Two veteran United Nations employees are being punished by the agency for speaking out against gross abuses by some UN officials who are helping armed rebel groups and weaponizing humanitarian aid to destabilize Ethiopia. Whistleblowers are critical to fighting gross injustices. They are pillars that defend human life and dignity and must be protected!

Maureen Achieng has worked for the UN for nearly three decades and was most recently the UN International Organization for Migration's Chief of Mission to Ethiopia. Dennia Gayle has worked for the UN for 15 years and was most recently the UN Population Fund’s Ethiopia Chief. Both have been recalled from their posts in Addis Ababa and we cannot let this injustice go unchecked for it is a matter of saving innocent lives.

There is a long history of some bad actors within the UN that violate human rights and whistleblowers have been instrumental in exposing them. UN whistleblower Anders Kompass exposed the sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic in 2014. UN’s James Wasserstrom blew the whistle on corruption within UN officials in Kosovo in 2007. In Haiti, more than 100 UN peacekeepers ran a child sex ring over a 10 year period, according to a 2017 AP investigation. Rampant sexual violence by UN peacekeepers in the Congo. The list goes on.

Achieng and Gayle, two devoted employees, were doing their jobs and acting on their conscience when they voiced concern about UN representatives in Ethiopia being sidelined by some UN higher ups who were sympathetic to the TPLF rebels, a group designated by the Ethiopian Government as a terrorist organization. In November the TPLF rebels started a war when they attacked the government’s largest military post killing hundreds of veteran military service members. TPLF has also taken up arms and killed thousands of Ethiopians in the last 11 months. 

There is much evidence that backs the claims of Achieng and Gayle. On October 1, the Ethiopian government expelled 7 UN officials for working with the TPLF armed terrorist group. Government officials say the employees diverted humanitarian aid, communication devices and convoys of nearly 500 aid trucks that were suspected of being used in war offensives by TPLF members. Mid September, UN Ethiopia blew the whistle and said those aid trucks which had entered Tigray starting in mid July had not returned. During those two months, armed TPLF soldiers entered the Amhara and Afar regions of Ethiopia and killed thousands of people including innocent civilians. 

While the UN says it has a whistleblower protection policy, time and time again it has proven it retaliates against those who expose UN officials that abuse their positions and whose actions lead to much suffering and death. This is about humanity. UN must reinstate Maureen Achieng and Dennia Gayle, who work with integrity and whose integrity saves lives! 

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