Oil-for-food: The United Nations Exposed - Page 3 - Big Big Forums

ckerr4 · 11-18-2004, 03:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by YNKYH8R

Quick question for anyone...are Palestinian's muslims? And if they are how do they differ from the Sunni and Sh-ite?

Sunnis and Shiites are types of Muslims. The difference is in the beliefs, much like the difference in the beliefs of two different Christian denominations. Both are Muslim, but there was a split in the faith regarding succession of the religious leadership early in the formation of the faith. Here is a decent (quick) link to explain it (but you can find more in-depth by googling, if you find you're interested):

http://www.religioustolerance.org/isl_intr1.htm (then click on "schools of Islam)

Anyone who converts from any culture or country can decide to be a certain branch of Islam, I assume.

A Palestinian, though, is someone from what was Palestine, now the Occupied Territories. It's also used to described the many (Palestinian originially) refugees that are in Jordan, Syria, etc. It's more of a national designation, like American or Mexican.

There are Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian Christians, Palestinian Jews. The majority of Palestinians are Muslim.

So, there would be Palestinian Sunni Muslims and Palestinian Shiite Muslims.

Jolie Rouge · 11-19-2004, 05:55 PM

UN staff union mulls no-confidence motion against senior UN management
1 hour, 37 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The UN staff union was meeting to discuss a no-confidence measure against senior management of the United Nations, which has been hit by a series of scandals involving top UN officials.

But sources said a planned vote could be put off until next week after UN officials asked to meet with union members to quell the uproar over a possible no-confidence vote in senior management of the world body led by Secretary General Kofi Annan. "The idea is to keep dialogue going and see if we can't sort out our differences so that it isn't necessary to adopt a resolution saying they have no confidence in senior management," Annan spokesman Fred Eckhard said. "We'd certainly like them to have more confidence in us, and we hope that we can achieve that through dialogue," he told reporters.

A draft union resolution obtained by AFP on Thursday complained of "a lack of integrity, particularly at the higher levels of the organisation," and asked to "convey this vote of no confidence to the secretary general."

The measure cites unnamed senior management but both sides, faced with heavy media scrutiny after news of the resolution broke, insisted Annan was not the prime target.

Eckhard said it was a "misinterpretation" to call the measure a no-confidence vote in Annan, even though he is the most senior official in the United Nations.

In a press release, the staff union stressed that the draft text had not yet been adopted and said that the measure did not "express the desire" for a no-confidence vote against Annan.

Sources said the immediate anger behind the resolution had been sparked by the announcement on Tuesday that Dileep Nair, the head of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), had been cleared of wrongdoing by Annan.

Nair had faced allegations of harassment and favouritism but was exonerated after what Eckhard termed a "thorough review" of the case. Some allegations had been made in an unsigned letter, he said.

The crisis comes with Annan and the United Nations under fire over allegations of fraud and corruption in the UN program that oversaw oil sales by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime. Annan has publicly complained of a "campaign" against the United Nations over the so-called oil-for-food program, which ran between December 1996 and November 2003.

But it also follows the exoneration in July of Ruud Lubbers, the UN's top official for refugees who had been the target of a sexual harassment complaint brought by a female member of his staff. Annan also cleared Lubbers of any wrongdoing in that case but reportedly sent him a letter conveying his "concerns" about the official's behaviour.

Eckhard, the spokesman, acknowledged the staff union was "not happy" with this week's decision on Nair, whose OIOS office functions as the UN's internal watchdog for wrongdoing, and that the question would be discussed next week. "It's been a bit of an up-and-down relationship" with the union, he said, but added: "We accept them as the legal representatives of the staff."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...0730&e=2&ncid=

Jolie Rouge · 11-19-2004, 06:13 PM

UN staff raps management, backs Annan
8 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The UN staff union passed a resolution sharply critical of the world body's senior management but expressed support for beleaguered Secretary General Kofi Annan.

An earlier draft of the resolution had strongly worded language about no confidence in senior staff of the United Nations, which has been buffeted by scandals over the past few months.

Union president Rosemarie Waters said that version had left open the possibility of criticising Annan, which she insisted her committee did not want to do, despite often troubled relations with UN management.

She said the wording that had appeared in a version on Thursday had been changed to avoid "an incorrect interpretation," and said the union wanted managers to heed Annan's call for greater accountability. "(Annan) is in a very difficult job under very difficult circumstances," Waters said. "He's doing his best."

Union officials said they would make the full text of the resolution available later in the day.

Annan has seen his tenure rocked by a series of scandals and mishaps of late, including controversial decisions to pardon two senior officials who had faced allegations of sexual harassment.

