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Kofi and the UN's Scandals
The truth
is leaking out, little by little. The UN has aided morally, spiritually and
financially the murder of untold numbers of people. Jews, Americans,
Christians, and God knows who else.
Reuter's
has film of a clearly marked UN Ambulance picking up Palestinian terrorist
immediately after the murder of 6 Jews in Israel. The ambulance drove up,
opened its doors, the murderers piled in, the ambulance took off to deposit
the murderers in safety.
The UN
traded Iraq's oil for food (theoretically), but skimmed BILLIONS off the
top. Many top UN officials (including Kofi's relatives) made boku bucks by
stealing from the Iraqi people.
The UN paid
for and condoned sex parties and the purchase of illegal drugs for use by
their officials during "wild parties" at various locations.
And this is
the same UN that Sen. Kerry (Presidential hopeful) holds up to the American
people at the great moral example? This is the same UN that he wants us to
put our lives and our children's lives in the hands of?
Scandal
#1 -
In a soon to be released book -- "Emergency Sex and Other Desperate
Measures" (Miramax) -- by a former and two current U.N. employees, it
is alleged that Annan played a significant role in the U.N.'s failure to
stop the genocides in the African nations of Rwanda and Burundi in
1994.
It is believed that more than 800,000 people were slaughtered during tribal
warfare in the two nations.
Kofi Annan directed the U.N.'s peacekeeping operations during the
period.
The book contends that Annan personally prevented a report on the impending
genocide by his field commander Gen. Romeo Dallaire (Canada) from reaching
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the U.N. Security
Council.
The book claims: "Gen. Romeo Dallaire, the commander of U.N. troops in
Rwanda sent a fax detailing imminent genocide and they (U.N.-NYC) ignored
that. Kofi Annan, the head of U.N. Peacekeeping, ordered him to stand down
and do nothing, other than share his information with the French, who at
the time were arming their allies among the Hutu extremists, who then
committed the genocide."
Less than 18 months later, Annan received critical backing from Paris to
become the UN's first African secretary-general.
Scandal
#2 -
Corrupt use of World Bank funds may exceed $100 billion and while the
institution has moved to combat the problem, more must be done, the
chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Thursday.
Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, charged that "in its
starkest terms, corruption has cost the lives of uncounted individuals
contending with poverty and disease."
He commended World Bank President James Wolfensohn for bringing greater
attention to the issue, but said, "Corruption remains a serious
problem."
Lugar opened a hearing on corruption at the multilateral development banks,
the first public examination in an ongoing Senate investigation.
He cited experts who calculated that between $26 billion and $130 billion
of the money lent by the World Bank for development projects since 1946 has
been misused. In 2003, the bank distributed $18.5 billion in developing
countries.
Jeffrey Winters, an associate professor at Northwestern University, said
his research suggested corruption wasted about $100 billion of World Bank
funds, and when other multilateral development banks are included, the total
rises to about $200 billion.
Damian Milverton, a bank spokesman, later disputed the $100 billion
estimate, insisting it had "no basis in fact."
"We completely reject the figure offered by one of the panelists as an
estimate of funding from the World Bank that might have been misused,"
Milverton told Reuters.
Winters testified that the World Bank's anti-corruption effort was having
"minimal effects" and the banks should all focus on supervising
and auditing their lending.
"The lion's share of the theft of development funds occurs in the
implementation of projects and the use of loan funds by client
governments," he said.
Like other United Nations agencies, World Bank rules prevent staff from
testifying in public so Wolfensohn was not at the hearing. But senior bank
officials on Monday privately briefed lawmakers on its anti-corruption
efforts, a bank spokesman said.
Carole Brookins, the U.S. executive director on the World Bank board,
defended the bank saying it was leading efforts to fight corruption, but
acknowledged "there is more that could be done to strengthen the
system."
More than 180 companies and individuals have been blacklisted from doing
business with the World Bank and their names and penalties posted on the
bank's public Web site.
Between July 2003 and March 2004, it said it referred 18 cases of fraud or
corruption to national justice authorities based on investigations by its
anti-corruption unit.
Specific bank projects under review by the committee include the Yacyreta
dam on the Argentina-Paraguay border, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project
and projects in Cambodia.
Hector Morales, acting U.S. executive director to the Inter-American
Development Bank, testified that his institution recently accelerated
anti-corruption efforts "but still has much work to do."
Scandal
#3 -
The problem wasn't simply that this huge United Nations relief program for
Iraq became a gala of graft, theft, fraud, palace-building and global
influence-peddling--though all that was quite bad enough. The picture now
emerging is that under U.N. management the Oil-for-Food program, which ran
from 1996-2003, served as a cover not only for Saddam's regime to cheat the
Iraqi people, but to set up a vast and intricate global network of illicit
finance.
