Дирижирана медийна атака се разрази през последните часове, след като стана ясно, че кинорежисьорът Евгений Михайлов е изпратил писмо срещу кандидатурата на Ирина Бокова за генерален директор на ООН до всички страни-членки на ЮНЕСКО, до Съвета за сигурност на ООН, до посолства и международни организации. Манипулативно в някои медии се твърди, че писмото е пуснато от името на "Движение 22 септември", в което членуват общественици и интелектуалци като Йордан Василев, Теодора Димова, Едвин Сугарев, д-р Любомир Канов, композиторът Александър Кипров, д-р Георги Боздуганов и др. 

Михайлов е категоричен, че писмото е подписано лично от него и по никакъв начин не обвързва политическата формация. Към писмото на кинорежисьора са прикрепени и цитирани и разследвания за Ирина Бокова, публикувани от авторитетни световни издания.

В текста се казва (виж по-долу превод на писмото на кинорежисьора и линкове с цитираните статии, б.р.): „номинацията на г-жа Бокова оставя собствената й страна разделена и слисана. Номинацията беше дълбоко спорна, българското правителство беше принудено да я номинира от крайно лява коалиционна партия, която заплаши, че ще го свали. Народната подкрепа за кандидатурата й на практика не съществува“.

Изпращането на писмото стана повод за яростна и организирана атака в родни медии, свързани със задкулисието. Те обвиняват Михайлов, че е клеветник и в критичен момент за избора на нов шеф на ООН е пуснал компромата срещу българката. В атаката срещу Михайлов и в подкрепа на Бокова са се включили и държавници и общественици, някои от тях 

свързани с ДС и комунистическата номенклатура 

като Георги Първанов, Божидар Димитров, Андрей Райчев, Иван Гранитски, Кристиян Вигенин, Вежди Рашидов, Тодор Чобанов и др. Те определят правото на лична позиция на Михайлов като „език на омразата“, „падение“, „гнусно е“, „стига доноси“ и т.н. Михайлов е обвинен и че говори от името на българския народ, който реално стоял зад Бокова. Факт е обаче, че точно тази група хора от две години се опитват да манипулират обществото, че Бокова е единствената и незаменима кандидатура, и също говорят от името на цялото общество. Крайно полярните обществени мнения през последните години, са показателни, че Бокова съвсем не е кандидатура на всички българи.

Михайлов е обруган, но критиците му не казват и дума за публикациите и разследванията на световни медии. Мълчат и по темата 

какво е направила за България Бокова

Пред Faktor.bg Eвгений Михайлов коментира организираната срещу него кампания и поводът да изпрати това писмо: „Изумен съм колко организирано Петата колона на Кремъл се нахвърли срещу едно писмо на някакъв си режисьор, бивш български народен представител и скочи в защита на кандидатката си Ирина Бокова.

Но явно ги е заболяло не толкова от писмото, колкото от приложените извадки от водещи световни медии, които за разлика от българските официози не крият истината за дейността на другарката Бокова. Да, много ги е жегнало, че е изпратен документ с цитати на разследващите статии, и това е главното.

Но пък е забавно да видиш извикани под тревога и строени на амбразурата редом толкова агенти на ДС и храненици на номенклатурния апарат на БКП.

Смятам, че е морално задължение на всеки български патриот към света да се даде вярна информация и да не заразяваме международни постове и институции с кандидати, дължащи се на несъстоялата се лустрация в България.

И да напомня на "другарите", които се строяват за поход към Бузлуджа, че в България комунистическия режим на "любимата им партия" още през 2000 г. е обявен за престъпен със закон на българското народно събрание ...

Виноват! Поемам вината. Но само с мезетата. (по боковски)“.

Същевременно в социалната мрежа, с няколко стотин постове на българи от цял свят се обявяват в подкрепа на писмото на Михайлов. Ето някои от по-интересните коментари:

Даниела Горчева, Холадния, издател на списание „Диалог“:

 "Срамно и унизително е комунистическата номенклатура да се пребоядисва и да се преструва. Срамно и унизително е дъщерите на комунистически престъпници, ползвали привилегиите на бащите си, за да рушат демокрацията, днес да се пишат първи демократки. Срамно и унизително е комунисти безсрамно да лъжат, че са други. Прав е Евгений Михайлов да ги разобличава."

Катя Стоянова: "Браво Евгений! Адмирации! Един почтен човек да се изправи срещу чудовищното безсрамие на Ирина Бокова. Тази нагла жена си нае с парите на данъкоплатците цял антураж от доносници от комунистическата Държавна сигурност да ѝ правят кампанията, президентът и премиерът обаче изобщо не се притесняват от това. Изпитвам искрена погнуса и неприязън към тези хора, припознаващи авторитет в човек, на който му липсва съзнание."

Милен Радев, Германия, публицист и преводач, издател на „Де зората“:

 "Изумително гнусно антрефиле в 24часа. Браво Евгений, свалям ти шапка!

Върхът на безсилието на московските ратаи от 24часа - гротескен защитен гамбит на Боковица:

"В България я подкрепят хора като Соломон Паси, Вежди Рашидов, Стефан Данаилов, Стефан Воденичаров, Андрей Райчев, всички български творчески съюзи..."

Александър Йорданов, бивш председател на Народното събрание:

 "Писмото казва истината. Ние не сме путинисти, че да крием истината! Ние сме българи и не друг, а Левски е казал, че трябва да си казваме кривиците, ако искаме да продължим заедно нататък. Евгени просто е посочил кривиците на Бокова, за да не излезе сетне, че не сме казали, че сме увъртали, че сме лъгали света, както Путин днес увърта и лъже – и за Крим и за урината на "непобедимите" руски спортисти."

Д-р Лолита Николова, САЩ, Солт Лейк Сити: 

"Велик български герой! Всяка дума в неговото писмо е написана със сърцето и болката на всички честни българи у нас и по света!