Some staffers had been especially angered by the decision this week not to pursue action against Dileep Nair, the head of the UN internal oversight office, who had been accused of harassment and favouritism.

Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard on Tuesday announced that Nair had been cleared after a thorough review, although staffers complained that they had not been consulted after raising the complaints in April. "We voted a resolution requesting (Annan) to release the report on the investigation that he's done and requesting some transparency," Waters said. "The confidence level is low in the senior management."

Passage of the resolution comes with Annan and the United Nations under fire over allegations of fraud and corruption in the UN programme that oversaw oil sales by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime.

Annan has publicly complained of a "campaign" against the United Nations over the so-called oil-for-food program, which ran between December 1996 and November 2003.

The resolution also follows the exoneration in July of Ruud Lubbers, the top UN official for refugees who had been the target of a sexual harassment complaint brought by a female member of his staff. Annan also cleared Lubbers of any wrongdoing in that case but reportedly sent him a letter conveying his "concerns" about the official's behaviour.

Eckhard, the spokesman, acknowledged the staff union was "not happy" with this week's decision on Nair, whose OIOS office functions as the UN internal watchdog.

Before the vote, he said UN officials had been in touch with the union to set up a meeting next week to avoid a showdown and "keep dialogue going and see if we can't sort out our differences."

Waters said she had not been informed of the meeting.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...5820&e=1&ncid=

Jolie Rouge · 11-19-2004, 06:22 PM

KOFI'S CASH LAUNDRY . . .
Fri Nov 19, 2:29 AM ET

When French bank BNP Paribas was jockeying to win the United Nations bank account for Saddam's Oil-for-Food program, it's not likely that its sales pitch was: "The job is so easy, a monkey could do it."

But as Congress widens its probe into Oil-for-Food's legacy of global bribery and theft, the bank is fast realizing that a confession of stupidity is its best — maybe its only — defense against what could be a massive financial liability.

As Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) put it on Wednesday, the U.N. aid program was a closed-end system of "hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil."

"No one seemed to be in charge of watching Saddam Hussein while he and his government were conducting perhaps the largest financial swindle in history," Hyde observed at a congressional investigatory hearing.

Hyde's International Relations Committee has found that Saddam stole an eye-popping $21 billion from the Iraqi people through Oil-for-Food. The despot diverted money that belonged to Iraqis into his own accounts — then used the cash to buy weapons, bribe officials and journalists and reward terrorists.

Much of that money was first washed through that BNP account — administered by the bank's New York office.

Hyde thinks that BNP may have been "noncompliant" (to put it nicely) with standard banking practices — possibly doling out millions in payments to Saddam's favorite contractors without proof of delivery of any actual goods to the Iraqi people, for example, or authorizing payments to third parties outside of the U.N.'s credit system.

Hyde has pledged to further investigate his early evidence — to find if BNP "facilitated Saddam Hussein's manipulation and corruption of the program."

BNP Paribas' strategy is to play up its "see-no-evil" role. The North American CEO of the bank, Everett Schenk, appeared before Hyde's committee Wednesday to repeat one word over and over: "Non-discretionary."

* BNP's job was to deliver "non-discretionary" banking services to the United Nations, Schenk said.

* "The bank has had no discretion over how money has been spent or invested under the Oil-for-Food program," he repeated.

* "The responsibilities of the bank [were] non-discretionary banking services," he repeated once more.

Translation: It wasn't our job to make sure that Saddam wasn't laundering moneythrough these accounts at the expense if his people (the supposed beneficiaries of the UN account).

BNP was just doing what the United Nations told it to do, Schenk has testified — because BNP desperately needs Congress to accept that it was paid millions of dollars just to process paper.

And that's because the Treasury Deptartment has been bandying about a much scarier word lately: "repatriation."

Assistant Treasury Secretary Juan Carlos Zarate told a second congressional committee this week that Treasury's mission is to "hunt to find and repatriate stolen Iraqi assets to the Iraqi people."

And BNP knows that — in the absence of aggressive U.N. co-operation with U.S. investigators — the bank will remain the last traceable stop for so many of those plundered billions.

BNP was paid, essentially, to be Saddam's sole financial gateway to the world. If the Treasury can't find a huge chunk of Saddam's money because it was washed through an opaque system administered by the United Nations — with BNP serving, at best, as silent enabler —it's becoming clear that BNP must bear some responsibility for the lost cash.

Clearly there is a need to reclaim as much of the cash as possible for the Iraqi people. That goes without saying.

At the same time, BNP needs to be clear about the role U.N. higher-ups played in the rip-off.

The overriding question is: What did Kofi Annan know, and when did he know it?