U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program was worse than simply a case of grand larceny.
Given Saddam's proclivities for deceit and violence, Oil-for-Food was also
a menace to security. By letting Saddam pick his own business partners and
draw up his own shopping lists, by keeping the details of his contracts and
accounts secret, and by then failing abjectly to supervise the process, the
U.N.--through a program meant to aid the people of Iraq--enabled Saddam to
line his pockets while bankrolling his pals world-wide. In return,
precisely, for what? That is a question former Federal Reserve Chairman
Paul Volcker might want to keep in mind as he heads up the official
investigation, finally agreed to by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, into
Oil-for-Food.
In tallying various leaked lists, disturbing leads and appalling exposés to
date, what becomes ever more clear is that
Oil-for-Food quickly became a global maze of middlemen, shell companies,
fronts and shadowy connections, all blessed by the U.N. From this
labyrinth, via kickbacks on underpriced oil and overpriced goods, Saddam
extracted, by conservative estimates of the General Accounting Office, at
least $4.4 billion in graft, plus an additional $5.7 billion on oil
smuggled out of Iraq. Meanwhile, Mr. Annan's Secretariat shrugged and rang
up its $1.4 billion in Iraqi oil commissions for supervising the program.
Worse, the GAO notes that anywhere from $10 billion to as much as $40
billion may have been socked away in secret by Saddam's regime. The
assumption so far has been that most of the illicit money flowed back to
Saddam in the form of fancy goods and illicit arms.
A look at one of the secret U.N. lists of clients authorized by the U.N. to
buy from Saddam is not reassuring. It includes more than 1,000 companies,
scattered from Liberia to South Africa to oil-rich Russia. And though the
U.N. was supposed to ensure that oil was sold to end-users at market
price--thus minimizing the graft potential for Saddam and maximizing the
funds for relief--there is an extraordinary
confetti of clients in locations known less for their oil consumption than
for their shell companies and financial secrecy.
Why on earth, for instance, did the U.N. authorize Saddam to sell oil to at
least 65 companies in the financial lockbox of Switzerland.
What was the logic behind approving as oil buyers at least 45 firms in
Cyprus, seven in Panama and four in Liechtenstein? At the other extreme,
would Mr. Annan care to explain why the U.N. authorized Saddam to sell oil
to at least 70 companies in the petroleum-soaked United Arab Emirates?
In Oil-for-Food, "Every contract tells a story," says John
Fawcett, a financial investigator with the New York law firm of Kreindler
& Kreindler LLP, which has sued the financial sponsors of Sept. 11 on
behalf of the victims and their families. In an interview, Mr. Fawcett and
his colleague, Christine Negroni, run down the lists of Oil-for-Food
authorized oil buyers and relief suppliers, pointing out likely terrorist
connections. One authorized oil buyer, they note, was a remnant of the defunct
global criminal bank, BCCI. Another was close to the Taliban while Osama
bin Laden was on the rise in Afghanistan; a third was linked to a bank in
the Bahamas involved in al Qaeda's financial network; a fourth had a close
connection to one of Saddam's would-be nuclear-bomb makers.
Scandal
#4 -
But amid the current fracas over Oil-for-Food, there are other points to be
made, and one of them has to do with a very small demonstration held in
front of the U.N. late last month.
The demonstration had nothing to do with Iraq or Oil-for-Food. It involved
some three dozen protesters who were asking the U.N. to honor its
commitment to help refugees from North Korea. They held posters showing
photos of starving children in North Korea, and pictures of tyrant Kim Jong
Il alongside slogans such as, "Stop subsidizing this regime." One
man wore a sandwich board with big lettering that said: "China! Comply
With the U.N. Resolution for North Korean Refugees"--a demand that
Bejing honor its obligations as a signatory to the U.N.'s Convention on
Refugees, instead of sending asylum-seekers back to what can often be
hideous punishment or death in North Korea.
They were protesting the most horrific surviving totalitarian regime on the
planet. They were making entirely reasonable demands. They knew what they
were talking about. Among their number were several defectors from North
Korea, who had come to New York after testifying before Congress about
horrible abuses of human rights in North Korea, alleging biological and chemical
weapons experiments on prisoners in the slave-labor camps of Kim's regime.
One of these defectors, Dong Chul Choi, who escaped along with his mother
in the mid-1990s and has since become one of an incredibly small handful to
receive asylum in the U.S., was wielding a megaphone, calling in both
English and Korean a few words that deserve to echo around the world:
"Free North Korea."
