Monday, October 29, 2007

More on the Steven Schook investigation

Some time ago UN's second in command in Kosovo Steven Schook told the press that he was under investigation by the UN for aggressive behaviour, unprofessionalism, too close ties with some Kosovo Albanian politicians and misconduct with women.

Now Inner City Press - a website that specialises in investigative reporting on the UN - bring some more news on this subject. Schook is closely involved in Kosovo's privatision policy and specially the privatisation of the power plants. According to Inner City Press, he would favor a Czech company with connections to Ceku and a American firm in which William Walker is involved. It looks like Walker is aiming for a reward for helping to start the Kosovo war.

Update 1: on 8 november Inner City Press published an update claiming that the investigation had been widened.

Update 2: On 18 december Balkan Insight reported that Schook will leave. His contract will not be extended after december 31. It will be interesting to see who will succeed him. Somehow these American second men in Kosovo and Bosnia remind me of the Asian republics of the Soviet Union, where the second man was always a Russian who had the real power.

Update 3: Schooks successor has been appointed. It is an American with the name Larry Rossin. According to the article: Rossin, a career officer of the United States Foreign Service, and a former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, served as the Principal Deputy Special Representative for the UN in Kosovo between 2004-2006. He has also served in the UN Mission in Haiti and was a Senior International Coordinator for the 'Save Darfur' Coalition.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

After reading some posts in this blog I came to the conclusion that

a) The author hates Albanians of all the ethnic groups in Balkans.

b) The author believes Albanians are beasts and should be treated like animals.

Where comes all the hate from?

Anonymous said...

I hope you are not mad at me for expressing the opinion above...

Things in Kosovo are in constant change to the better for every one. I hope you can watch this video about Serbs and Albanians working to gather for a better Balkans.

There is enough hate in this world. We need to do something to create more love between people no matter nationalities.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2269297771693533317&hl=en

Wim Roffel said...

"all that hate": I don't hate Albanians. Most Albanians are ok - just like in every other nation. But I think that Kosovo Albanian nationalism has become too aggressive and is hurting the minorities in Kosovo. I am actually in favor of Kosovo's independence, allthough with border changes and better minority rights. And I believe that "supervised" independence will do very little to help the minorities while it will hurt the Albanians. It would be better to guarantee the minority rights in other ways.

Nice video. But it would have been more convincing if those Serbs had been from Kosovo and not from Belgrade.

Anonymous said...

Update #4: Investigations on Schook have been completed and no wrongdoing was found on his part. Perhaps one should look into where these allegations came from and why - it might have suited someone to discredit him at the time when important decisions were being made??? Was there another political agenda???

Wim Roffel said...

"Update #4: Investigations on Schook have been completed and no wrongdoing was found on his part."

Hello anonymous. Can you provide a source for that? I would like to see the exact text.