What Evidence?
More on UN Corruption

he just released examination into the abuse of the United Nation's Oil For Food scandal issued by the Volcker Commission is laughable on its expensive face. These morons just spent $34 million dollars of other people's money to produce a fancy document that excludes significant evidence of obvious corruption on the part of the UN's Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

By soundly criticizing Annan in the report, but at the same time absolving him of any criminal misconduct, the New York Times reports

Significantly, the corruption money that involves Annan comes in on multiple tracks. The most obvious channel is related to the awarding of a contract to the Swiss based Cotecna for inspection services. The procurement officer at the UN that personally made the award has already pleaded guilty to soliciting bribes for this very contract -- but he says he tried to get the bribe from a different company that refused to pay his price.

Now we're supposed to believe this Russian procurement executive gave up on trying to get a bribe for this contract (at a time when no-one was paying any attention to the corruption in his department), and he just awarded it to the company run by Kofi Annan's family friend.

That "family friend," a vice president of Cotecna, a man named Michael Wilson, has close ties to the Annan family. Kofi's brother Kobina, as well as Kofi's son Kojo, are also both deeply involved in contacts with Cotecna through Wilson.

Although his only connection to the UN is his father's influential post, Kojo received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Cotecna for his "work" as a "consultant." When questioned on the contract award to Cotecna, Kofi has changed his story repeatedly, as has Kojo. First he knows nothing. He's had no contact. Then, well, there may have been some contact. Finally, an email surfaces from Cotecna executive Wilson which indicates Kofi was closely monitoring the contract award. This shows Kofi Annan to be a liar   -- and a liar who has lied under oath in an investigation involving billions of dollars in graft.

Incredibly, the Volcker Commission stated in the report that they gave no credibility to the Cotecna memo implicating Kofi Annan. The report claims Wilson was just bragging, and Annan actually knew nothing about the lucrative contract award.

On another track of the investigation, evidence indicates that Saddam Hussein set aside $15 million and tried to bribe then Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to treat Iraq favorably during the forthcoming Oil For Food program. In 1996, as the program was being planned, Iraq forwarded millions of dollars to an Iraqi man named Samir Vincent, who in turn, funneled money to a shady Korean named Tongsun Park. Although saying there is no evidence that Ghali received any money or was even aware of the planned bribery, the Investigators have hinted this money may have ended up in Boutros-Ghali's pockets.

The problem is the timing. The report shows Tongsun Park gave $1 million of this influence peddling money to UN official Maurice Strong in 1997 -- but Ghali's term expired at the end of 1996. Indeed, Oil For Food was only inaugurated in December of 1996 -- at a point when Ghali had known he was to be ousted from his post for at least 4 months.

We might ask if anyone would be stupid enough to take a million dollar bribe from someone as deadly as Saddam Hussein to influence a series of contracts if you knew you had already been fired, and would have no way to deliver the goods. Boutros-Ghali has his critics, but very few of them think he's that foolish.

The fact remains, the Volcker Report shows the only link showing any bribe money actually directed to the UN was during 1997 -- when Kofi Annan was in charge.

 Furthermore, there was another connection between the dirty money and Maurice Strong that included one of his family members, so the nepotism involved the rich Canadian as well as Kofi and company. This is the same bunch now asking the US to pony up $845 Billion dollars.

To borrow an old phrase, in the light of this ridiculous whitewash of the UN's massive fiscal misdeeds, "just say no!"

September 8 2005 -- James Lloyd

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