Предател не може да е човек, който пише истината! ПРЕДАТЕЛИ СА КОМУНИСТИТЕ! Българите се делят на българи и комунисти! Да поздравим Евгений за ума, мъдростта и патриотизма. Той и всички като него вдъхват надежда, че комунизмът ще се изкорени у нас и по света като най-отвратителния бурен в човешката история! Отровата за комунизма са хуманизмът и истината. Колко настръхнаха! Явно Бокова наистина вместо да си гледа работата в ЮНЕСКО се занимава само с интриги и подкупи в Ню Йорк!

БРАВО, ЕВГЕНИЙ! ИСТИНСКИ БЪЛГАРИН!"

Д-р Георги Боздуганов, изследовател на митовете в историята:

 "Браво Евгени! Любимата на Путин не може да представя нашата България!"

Алекс Нюман, журналист в “Ню Америкън“: "Невероятно е за мен, че някои медии и личности атакуват г-н Михайлов за откровеното писмо, в което излага важни факти, насочващи вниманието на дипломатите в ООН. В него няма никакво предателство към България, по-скоро г-н Михайлов прави голяма услуга не само на България и българския народ, но и на цялото човечество. Смущаващата биография на Ирина Бокова, включително нейният комунистически произход и нарастващ брой обвинения в корупция, са вече известни за хората по целия свят. Аз съм съвсем сигурен, че Бокова не е лицето, което българите искат да представлява родината им на международната сцена. Поздравления за г-н Михайлов за неговата кауза да служи на истината, на своите сънародници и човечеството. Жалко за тези, които го атакува за това, че казва истината."

Алекс Алексиев, анализатор, син на убития от комунистите български интелектуалец Райко Алексиев:

„Това писмо на Михайлов е доблестна постъпка. То не е донос, а гражданска позиция на свободен човек. Хората, които скачат срещу Михайлов са същите, които искаха да заличат България от картата на света по времето на Тодор Живков. Един честен човек би следвало да се разграничи от злото, а Бокова не само че не го направи, но и цялата и кариера е изградена върху него. Тя е позор за България". 
 .

Ето и превод на писмото на Евгений Михайлов:

На вниманието на Н.П. Посланика

Драги г-не/г-жо,

Позволяваме си да се обърнем към вас по много тревожен въпрос.

Може би сте информирани, че международни и български медии публикуваха множество разследващи репортажи за Ирина Бокова, генерален директор на ЮНЕСКО и настоящ кандидат за генерален секретар на ООН.

Бихме искали да насочим вниманието ви към разкритията в тези репортажи, които са напълно подкрепени с факти и документи и представят само солидни доказателства. Разкритията се отнасят до комунистическото минало на госпожа Бокова, нейната липса на личен интегритет, нейното унищожително управление на ЮНЕСКО и съмнителни практики на всички нива. Тези разкрития предизвикват голяма загриженост у нас и ни карат да представим публикациите на вашето внимание.

Бихме искали да добавим, че номинацията на г-жа Бокова оставя собствената й страна потресена и разделена. Номинацията й беше крайно спорна, българското правителство беше принудено да я номинира от крайно лява коалиционна партия, която заплаши, че ще го свали. Обществена подкрепа за кандидатурата й на практика не съществува.

Прилагаме някои от най-значителните разследващи публикации с най-важните извадки от всяка статия. Списъкът на статиите включва медиите, които са ги публикували и линкове към всяка публикация.

Това писмо и приложението към него са изпратени на вниманието на всички постоянни и непостоянни страни-членки на Съвета за сигурност, както и до 58-те членки на Изпълнителното бюро на ЮНЕСКО.

Моля не се колебайте да се свържете с нас, ако ви е необходима допълнителна информация.

С уважение,

Евгений Михайлов

Бивш народен представител в Българското Народно Събрание

Съосновател на Политическо движение 22 септември- Независимост

Списък със световни медии и цитати от техни публикации и разследвания за Ирина Бокова, приложени към писмото на Михайлов:

1.

Die Welt, Germany

http://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article15029674...

Frontrunner for top UN job exaggerates biography

Stefanie Bolzen

23 December, 2015

Director-General of Unesco Irina Bokova claims she was a Foreign Minister of Bulgaria

Unesco’s Director General Irina Bokova, a candidate to become the UN’s next Secretary General in 2016, has exaggerated her past by claiming wrongly she was a Foreign Minister of Bulgaria.

A front-runner for the succession of Ban Ki-moon as head of the United Nations has exaggerated her official biography to claim she was Foreign Minister of Bulgaria in 1996/1997. She is currently heading Unesco, the UN's organisation for education, science and culture.

According to an investigation by "Die Welt", the 63 year old never held this post in her home country. Official statements both by the Bulgarian parliament and the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign affairs confirm that the Bulgarian parliament never approved Bokova to become Foreign Minister.

"Ms. Irina Bokova has not been voted for minister of foreign affairs by the Bulgarian parliament, as stipulated by the Constitution. From a legal point of view Ms Irina Bokova has been 'acting minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria' and she should not be entitled otherwise", says the statement of the Foreign Ministry in Sofia. The official list by the Foreign Ministry does not name Bokova as an office holder.

"Bokova never was Foreign Minister"

… Stoyan Stalev, formerly Bulgaria's Ambassador in Bonn, declared on request of "Die Welt": "Irina Bokova never was Foreign Minister."

Bokova's Unesco office thanked "Die Welt" for the email "by which you alert us about a lapse in the CV of the Director-General". The CV is an official document and had been published when Bokova started office back in 2009. According to her office "Irina Bokova acted as Foreign Minister ad interim from August 96 to March 97". Following questions from "Die Welt", the document on the Unesco website was subsequently amended, including the abbreviation "a.i." to indicate that her post was ad interim.

2. Wall Street Journal

http://www.wsj.com/articles/clintons-u-n-candidate...

Clinton’s U.N. Candidate?

