UN’s Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization Reaches Epitome in Human Rights Abuse
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/16059The United Nations Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization is bad for its employees’ health.
Headquartered in Vienna, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, which bears a typically hard to remember United Nations-style name, flies well below the radar screen. The organization’s equally difficult to remember short form, CNTBTO is a mouthful.
CNTBO is where British nuclear expert Dr. Timothy Hampton plunged 120 feet to his death from the 17th floor of the UN’s building in Vienna, Tuesday.
The nuclear expert fell to his death one day before talks with Iran were to begin. Hampton’s death is being investigated by police as both a possible suicide or murder.
Four months ago another UN worker, believed to be British, fell from the same building.
“This has nothing to do with the Iran talks,” Public Information Officer Kirsten Haupt told Canada Free Press (CFP) on the telephone from Vienna this morning. CFP had not raised the issue of the Iran talks but wanted to ask CTBTO Executive Secretary Tibor Toht about the physical safety of the 300-plus employees for whom he is responsible.
“There has been an incident; no suspicious circumstances were involved,” Haupt told CFP adding that the organization was at this time “protecting the privacy of the (Hampton) family”.
Staff at the long beleaguered organization was to raise ongoing issues of alleged racism, sexism, favoritism, job insecurity and an indifference from management they claim is getting worse as the CTBT Entry into Force becomes the focus in 2010, at a specially scheduled meeting today.
Peace at work, United Nations style.
“The U.N. administrative office has operated in Vienna for five years, gathering data and establishing an elaborate system of 337 sensors around the world designed to measure and verify the test ban if the treaty ever enters into force.” (Reuters, March 8, 2002). “China, Iran and several other countries have expressed dismay at being asked to commit millions of dollars to the monitoring operation when it was unclear when—or if—the treaty might actually take effect.
“The CTBT, banning all nuclear blasts in the atmosphere, in space and underground, has been signed by 165 states. Of those 89 have ratified it.
“The United States, the leading nuclear power, dealt a stinging blow to the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or CTBT, when the Senate refused to ratify it in 2000.
“Since then, President Bush has reiterated his firm opposition to the treaty, although his administration has pledged to continue paying most, but not all, of the million annual U.S. share of the CTBT organization costs.”
Before British nuclear experts “falling to their deaths” at CTBTO became news, the organization was arguably best known for being on vacation rather than on watch during the critical warning period when Dec. 26, 2005’s devastating tsunami hit South Asia.
“Early on Sunday morning, powerful computers in a Vienna office building received seismic data on the earthquake that spawned the devastating tsunamis across South Asia—information that might have saved lives in the hours between the quake and the waves hitting the coasts of Sri Lanka, India and several other countries,” the International Herald Tribune reported.
“The life-saving data streaming into the computers of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization was for naught.” (Canada Free Press, Jan. 6, 2005). “The 300-plus staff manning the computers was on vacation until Jan. 4.”
According to the Tribune, “The organization itself is still nothing more than a nascent group of seismic experts and bureaucrats who await signature or ratification on the test ban treaty from 11 more countries before they can officially act.
“Home of the Seismic Sensor, the organization employs a vast network of scientific equipment set up to monitor nuclear explosions.”
Literally asleep-away-from-the-switch when the earthquake was fomenting, it seems that some CNTBTO staff has been on permanent vacation since setting up office.
Alarm bells should have been ringing long before the Dec. 26, 2004 Nobody Home news wake up call.
As CFP had reported, “Stony silence has been the response to staff members who have been trying to flag the world media about the longstanding crisis at the multi-million dollar budgeted international Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization.
“The On-Site Inspection (OSI) Division is still in operation, although it does nothing useful except for providing employment and benefits to a group of aging bureaucrats who spend most of their office time smoking and drinking coffee on the 4th and 7th floor bars at the Vienna International Center (VIC).
“Since there is no time registering system for professional staff, they are free to come in to the office whenever they want. In fact, most senior professional staff members come to the office only to check email and surf the Internet,” concerned staff members wrote in a 2004 letter to CFP.
Most senior employees hired by the organization earn in excess of US$100,000 annually—and typically UN, this income is tax-free. Senior employees also receive rental subsidies and several other perks.
In the conditions in which Dr. Hampton was forced to work, his death could have been suicide or murder.
Largely ignored by the mainstream media, the Loosey Goosey way the CNTBTO is run has now reached the epitome in human rights abuse.
Note to file: CNTBTO is a child of the United Nations, to which President Barack Obama wants to cede American sovereignty in December.
Update:
Brit UN nuclear expert may have been murdered, police say
By Thomas Hochwarter
A British nuclear energy expert who plunged 40 metres to his death at the United Nations’ (UN) building in Vienna may have been murdered, police said today (Thurs).
Timothy Hampton died on the spot on Tuesday after falling from a 17th floor window at the Vienna International Centre (VIC) - one of the UN’s three headquarters.
The UN confirmed the death of the 47-year-old – who was involved in disarmament negotiations with Iran as a member of the UN’s Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) – but refused to give any further information on the circumstances of the fatality.
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