Accused Sexual Harasser To Headline Ethics Conference

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October 30, 2006 9:44 AM

A former top United Nations official who allegedly groped and harassed female staffers is the headline speaker at an upcoming international conference on ethics next month.

At least one of the alleged victims of Ruud Lubbers, who is the former High Commissioner for Refugees, is not happy about the choice of Lubbers to lecture others on ethics.

In 2004, an internal U.N. investigation found that Lubbers engaged in "serious acts of misconduct," involving unwanted physical attention of a sexual nature on female staffers indicating a "pattern of sexual harassment."

One female staffer said Lubbers invited her to his home to discuss work with others, but when she arrived, no one else was there. Another claimed that Lubbers invited her to his hotel room, saying he was "feeling lonely."

Lubbers told ABC News last year that the allegations were "simply crap."

Lubbers was named High Commissioner for Refugees, one of the most prominent leadership positions at the U.N., in 2001. In that role, he oversaw a staff of around 6,689 people in 116 countries, serving 20.8 million displaced persons and refugees.

Angelina Jolie, who serves as a goodwill ambassador to the U.N., once refused to be in a room alone with Lubbers, a senior U.N. diplomat told ABC News.

The internal investigation also found that Lubbers intentionally abused his authority by trying to block the investigation. Yet, when the report was delivered to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in June 2004, Annan overruled the findings, saying the charges were "not sustainable." No action was taken against Lubbers, who resigned from his post in February of last year.

One of Lubbers' alleged victims is American Cynthia Brzak, a longtime U.N. employee who is attempting to bring a lawsuit in U.S. courts against Lubbers, Annan and the United Nations. Brzak believes that Lubbers and others at the U.N. should not be protected by diplomatic immunity, and her lawsuit seeks to lift that immunity.

"I honestly see the way being paved for a new law to be passed; it could be the 2009 Diplomatic Immunity Act. It will happen, sooner or later, and I will keep fighting.  Then someday, when it's enacted, we will start holding everyone in the U.N. accountable for their actions," Brzak told ABC News.  "It's important."

In the suit, Brzak claims that following a meeting in 2003 with Lubbers, he "placed his hands on Mrs. Brzak's waist, pulled her back toward him, pushed his groin into her buttocks and held her briefly in that position before releasing her."

Lubbers will headline the conference, which begins in Brussels, Belgium, on Nov. 8. The conference is sponsored by the International Symposium for Human Values, an organization that is closely affiliated with the U.N.

The International Symposium for Human Values has not returned calls seeking comment on the selection of Lubbers as a speaker.