Feb. 8, 2016

Ms. Bokova deserves more scrutiny, not least because of her record at Unesco. Long-time Journal readers will recall that the U.S. withdrew from Unesco in 1984 after years of anti-American agitation. The U.S. rejoined in 2003 saying the agency had reformed.

But in 2011 under Ms. Bokova, Unesco tried to make an end run around the Middle East peace process by admitting the Palestinian Authority as a member state despite U.S. objections. Mrs. Clinton’s State Department was then forced by U.S. law to cut off the roughly $80 million in annual U.S. funding for Unesco.

Ms. Bokova was an active member of the Bulgarian Communist Party in the Cold War era, and her father edited the Party’s house organ. She graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1976 when talented students were dispatched to the institute to become good Communist diplomats. And she remained a member of the Communist Party until it changed its name to the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

It’s true that the Cold War ended long ago, and many former Communists in the former Warsaw Pact have become democrats in good standing. But authoritarians are again on the march in the world, Mr. Putin chief among them. As U.N. Secretary-General, Ms. Bokova would have global influence and could create trouble for the U.S.

The U.S. role is crucial here. No Secretary-General is likely to be approved if America is actively opposed. Mr. Obama is leaving town in 11 months, and the next President will need a U.N. leader who isn’t hostile to American interests. We’d like to know where Mrs. Clinton stands on Ms. Bokova’s candidacy, and the House and Senate may want to examine her record in Bulgaria and at Unesco.

3. Daily Mail, UK

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3536896/Pu...

12 April, 2016

Putin ally in UNESCO crony row is favourite to take top job at United Nations when Ban Ki-moon steps down at the end of this year

12 April 2016

Irina Bokova hopes to succeed Ban Ki-moon when he steps down at the end of this year.

However the Daily Mail has obtained secret documents reflecting grave concern about her capacity to handle such an important job. British diplomats even demanded a fraud inquiry after the 63-year-old Unesco chief tried to install an alleged crony as a deputy.

Leaked minutes of a private session of the Unesco board reveal Mrs Bokova's decision to make Ana Luiza Thompson-Flores, an 'under-qualified' Brazilian civil servant, her assistant director-general for strategic planning. Critics viewed it as a ploy to secure Brazilian support for Mrs Bokova's campaign for the UN job.

UNESCO diplomat cited: 'My colleagues have never seen such a damning indictment of a human resources department as that made by our external auditor.'

Embarrassingly Mrs Bokova was recently forced to correct a ‘mistake’ on her own CV - published on Unesco’s website for six years - falsely claiming she was Bulgaria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1995 to 1997. In fact she had been only ‘acting’ foreign minister for just a few months.

A 'value for money review' of British taxpayers' cash given to Unesco - due to be published soon by the Department for International Development - is understood to be highly critical of Mrs Bokova's organisation.

When he was International Development Secretary, in 2011, Andrew Mitchell threatened to axe Britain’s £12million annual handout to Unesco, and last night a source close to Mr Mitchell said: ‘He met Bokova in Paris. She was an old-fashioned communist – someone very, very unenterprising who expected to be given a lot of money to spend however she liked.

‘He told her, “I’m terribly sorry, you are not getting any money out of the British taxpayer because you are useless and Unesco is funding a lot of stupid things”.

Among the organisation’s controversial handouts – such as sending funds to kleptocratic African rulers – it came in for heavy criticism in 2010 for announcing an international prize in the name of Equatorial Guinea’s brutal dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who encourages rumours that he eats the flesh of his enemies.

Mrs Bokova also courted controversy when she appointed to the role of ‘Unesco goodwill ambassador’ the First Lady of Azerbaijan – the 51-year-old wife of tyrant president Ilham Aliye, whose dictatorial regime has tortured protesters, rigged elections and thrown political opponents in jail.

Unlike Unesco’s dire finances – she lost 22 per cent of the organisation’s budget when the United States withdrew funding in protest at her recognising the state of Palestine – Mrs Bokova’s personal wealth seems in great shape.

In 2012 and 2014, she bought two Manhattan apartments for $2.4million (£1.5million) in cash, and her son Pavel managed to pay off a £540,000 mortgage on a third apartment in just four years.

4. Foreign Policy, USA

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/13/auditioning-fo...

Auditioning for the Job of U.N. Secretary-General

For the first time in 70 years, candidates for the world's top diplomatic job have to explain why they deserve it.

BY COLUM LYNCH, April 13, 2016

But even just the first round of questioning set off a whiff of controversy with revelations that one of the candidates, Irina Bokova, a former Bulgarian politician who serves as director general of UNESCO, improperly hired a Brazilian national for a high-level post at the Paris-based agency for which she was unqualified.

A Security Council diplomat familiar with the investigation confirmed key elements of the report to Foreign Policy, and said the inquiry “found some wrongdoing and some lax implementation of regulations.” The Brazilian official was moved to a different job at UNESCO, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the inquiry publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

It remains unclear whether Bokova can survive the campaign for the top U.N. job, given London’s concerns about her judgment. As a permanent member of the Security Council, Britain wields the veto power, giving its opinion greater weight than the vast majority of other U.N. members participating in this week’s campaign.

5. NRC Handelsblad, The Netherlands http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2016/06/09/gezocht-vn-ba...

Wanted: UN boss from Eastern Europe

Ban-Ki Moon’s Successor: The ailing campaign of Bulgarian favorite Irina Bokova reduces the chances of a Secretary General from the region.

Roeland Termote, June 9, 2016

Experts on the United Nations had predicted the successor to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who will retire the end of 2016, will be a woman from Eastern Europe. The selection of the world's top diplomat in the past has always been a man, and Eastern Europe is the only one of the five geographical groups in the UN that has never held the post.

