Chilean newspaper raises allegations against Global Compact Board member

On July 12, the Chilean newspaper La Nación published an article about Global Compact Board member Guillermo Carey. Mr. Carey is also a senior partner at law firm Carey & Allende Abogados, which is among the fifteen corporate law firms from around the world selected to participate in a UN-led mapping project to identify whether and how national corporate law principles and practices currently foster corporate cultures respectful of human rights.

The author of the article in La Nación, Mariela Vallejos, says that she has documents alleging that Mr. Carey was involved in the events that led to the kidnapping and assassination of Commander-in-Chief General René Schneider in 1970. After the 1970 Chilean presidential election, a plot to kidnap General Schneider was developed. Eliminating General Schneider became a key prerequisite for a military coup, because he opposed any intervention by the armed forces to block Salvador Allende's constitutional election. After repeated attempts, General Schneider was assassinated on October 22, 1970.

As a main source, Ms. Vallejos cites the memoirs of Admiral José Toribio Merino, who was part of Pinochet's military junta. According to his memoirs, Mr. Carey hosted one or more meetings at his house with those involved in the plot to kidnap General Schneider. La Nación alleges that Mr. Carey fled to Argentina on the day of the assassination. A few days later, the Chilean police transmitted an international warrant for the arrest of Mr. Carey to Interpol.

Mr. Carey vehemently denies all allegations made by La Nación. Ms. Vallejos mentions in her article that his name was not included in the case against the suspects of kidnapping and killing General Schneider. Ms. Vallejos interviewed Mr. Carey and sent him her article before La Nación published it. According to Mr. Carey, his enemies have tried to implicate him because he had earlier been the attorney for the leader of the group that organized the plot.

Ms. Vallejos also raises questions about the selection procedure for Global Compact Board members. The purpose of the Board, which is chaired by the UN Secretary General or in his absence a Vice-Chair, is to provide strategic advice for the initiative as a whole, making recommendations to the Global Compact Office, participants and other stakeholders. The members of the Board act in a personal, honorary and unpaid capacity. La Nación discovered that Mr. Carey was recommended in 2006 by a representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Chile.

According to Matthias Stausberg of the Global Compact Office – who was interviewed by Ms. Vallejos – board members are appointed by the UN Secretary-General, based on recommendations made by a nominations committee. Nominations are normally vetted by the local networks of the Compact. When Mr. Carey was appointed as a Board member, the nominations committee did not exist yet. The article in La Nación seems to suggest that Mr. Carey was nominated because of his friendship with the UNDP representative in Chile. Ms. Vallejos interviewed this UNDP representative and he told her that he did not know why Mr. Carey was elected as a Board member. Mr. Carey himself told Ms. Vallejos that he also wondered why he was appointed by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Mr. Carey is not the first Global Compact Board member who faces criticism for things he might have done in the past. In March this year, the UN Secretary-General appointed a South Korean businessman who was convicted of accounting fraud in 2003. He had his three-year sentence for fraud suspended in 2004 and was pardoned in 2008, when the South Korean government announced sweeping pardons for some of the country's most powerful businessmen.

© Photo by Julio Pinar.