Lubbers resigns as UN refugee chief; Annan says move is in best interest of UN agency

Ruud Lubbers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, has stepped down from his post amid the persistent controversy over allegations of sexual impropriety – a move that Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed as serving the wider interest of the UN refugee agency.

In a statement issued on Sunday by his spokesman, the Secretary-General thanked Mr. Lubbers for his “commitment” to refugees, but said “It is in the best interest of UNHCR, its staff and the refugees it serves that the page be turned and a new chapter be started.”

When allegations against Mr. Lubbers surfaced last year, he vigorously denied them – a position he has maintained throughout. Speaking to reporters in New York on Friday following a meeting with the Secretary-General, Mr. Lubbers dismissed the accusations as a campaign of slander.

The charges came from a UNHCR staffer who said the 65-year-old former Dutch Prime Minister sexually harassed her during a meeting in December 2003. Referring to that encounter in a statement released after the charges were formally brought the following May, Mr. Lubbers asserted, “There was no improper behaviour on my part."

By July, the Secretary-General had received the results of an investigation against Mr. Lubbers and, after a review, decided that the complaint could not be sustained by the evidence.

“The Secretary-General now considers this matter closed,” a UN spokesman said at the time.

Mr. Annan made his decision based on the report of the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), as well as Mr. Lubbers' response to it.

Today's statement underscored that while the Secretary-General had accepted legal advice that the original allegations made against Mr. Lubbers could not be substantiated, “the continuing controversy has made the High Commissioner's position impossible.”

Mr. Annan “is therefore pleased that Mr. Lubbers has made this decision in the wider interest of UNHCR,” the statement said.

The ninth head of the UN refugee agency since its establishment in 1951, Mr. Lubbers had served as the High Commissioner since 1 January 2001, when he succeeded Sadako Ogata of Japan.