But after several candidates presented their visions to representatives of Member States on Tuesday evening in New York, that conclusion came into question. According to press leaks, the United Kingdom, a P5 member, is decidedly negative about the Eastern European candidate list. Emblematic of the ailing campaign is the initial favorite from the region: Irina Bokova, the Bulgarian chief of UNESCO. The former Socialist politician and daughter of a prominent Bulgarian Communist who studied in Russia and the United States, “arouses concerns that she is too close to Moscow”, according to UN expert Richard Gowan.

But her trump card, her alleged competence as leader of a UN organization is also under the magnifying glass. Bokova has not excelled in administration. Member States were disgruntled when her office suddenly announced it would rearrange millions in the budget without consulting them, according to insiders. Recruitment of senior positions has also led to internal unrest.

Documents that were leaked to the Bulgarian research site Bivol.bg - whose authenticity was confirmed to the NRC by sources within UNESCO – show how Bokova promoted a colleague to be both head of human resources and head of budget policy (Assistant Director-General for Strategic Planning), despite her limited qualifications and the fact that she incorrectly claimed to have an MBA degree. Internal research showed that the woman herself helped write both job descriptions. To remedy the fact that she did not have the required diploma, Bokova’s office lowered the requirements. Internal documents seen by this newspaper show that despite these violations Bokova did not fire the employee, but opted for demotion with an internal transfer.

The case is typical of her style, say UNESCO insiders. “She has struggled to operate transparently and surrounds herself only with people she trusts,” says one of them.

6. New American, USA

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/it...

18 July 2016, Written by Alex Newman

In Bid for Power, UN Communist Offers Obama a UN “Peace” Prize

In a major embarrassment for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), its chief, and the UN more broadly, a controversial UNESCO “peace” prize named after an African dictator was awarded to President Barack Obama in what insiders say is just the latest instance of corruption at the scandal-plagued UN agency. It seems that the selection of Obama for the “Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize” was actually an underhanded effort to purchase the administration's support for UNESCO chief Irina Bokova (shown) in her ongoing bid for the position of UN Secretary-General. However, for obvious reasons, Obama has still not accepted the award, forcing UNESCO to scramble in its efforts to scrub all references to this year's winner of the UNESCO prize (not to be confused with the now widely ridiculed Nobel Peace Prize, which Obama also won).

It is not the first time that Bokova, a known Bulgarian communist currently embroiled in numerous corruption scandals, has abused her position at the UN agency to push her candidacy to lead the UN by cozying up to decision-makers among the five permanent Security Council members (the governments of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Communist China).

New American

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/item/2345...

21 June 2016, Alex Newman

Corrupt Communist Leads Race for UN Boss

The next United Nations chief may be an unapologetic communist who served a savage dictatorship that murdered hundreds of thousands of people and tortured even more. Her name is Irina Bokova (shown). And thanks to a slick public-relations operation and a team of “former” communist spies running her campaign, there is reportedly a good chance that the Bulgarian Communist Party operative could end up as UN boss in 2017 when current Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s term expires.

One analyst with Bulgarian roots who has followed the issue closely is journalist and scholar Tatiana Christy, former managing editor at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology & Policy at Boston University, explained to The New American what was going on: “Bokova is a pure product of the communist nomenclatura — propelled by her privileged ancestry during communism and later by her former communist connections to top diplomatic posts,” Christy continued, calling it a “disgrace” and an “obscene offense” to victims of the communist regime that Bokova was being considered for the UN post. “She comes straight out of a political strata responsible for the horrors of the communist regime in her country. People like Bokova never saw a competition for her appointments at home because outsiders would not have been allowed to even approach those political circles. Her entire political career is a result of her membership in the Bulgarian Socialist Party (the former Communist Party) behind whose agenda she stood all her life.”

The evidence suggests Bokova’s intimate links to the communist system and its former operatives in Bulgaria remain as active as ever. Indeed, her campaign team for the top UN post, for example, is literally dominated by “former” spies for what became known, for good reason, as the “little KGB,” the secret “State Security” police of the mass-murdering regime that enslaved Bulgaria for generations and massacred hundreds of thousands of victims.

This spring, when authorities in Bulgaria unveiled the official campaign committee, the names sent shock waves through Bulgaria. The official campaign team is dominated by known communist agents, who were exposed in declassified government documents.. Indeed, even the chief of the campaign team is a prominent former spy for the Soviet-backed regime - the former New York-based communist spy leading Bokova’s UN election campaign, Rajko Rajchev.

In addition to his job as Bokova’s UN campaign chief, Rajchev is director-general of “Global Issues” at the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which organized the campaign team. If and when Bokova takes the top spot at the UN, Rajchev is certain to play a key role in her administration. But Rajchev is hardly the only “former” communist security operative to run “former” communist Bokova’s campaign to lead the UN. Another seven members of Bokova’s UN election committee, at least, are also reported to be ex-spies for the communist regime’s “state security” apparatus. In a post headlined “Outrageous! Seven team members working for Bokova — State Security agents,” Bulgarian media outlet Faktor.bg slammed the developments. “The metastasis of the communist secret services in the Foreign Ministry is intact, casting a dark stain on Bulgaria,” it said. The whole team orchestrating Bokova’s candidacy is “full of Chekists — the faithful guardians of the totalitarian communist regime in Bulgaria,” the report added.

7. Foreign Policy Journal, USA

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/05/20/sta...

State Lawmakers’ support for Azerbaijan Encouraged Last Month’s Anti-Armenian War Crimes

Senator Bill Barton

May 20, 2016

Some support for Azerbaijan is outright outrageous. Aliyev also has international loyalists, such as UNESCO’s corrupt chief and UN Secretary General candidate Irina Bokova, who has accepted generous donations from Azerbaijan’s bloody dictator then allowed him to use UNESCO platforms to spread propaganda.

8. Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/letters-to-the-...

July 19, 2016

Bulgaria’s Bokova troubling

In her July 18 piece, “Woman could be spark the U.N. needs” columnist Trudy Rubin did a tremendous disservice to readers by promoting the candidacy of Bulgarian Irina Bokova.

