexual innuendo is part of the `fabric''' of the Electoral Assistance Division which she headed.
The review never named Perelli or anyone else in her office in specific allegations of sexual or professional harassment. But it said staff claimed they were subject to shouting and screaming by superiors, while some junior staff were saddled with work they were not qualified to do.
| Sounds like a fair number of offices across the Western world. |
| Leaving for another job, of course, never occurred to any of them. |
| Ah, there's the line that shouldn't be crossed. |
When the management report was released in late March, Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said Perelli had done ``a terrific job'' on Iraq's elections and was ``a very good servant of the U.N.'' He said he expected ``due process to be followed'' in whatever happened - a point he reiterated recently.