One might also argue that the U.N., as currently configured, places the
highest premium on deference to sovereign states, regardless of what
abominations a prevailing regime might commit within its own borders--so
Kim's regime must have its seat within the fancy building, while those who
would like to end his regime must wait on the sidewalk outside. One might
further add that a much larger group of demonstrators for freedom for North
Koreans, and rights for North Korean refugees, had already had their say in
Washington, at a series of events organized by activist Suzanne Scholte's
Defense Forum Foundation, in which the testimony to Congress served as the
centerpiece.
The U.N. can point to the resolution in which its own Human Rights
Commission in Geneva actually worked around to condemning Pyongyang, for
the second year running (after a decade in which state-inflicted famine in
North Korea has killed an estimated two million or so). Surely such
measures are enough? Why should anyone at the U.N.'s New York offices
bother about this small group of demonstrators, however enormous their
concerns? They have no official voice, no serious lobbying presence,
nothing in fact that seems to carry true weight within the mighty debates
of the U.N.
Kofi Annan was at pains in his recent "Meet the Press" interview
to stress that he sees the U.N. as a "unique organization," one
"that can bring the whole world together." To bring the whole
world together, given how the world really works, requires in too many
cases the sacrifice of precisely the integrity, freedom and decency that
the U.N. was meant to serve.
The U.N. was put there to listen to people like those demonstrators who
last month stood unheeded on the sidewalk, not to broadcast to the world a
long series of messages about its own precious image and importance.
Scandal
#5 -
As U.N. officials scurry to stop publication of "Emergency Sex and
Other Desperate Matters" (Miramax Books) by Kenneth Cain, Heidi
Postlewait and Andrew Thomson the book’s galleys have already hit the
street.
NewsMax recently reviewed the galleys.
While the book centers on the "interpersonal" relationships of the
three U.N. peacekeeping employees as they traverse from one hot spot where
U.N. peacekeeping operations were underway, the trio details exactly how
U.N. operations work.
The picture is not a flattering one.
The book starts with the 1993 United Nations in Cambodia.
There, U.N. personnel are sent to help supervise "open" elections
in the embattled nation. However, it seems more than
"electioneering" was going on.
Ken Cain, a Harvard law graduate, working legal affairs for the U.N., says
the world body's election personnel "looks like the international jet
set on vacation."
Cain describes the U.N. personnel working in Cambodia as "young and
immortal and together and drunk and stupid."
Speaking of vacations, the writers tell of sex parties in "a villa"
in the capital, Phnom Penh "well known for its Friday night
parties," supported by U.N. field personnel where alcohol and drugs
were commonly used.
A favorite drink, called the "Space Shuttle" was made. Here’s
how: "by distilling a pound of marijuana over a six-week period with
increasingly good quality spirits. It is a work of love and the final
product is an amber-colored liquid that tastes like Cognac. We drink it
with rounds of coke."
All of this was done in the open, with senior U.N. personnel doing nothing
to stop it.
Another problem in Cambodia centered around the
peacekeepers themselves. It is alleged that "peacekeeping troops"
sent by Bulgaria were not really military personnel at all.
The authors claim the Bulgarian government, starved for hard currency after
the collapse of the Soviet Union, actually cut a deal with a score of
prison inmates.
The U.N. has a policy of offering monetary compensation when a member state
offers troops to peacekeeping operations. Some of the poorer nations see
the U.N. policy as means to generate badly needed foreign aid.
Hence, troops become a cash crop.
In Bulgaria's case, the book alleges that prison convicts were promised
"pardons" if they accepted the U.N. assignment.
"The Bulgarian government wanted the money, but didn't want to send
their best trained troops. So, the story goes, they offered inmates in the
prisons and psychiatric wards a deal: put on a uniform and go to Cambodia
for six months, you're free on return."
Scores of criminals took the offer, given military uniforms and sent to
become U.N. Blue Helmets.
Ken Cain claims the Bulgarian Blue Helmets were "hated" by
everyone in Cambodia. He continues by describing them as: "A battalion
of criminal lunatics (who) arrive in a lawless land. They're drunk as
sailors, rape vulnerable Cambodian women and crash their U.N. Land Cruisers
with remarkable frequency."
Officially, the U.N. was in Cambodia to supervise the first "open and
free" elections.
Unofficially, the authors contend that the U.N. was doing all it could to
make sure the existing governing power, a Vietnamese installed puppet
regime, did not maintain its grip on the nation.
Andy Thomson, the medical doctor among the U.N. trio, speaks about going
into a Cambodian prison in the capital with orders to get the sick inmates
up and going as quick as possible.
Was this a concerted effort to stop some plague, to nurse the sick back to
health? Nope. Thomson says it was simply to get the sick on their feet long
enough to vote in the Cambodian election.