Rubin failed to provide any information on Bokova’s troubling background.

The first thing that needs to be understood about Bokova is that she is a Communist whose father served as chief editor of the Bulgarian Communist Party’s official propaganda organ.

This brutal party, of which Bokova has been a member since her youth, even after its rebranding as the Bulgarian Socialist Party, oversaw the murder of more than 222,000 victims, according R.J. Rummel’s “Statistics of Democide: Genocide and mass murder since 1900.”

Making matters even worse, Bokova's campaign team is dominated by former agents of the ostensibly defunct communist Bulgarian regime's “security” service.

This is well-known in Bulgaria and should have been disclosed to readers.

The column also failed to mention that Bokova is embroiled in serious scandals, including troubling questions raised about luxury properties she owns in London, New York, Paris and beyond. Her tax-funded salary, combined with her husband’s, does not explain this.

BUDDY NEWMAN, CORAL GABLES

Below follow articles published by the Bulgarian anti-corruption investigative site, Bivol. These and several other articles on the same topic, as well as images of all supporting documents, are at: https://bivol.bg/en/

1.

https://bivol.bg/en/bulgarian-un-candidate-owns-es...

Bulgarian UNESCO Chief and Her Family Own Manhattan Property Worth More Than USD 3 Million

January 9, 2016

Unlike UNESCO’s finances, the personal finances of Ms. Bokova’s family are in a brilliant shape – from 2011 to date. This was revealed by an inquiry of Bivol in the public property register of New York.

She has acquired two apartments in Manhattan for $ 2.4 million paid in cash. Her son from a first marriage has managed to repay a mortgage in the amount of $870,000 in just four years. Irina Bokova acquired her first apartment in Manhattan, New York, on November 6, 2012. The price, paid in cash (there are no records of a mortgage or installments), was $1,189,438. Bokova’s son Pavel Kolarov is listed as a proxy in the transaction and she has indicated his address as her permanent address in New York, despite the fact that at that time Irina Bokova officially resided in Paris.

The second apartment, which the family acquired against $1.225 million, is on 2nd Avenue and 53rd Street. The purchase took place on April 3, 2014.

Kolarov, himself, obtained on December 5, 2008, a mortgage in the amount of $870,000 and used it to purchase an apartment near 5th Avenue. At that time Bokova was already elected to lead UNESCO and was to take office on January 1, 2009. On October 4, 2012, the mortgage loan from the JP Morgan Chase bank, granted to Kolarov and the woman living with him, was marked as repaid in full.

Pocket Change Savings?

Bivol examined Irina Bokova’s official income in recent years, and her property transactions in Bulgaria. All her wages together, plus the sales of property in Bulgaria and her savings would be enough only to cover the purchase of one of the apartments.

2.

https://bivol.bg/en/unesco-scandals-director-gener...

UNESCO Scandals:

Director-General Irina Bokova Manipulates Recruitment Procedures To Appoint A Protégé With Fake Qualifications As Her Assistant Director-General

January 20, 2016

A confidential report of UNESCO’s Internal Oversight Service Audit & Investigation Unit reveals scandalous details surrounding the appointment of Ms. Ana Luiza Thompson-Flores as Director of BSP. [..] BSP is an acronym for UNESCO’s Bureau of Strategic Planning, which de facto controls the overall budget and manages the financial resources of the organization. Its stated function is as follows: “The Bureau of Strategic Planning (BSP) is the central focal point of UNESCO for all strategic, programmatic and budgeting issues, as well as for cooperation with extrabudgetary funding sources and public-private partnerships (PPPs), and it provides advice to the Director-General on all these matters.”

The appointment of Ms. Thompson-Flores went through grave procedural violations: conflicts of interest, leaked confidential information, improper manipulation of UNESCO’s own rules and procedures, and submission of a fake diploma by the candidate. The people responsible for these violations find themselves at the highest level of UNESCO, with the audit document repeatedly referring to the actions of Mrs. Bokova herself.

Conflict of Interest Once Again

Three years later, history repeats itself. In 2014, Ms. Thompson-Flores, in her capacity as HRM Director, drafted the Vacancy Notice for the post Assistant Director-General for Strategic Planning. In this case, again, there was a conflict of interest, which Ms. Thompson-Flores did not report to the UNESCO’s Ethics Office. Thus, that conflict of interest was never addressed, states the report. The investigators, however, continued checking both appointments for conflicts of interest.

Irina Bokova personally interviewed the candidates (including Thompson-Flores) and decided to appoint her to the post. This time, however, the institution finds it difficult to swallow this pill. In the end, the Brazilian is exposed as a sham and subsequently demoted. Not only she had no Ph.D. degree, but she had also embellished her biography by claiming a non-existent “MBA - certificate”.

The check shows that this certificate does not exist

and that the document presented by Ms. Thompson-Flores is actually a “Certificate in Management", which is not the same as MBA. The investigators continued checking how did it happen that one document type was presented as another and served as its replacement.

Besides questions regarding the suspicious diploma, the Executive Board of UNESCO suspected downright criminal actions, such as "destroyed, altered, removed or inserted documentation" into or from the official recruitment files for the posts of Director HRM and ADG/BSP to which the favored Thompson-Flores was appointed.

The rumors are true

There were rumors of information disseminated inappropriately prior to completion of the recruitment process for this important post, states the report. The inspectors questioned about those rumors the delegations of the member states of UNESCO. Some representatives pointed out that rumors reflect with the actual state of affairs and provided examples to the auditors; however, they did not reveal their sources of information.

"Unauthorized disclosure of information regarding recruitment process is unacceptable", concludes abruptly the confidential report.

3.

https://bivol.bg/en/champagne-and-global-lobbying-...

