One of the front running candidates vying to become the next United Nations Secretary General accepted that there are “legitimate criticisms” of how the global body handled the final stages of the armed conflict that killed tens of thousands of Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka.
Helen Clark, a former New Zealand Prime Minister, said “there were legitimate criticisms of the way the UN dealt with Sri Lankan abuses,” reports the Guardian.
However Ms Clark sought to distance herself from the global body's failings, documented in an internal report in November 2012.
“It was before my time,” she said.
She also went on to deny forcing out an official who participated in drawing up the report from her job, due to its critical review on the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which Ms Clark was heading at the time. “I have no evidence of that,” she told the Guardian.
Speaking on the UN's current standing Ms Clark said that it “is seen to be not doing so well on the peace and security front.”
Highlighting her credentials, she went on to add, “the UN needs someone with leadership ability, experience, judgement – someone who is predictable, practical, pragmatic, who likes to get results”.
See more from the Guardian here.