"U.N. lawyers have decided that inmates will be permitted to vote in
the election, but an outbreak of a disease no one seems to be able to
identify (later found to be Beri Beri) is wiping them out."
Thomson speaks about the sick leaving the prison proudly carrying their
"voter registration cards."
Somalia and Haiti
It is mid-1993 and the intrepid U.N. trio have split for assignments in
Somalia and Haiti.
Somalia, a decrepit east-African nation is in the midst of a multi- factional
civil war.
Haiti is disintegrating.
In 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide became the county's first elected
president. A year later, Arisitide is overthrown in a coup by a
military-junta.
The embattled president then takes up exile in the United States where,
with the help of the Clinton administration, he plans his eventual
return.
In Somalia, the U.N. is called upon to provide "humanitarian
relief," while in Haiti, the world body sends in a "human rights
observer mission" to document "torture and execution of
pro-Aristide civilians, in order to pressure General Cedras (the coup
leader) from power."
The Somali effort ends in collapse.
Roller-coaster Ride
In Haiti, it is a roller-coaster ride, culminating in a massive U.S.
military invasion (1994), which returned Aristide to power at gun
point.
Arriving in Somalia, Ken Cain talks about meeting a "U.S. special
forces guy" at Mogadishu (Somalia's capital) airport who
explains:
"If you liked Beirut, you'll love Mogadishu."
The U.N.'s efforts in Somalia have been widely viewed by historians as a
low point in the organization's history.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright often referred to the east
African state as perfect example of a "failed
nation-state."
At the U.N., its Somali efforts are often remembered by a spectacular
robbery from its Mogadishu center.
In broad daylight, a safe containing more than $3.5 mil. in
cash (to finance local operations) disappeared without a trace. Despite an
intensive investigation by the U.N., with the assistance of Scotland Yard,
the robbers were never found.
For the U.S., the Somali campaign is best remembered by the Black Hawk down
incident. U.S. Special Forces lost 18 men in attempt to hunt down the
infamous warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid. Several of the murdered U.S.
soldiers had their body's beaten and dragged
through the streets of Mogadishu.
Meanwhile, Cain, who is later joined by Postlewait, find
themselves in the center of an active war zone, which they both express
regrets of signing up for.
The U.N. effort is often portrayed as disorganized and corrupt.
It is no better in Haiti:
Andy Thomson, is sent by the U.N. to investigate
human rights violations under the military junta of Genl Raoul
Cedras.
"Here, beneath the routine bustle, something is dangerous and
disconcerting. Something I can't put my finger on."
Only after a month in the country, Thomson complains, "I'm already
enraged, not by the work, but being unable to work. My patients are all
either headless and rotting or alive and rotting, out of reach behind
prison walls."
The doctor continues, "The macoutes (gangsters) torture and we write
reports and nothing changes. We're very busy and very useless."
In order to gain access to a notorious Haitian prison, where numerous
prisoners are believed to be wasting away, Thomson says he decided to move
on his own:
"Whatever it takes to get inside is fine with me. Condoms for the
Colonel (the prison warden), antibiotics for his men-we all have our price.
At least its healthier than the cigarettes we used
to toss out the window to get through checkpoints in Cambodia."
When questioned about the criticisms levelled against the United Nations by
the authors, David Wimhusrt, a spokesman for peacekeeping operations
explained:
"The book is not an analysis of peacekeeping operations. Most of the
allegations are old news and not supported by any evidence. As such, we
have no comment."
Speaking of old news, the record will show that a familiar personality
directed U.N. peacekeeping operations during several of the years sited in
the book, Kofi Annan.
One diplomat on the Security Council concerned about the authors'
allegations, confided, "I will read the book and I will be sure to ask
questions."
The UN has
supported despots, criminals, thugs, dictators and murderers for many
years. Why do we continue to support the UN with 25% of their annual
operating budget? So they can vote against the US at every turn? It is
nothing more a den of spies and liars.
How can
they expect to be taken seriously when Lybia and Cuba, two of the world's
most despicable human rights violators, are on the Human Rights Commission?
The US had been previously voted off of the Commission.
Of course,
the Democratic party has a deep sense of love for the UN, for some unknown
reason. One would think since they are AMERICAN politicians, that they
would be responsible to America and their constituents. Not our Democratic
Party. They have never met a dictator, terrorist leader or tyrant that they
didn't love and support. Arafat, Hussein and Castro are a few of their
favorites.
Remember, a
one-world government ran by the UN is the what the
Democrats are striving for. It has been on their agenda for many years, but
thankfully the America people have so far seen through their "be
afraid of the big, bad Republican" smokescreen.
The US
out of the UN and the UN out of the US
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