Champagne and Global Lobbying in Bokova’s Campaign

Publications in support of the candidacy of Bulgarian Irina Bokova to head the UN proved to be associated with expensive PR agency

February 8, 2016

On January 16, the famous for its wine French region of Champagne traditionally honored St. Vincent – patron saint of vine growers, wine and winemakers. This year’s celebrations were held under the patronage of UNESCO and its Director-General Irina Bokova was honorary guest. The reason – in 2015, the French champagne was included in the World Heritage List of UNESCO.

The Director General of the Champagne Committee (CIVC, champagne.fr) since last year is Vincent Perrin. He is a senior French official, a graduate of the most prestigious school for government officials, ENA (Ecole Nationale de L’Administration – National School of Administration). He has held high-ranking posts in the French administration; he was a ministerial adviser and representative of the OCDE in Beijing. The inclusion of champagne in the World Heritage List is largely attributed to the initiative of the Committee that represents champagne not only as a symbol of France, but also a serious industry worth 4.5 billion euro, of which 2.4 for export. Mr. Perrin was bestowed the honor to accompany Irina Bokova at the festival in Reims, the capital of Champagne.

In addition to his State career, Vincent Perrin is a member of the executive board of the think tank The Bridge Tank. The President of The Bridge Tank is economist Joël Ruet, who is a specialist in emerging economies.

According to him, the organization’s mission is to connect critical voices and influential ideas with projects in emerging economies.

For several months now, Mr Ruet is offering analyses and ideas not quite in the domain of his expertise, but as an open lobbyist for the candidacy of Irina Bokova (see here and here)

Mr. Ruet did not respond to an inquiry of Bivol, asking what triggered his interest in the topic of choosing a new chief of the United Nations (UN) and what this has to do with emerging markets. The answer is probably related to another figure in The Bridge Tank.

Emerging PR markets

Co-founder, along with Joël Ruet, and member of the Executive Board of The Bridge Tank is Thomas Eymond-Laritaz, who is also executive director for relations with government in one of the world’s largest PR groups – APCO Worldwide. The agency specializes in corporate and government PR and its services do not come cheap.

According to the APCO site, Thomas Eymond-Laritas has advised former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and former Bulgarian Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Cobourg.

Former Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Cobourg and his Foreign Minister Solomon Passy are among the most prominent promoters of Irina Bokova’s candidacy and are openly calling for her nomination as the candidate of Bulgaria. In his arguments, Passy refers to publications in the international press praising Bokova. The connection with APCO, however, suggests that these publications are not entirely spontaneous.

The fact that one of the authors, who writes actively in favor of Bokova in a blog in the Financial Times, was an official associate of APCO Worldwide, at least until 2012, is a confirmation of the above.

Englishman David Clark fervently declares his support from the blog platform BeyondBricks of the prestigious publication. Incidentally, BeyondBricks is also involved in emerging markets. Another coincidence – like his fellow author Joël Ruet, Clark writes not so much on the subject of emerging markets, as he does on the candidacy of Irina Bokova. Clark has joined the blog in April 2015 and has so far written altogether eight articles, three of them on the future choice of the UN chief and Bokova’s role (see here, here and here).

The last publication of Clark is dated February 5 and it presents exactly the same “talking points” that are used in Bulgaria by Solomon Passy and other supporters of Bokova’s candidacy, mainly former communists, now-turned socialists, and former agents and collaborators of the Communist secret services, insisting that Bulgaria will miss its “hour of stardom” if it fails to nominate Bokova.

Clark, who was an adviser to former British Labour Party Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, is a known media commentator in Britain. However, he avoids declaring his relationship with the PR agency APCO Worldwide as this puts him rather in the category of lobbyists, not in the category of independent analysts.

What has sparked David Clark’s interest in the topic? The email sent to the NGO The Russia Foundation, on whose behalf Clark signs his articles in the FT blog, remained unanswered.

Approached for comment, Thomas Eymond-Laritaz also failed to respond to a question of Bivol whether he personally, or the agency APCO, have any relation to Irina Bokova’s nomination.

Bivol also sent questions to UNESCO’s press office asking whether the organization had PR contracts with APCO Worldwide and The Bridge Tank.

The Head of the UNESCO Press Office, George Papagiannis, replied tersely that he had no idea in what connection this question was asked.

The idea, emerging after tracking the links to APCO, is not complicated. Bokova’s well-oiled and coordinated media campaign is a fact. And the probability that all mentioned authors are laboring for free and in synchrony for Bulgaria’s benefit is near the absolute zero.

So who is paying? This issue will linger even after (if) the candidate of the Communist nomenclature and of the Kremlin pops the cork for the nomination she expects, along with the issue of the origin of the money for her two apartments in Manhattan, whose ownership was revealed by Bivol.

4.

https://bivol.bg/en/bulgarian-unesco-chief-narrowl...

Bulgarian UNESCO Chief Narrowly Escaped Impeachment, Scathing British Report Is Looming

Irina Bokova's chances to lead UN are seriously impeded because of the position of the United Kingdom

February 9, 2016

UNESCO Director-General, Bulgarian Irina Bokova, has attempted to withdraw a confidential report of the organization’s Internal Oversight Service Audit & Investigation Sections, as it describes her role in a scandalous appointment of a key Assistant Director-General for Strategic Planning of UNESCO. Bivol recently disclosed this information, citing part of the said report.

Bokova attempted to prevent a fundamental discussion on the report’s conclusions because the Members of the Executive Board were inclined to seek her impeachment over the key role she played in the affair.

That is why the Bulgarian has tried to expunge the report from the official records of the Executive Board of UNESCO and thus prevent a future investigation, but she did not succeed in this attempt.

The report and letters through which Bokova tried to withdraw it are proof of her close relationship with Anita Thompson-Flores. She was briefly appointed to the key position of Assistant Director-General for Strategic Planning, but was forced to leave after it became clear that she had not submitted the required credentials (diploma) for this post. However, instead of firing her, Bokova found her another cozy place – the office of UNESCO in Venice.

