U.N. fires diplomat Galbraith- for being too outspoken about fraud in Afghanistan's recent elections

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The United Nation's secretary-general Wednesday fired Peter Galbraith, the Vermont-born diplomat who was serving as the top American official at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan.
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U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said in a statement Wednesday that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon decided to recall Galbraith and end his appointment as the U.N.'s deputy special representative.

Galbraith, reached at his home in Townshend, said he was disappointed but not surprised by the move.

"I had a fundamental, long-running dispute with the chief of the U.N. mission about how and whether we were going to handle reports of fraud in a presidential election the U.N. had funded and supported," he said.

The election in August was plagued by corruption. Incumbent President Hamid Karzai won the most votes in the election, but many of the fraud complaints centered on claims of fake ballots being cast for Karzai.

The head of the U.N. mission, Kai Eide, had taken a lower-key approach to address the election fraud evidence than did Galbraith, who wanted the fraud investigated aggressively. Galbraith abruptly left Afghanistan last month as a result of the dispute.

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http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20091001/NEWS02/910010306