According to employees of the organization with whom Bivol spoke, such outrageous behavior of a Director-General is unprecedented in the last 35 years. They say that Bokova had dismissed much more competent staff over much smaller offenses related to credentials fraud.

5.

https://bivol.bg/en/bulgarian-un-candidate-owns-es...

Bulgarian UN Candidate Owns Estate in Paris, London and New York Worth USD 4.7 Million; Her Income Is USD 2.7 Million

March 20, 2016

The UNESCO Chief has invested a large amount with unclear source; UNESCO bonuses proved to be colossal, but still not enough

The list of properties of the Director General of UNESCO and Bulgarian candidate to lead the United Nations (UN) Irina Bokova turned out to be like the title of the Bollywood comedy LPNY (London, Paris, New York). Such is the recap after Bivol found evidence of two more family properties of Irina Bokova and her husband Kalin Mitrev. In addition to the two apartments in New York, they also own one in London and one in Paris.

The income of Bokova and husband Mitrev, though not small by any means, is not enough to justify such investments. There is a gap of some 2 million US dollars.

Bivol revealed in a previous publication that in 2012 and 2014, Bokova and Mitrev acquired two apartments in Manhattan for 2.5 million US dollars, and the son of Irina Bokova has paid off in a record time a mortgage of 600,000 US dollars.

Irina Bokova explained that these purchases have been financed with salaries and bonuses she received as Head of UNESCO and that they were substantial. Bivol’s new inquiry reveals the amount of the bonuses received by Bokova, but even these impressive figures prove insufficient to finance such large purchases.

6.

https://bivol.bg/en/bulgarian-unesco-chief-appoint...

Bulgarian UNESCO Chief Appointed Crony to Another High-Ranking Post instead of Sacking Her

UNESCO boss applies double standard to her cronies and to other employees

June 10, 2016Биволъ

June 10, 2016

Documents obtained by Bivol reveal a rigged appointment in UNESCO of a favorite of its Director-General, Irina Bokova, though she did not have the necessary qualifications. Once the fraud was discovered, Brazilian Ana Luiza (Anita) Thompson-Flores was not reprimanded by Bokova, but appointed to another managerial post with almost the same salary.

At the beginning of the year, Bivol published a confidential report of the Bureau for Internal Oversight Service Audit & Investigation Sections of UNESCO which reveals details about the scandalous appointment of Ana Luiza Thompson-Flores as Bokova’s Deputy-Director of the Bureau of Strategic Planning in UNESCO. This scandal was quoted in a publication of The Daily Mail, which claims that British diplomats wanted Bokova to be investigated for fraud.

The appointment of Ms. Thompson-Flores involved drastic procedural violations: conflicts of interest, leaked confidential information, improper manipulation of UNESCO’s own rules and procedures, and submission of a fake diploma by the candidate. The people responsible for these violations hold the highest-ranking posts in UNESCO, while the audit document repeatedly refers to the actions of Bokova herself.

After the report of the organization’s Internal Oversight Service Bureau and the results of the investigations into the violations of Thompson-Flores were presented to the Board of the organization, Irina Bokova attempted to withdraw it. She sent a special letter to the Chairperson of the Executive Board of UNESCO, who, however, refused to withdraw the document.

The thwarted attempt was intended to remove the report from the official records of the Executive Board of UNESCO and thus prevent a future investigation. This fact is evidence of Bokova’s favoritism to Ana Luiza Thompson-Flores beyond professional relations. Her botched attempt to hush the scandal caused additional tension among diplomats in the international organization, who are asking questions: Why did Flores become so important to Bokova? Is this related to the unofficially-started at the time campaign of the Bulgarian to become United Nation’s (UN) Secretary-General?

Our site also obtained the letter to remove Thompson-Flores from the post of Deputy Director, signed by Irina Bokova. It describes precisely and in detail the misconduct which led to the disciplinary sanction – prior to 2014 Thompson-Flores described a Certificate in Management she held as an MBA Certificate which created the false perception that she held a degree in Business Administration, while the ambiguous description of said Certificate was shared on two occasions with the Member States in 2008 and 2010 – when Thompson-Flores became Deputy Director of “Human Resources” and when she became Director of the same department.

There is another paradox – Ana Luiza Thompson-Flores was the one bestowed with the responsibility to watch for a policy of “zero tolerance” for violations in the organization, promoted by Bokova, but she became precisely the employee that ended in the eye of the storm, which UNESCO diplomats say has no analogue in the last 35 years.

For all these “merits” Thompson-Flores got an unusually lenient reprimand.

Instead of firing her for her outrageous deeds that caused serious unrest in the organization, Irina Bokova “demoted” Thompson-Flores from Director D2 to Director D1 and sent her to manage the UNESCO office in Venice.

But there are other examples of Bokova’s disciplinary rigor as UNESCO Director-General. In 2010, she dismissed without blinking an eye a senior expert. His offense was that he failed to submit an invoice for around about 3,000 euro after he organized an international conference with a budget of several tens of thousands of euro.

In the case of Thompson-Flores, there is the shadow of the logic of the “nepotism” system with whose dubious values Bokova, as a functionary of the Bulgarian Communist Party and daughter of senior party chief, was brought up. At the time of the regime, senior officials and people close to the power rarely lost their positions over blunders, while in the most striking cases they were reassigned to a similar post, retaining their privileges. This practice stemmed from the cherished goals of the system – to create an illusion that there were and will be no failures and to preserve the ruling elite. The question is whether we want to see the same, essentially corrupt traditions, transferred to the UN, to where Irina Bokova is heading as candidate for Secretary-General of the organization.

7.

https://bivol.bg/en/bulgarian-unesco-chief-uses-th...

July 9, 2016

“Attacking” UN with international public resource:

Bulgarian UNESCO Chief Uses the Organization’s Budget, Human Resources and Privileges for Her Lobbying to Lead UN. Two Bulgarian women earn huge wages while laboring exclusively for her candidacy. The Bulgarian’s travel budget exceeds that of Ban Ki-moon.

Famous French intellectuals and artists such as Pierre Bergé and Jean-Michel Jarre have publicly announced their support for the candidacy of Bulgarian UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova for the post of Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), proclaimed the Bulgarian press. They were joined by “a group of outstanding scientists”. These announcements, reminiscent of the famous communist times stereotype “group of Soviet scientists”, conveniently omit the fact that the scientists are laureates of UNESCO, while the intellectuals and the artists are goodwill ambassadors of the same organization. That means that Bokova has personally made them such or has reaffirmed decisions of her predecessors.

However, such use of the resources of UNESCO by its Director General to boost her campaign for the highest office in the UN is not liked by everyone. Exasperated diplomats and members of the Executive Board of UNESCO even speak of “conflict of interest”.

Besides honorary posts, with which she successfully “buys” support, Bokova also uses the money and human resources of UNESCO for her campaign, show documents which Bivol has obtained.

This comes amid catastrophic management of the budget and the activities of the organization, which has already been criticized in a British report entitled “Poor Value For Money for UK Aid”, published in 2011.

To serve, or to be served?

As soon as she took the high office, Irina Bokova sent a directive to the main sectors of UNESCO to increase their contribution to her official travel budget for trips around the world. They were asked to provide another 800,000 US dollars over the slated budget. This emerges from the document that Bivol was able to examine.

Since then, this hole in the program budget sectors has been recurrent to the detriment of the main activities of UNESCO.

Memo from 2011, reveals requesting different programs to double their contributions to Irina Bokova’s travel budget.

To the extent that in November 2015, the UNESCO General Conference approved an increased budget for Bokova’s travel that, according to diplomats from the organization, exceeds the budget of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. This was done against Bokova’s explicit commitment to no longer withdraw money from the programs. However, the Bulgarian backtracked and in 2016 the sectors were again instructed to allocate nearly 10% more for her trips.

At the same time, the budget of UNESCO is generally poorly managed and large sums are returned to the donors of the organization, as they are not utilized. This can be seen in documents from the Bureau of Financial Management of UNESCO

Unlike the poorly managed finances of the organization, the personal wealth of Bokova and her husband Kalin Mitrev enjoys admirable management. As an investigation of Bivol showed (see here and here), the family has purchased in recent years apartments in Paris, London and New York for a total of about 5 million US dollars.

The origin of a significant part of the funds for these acquisitions is unclear. Even after announcing her UN candidacy, Bokova remains among the very few senior officials of the UN who have not voluntarily declared their assets.

All these facts speak more of spending the resources of the international organization in the interest of its Director and not vice versa.

UNESCO’s Headquarters have forgotten that they must serve and not be served.

The quote, in the Dutch newspaper NRC, is indicative of the assessment of Irina Bokova’s “achievements” in the management of the organization. In fact, she transferred there the model of the communist nomenclature that was served ruthlessly with all available resources of the State. And it did not go unnoticed.

Human resources are also harnessed in serving Bokova

In addition to increasing her travels around the world, prior to unofficially announcing her candidacy for the UN, Bokova also appointed trusted people to key positions through a very controversial procedure. The appointment of Ana Luiza Thompson-Flores, marked by serious violations of the rules, tampering with the criteria for the post, and a bogus diploma, nearly led to the impeachment of Irina Bokova in the summer of 2015.

Flores-Thompson advanced in her career, taking consecutively key positions as Head of “Human Resources” and subsequently Deputy Director of “Strategic Planning”, which gave her enormous power over key resources of the organization. However, her fall, after revelations of her lack of qualification, was mitigated through Bokova’s personal intervention. Rather than firing her, she appointed her at another high position in the organization.

Among Bokova’s assistants, there are some who have not yet acquired a scandalous reputation. Two Bulgarian women in her office are working exclusively for her candidacy. Vesselina Ivanova and Snezhana Manoylova are of retirement age, but continue to work in Paris to serve Bokova’s ambitions, not for the tasks and goals of the organization funded with taxpayers’ money. Ivanova even receives a supervisor salary (about 10,000 euro a month net and exempt from taxes), which does not correspond to her functions.

Bivol’s attempt to obtain official information about the years of service, the experience and the job descriptions of Vesselina Ivanova and Snezhana Manoylova hit a wall. The press office of UNESCO responded that the organization has no practice of disseminating information about the career development of its employees.

“The bottoms don’t want and the tops cannot live in the old way”

The policy of human resource management, however, is strongly criticized by trade unions of employees of UNESCO for the lack of objective, equitable and transparent procedure for appointments in the organization. Nevertheless, the management problems affect more than the recruitment and career development.

Documents, distributed to union members, include the eloquently entitled “Crisis of Leadership” and “Descent into Chaos”. They criticize the hypocrisy of the policy of austerity that does not affect the travel of the Director General and the appointments in her cabinet.

The protests of trade unions, brought to the attention of Irina Bokova, remain unanswered. The situation strongly reminds of the classical definition of a revolutionary situation – “the bottoms don’t want and the tops cannot live in the old way”. It was formulated by Lenin, whose works Bokova studied by heart during her enrollment at the Academy of International Diplomats (MGIMO) in Moscow in the early years of Brezhnev’s rule.

The neglect for the organizational and budgetary problems in UNESCO has an easy explanation. The Director General has a clear plan and purpose for her personal career – boss of UN. Everything else is secondary.

This did not go unnoticed by international diplomats, who state in official documents as early as 2014 that Irina Bokova is lobbying for the post of UN Secretary General.

There are sufficient facts showing that the resources of UNESCO are mobilized to serve Bokova’s ambitions. This is combined with mismanagement, cronyism and indifference to deficits in the organization. UNESCO’s finances are far from brilliant, especially after the United States decided to stop the funding of the organization over the recognition of Palestine. Since then, however, Bokova has not made a single official call to Washington to ask for the donation to be restored.

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