We bet BNP can help with answers.

It is Congress' responsibility to see that they come quickly, and publicly.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...fiscashlaundry

Technologist · 11-19-2004, 06:37 PM

As I have said many times before (when I brought up the food for oil program previously)....

Tell the UN they have 30 days to get the hell OUT of the building...

Tell them they have an additional 15 days to get OUT of the US....

Don't let the door hit you in the butt!!!

We can sell the building, or use it for counter-terrorism office space...

UN = League of Nations = Waste of time and money...

Jolie Rouge · 11-30-2004, 07:54 PM

Annan: Son's Iraq Ties A Surprise
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 30, 2004

(CBS/AP) Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was "very disappointed and surprised" that his son had continued to receive payments until this February from a firm that had a contract with Iraq's oil-for-food program, the subject of numerous corruption investigations.

Annan told reporters Monday that he had been working on the understanding that payments to his son, Kojo Annan, from the Swiss-based firm Cotecna Inspection S.A. stopped in 1998 "and I had not expected that the relationship continued."

But on Friday, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Kojo Annan's lawyer had informed the independent panel appointed by the secretary-general to investigate allegations of corruption in the oil-for-food program that the younger Annan continued to receive monthly payments through February 2004.

The disclosure was the latest embarrassment for Annan and the United Nations over the humanitarian program that was instituted in December 1996 to help Iraqis cope with sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Annan on Monday stressed that his son was an independent businessman "and I don't get involved with his activities and he doesn't get involved in mine."

Annan has said his son joined Cotecna at the age of 22 as a trainee in Geneva before he became secretary-general and worked in West Africa. The firm was hired by the United Nations on Dec. 31, 1998 to authenticate that food, medicine and other goods entering Iraq corresponded to a list of goods approved for import.

In a statement in April, Cotecna said Kojo Annan's full-time employment — which focused entirely on its activities in Nigeria and Ghana and had nothing to do with the oil-for-food program — began in 1995 and ended in December 1997 after which he was retained as a consultant until early 1999. It did not mention any further payments.

The United Nations previously said Kojo Annan stopped receiving monthly payments from Cotecna at the end of 1999. But Eckhard said Friday he continued to be paid because he had an open-ended no-compete contract which allows an employee who leaves a company to receive money to ensure he won't set up a competing company. "There is nothing illegal in this," Eckhard said. Also, continuing investigations by the U.S. Congress and the United Nations have not shown any wrongdoing by Cotecna.

Cotecna spokeswoman Ginny Wolfe said Kojo Annan was paid $2,500 a month "to prevent him from working for any of their competitors in Africa" which she described as a very competitive market. "Kojo Annan's sole responsibilities were in Africa," she said. "He had nothing to do with any U.N. discussions and work."

U.S. Ambassador John Danforth discussed the oil-for-food investigations with the secretary-general on Monday and was asked afterward whether the United States still has confidence in Annan. "I don't think the U.S. government rushes to judgment until all the facts are in," he said, urging that the investigation be exhaustive and reveal all the facts to avoid any charges of a cover-up.

Five U.S. congressional panels have been pressing the independent inquiry headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker to hand over internal U.N. documents for their own oil-for-food probes. But Volcker told the Senate that his panel won't hand over documents until its investigative reports are issued starting in January.

CBS Radio News reports Danforth said everything should be handed over to the congressional committees for the sake of transparency.

But he added, "I am not for chaos, everyone asking everyone for everything at the same time."

"As soon as the information can be made public, the better off we can be," Danforth said.

The oil-for-food program allowed Saddam's regime to sell unlimited quantities of oil provided the money went primarily to buy humanitarian goods and pay reparations to victims of the 1991 Gulf War.

Annan reiterated that he has "no involvement with granting of contracts, either on this Cotecna one or others."

But the secretary-general said he understood "the perception problem for the U.N., or the perception of conflict of interests and wrongdoing."

Eckhard said both Cotecna and Kojo Annan's lawyers had informed the United Nations that they have turned over information to the independent inquiry headed by Volcker. "To the extent that there's an allegation of the awarding of this contract and the secretary-general's son, leave that to Volcker to investigate," Eckhard said. "We feel there is not. We have looked into it and we can find no evidence, but it's not for us to judge now, it's for Mr. Volcker to judge."

Annan told reporters Monday he spoke to his son after learning that he had been paid through February, "but I really don't want to get into this."

Asked whether he was disappointed and angry with his son for taking the money and not disclosing it, Annan replied: "Naturally I was very disappointed and surprised, yes."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in656749.shtml

LuvBigRip · 12-01-2004, 04:50 PM

WASHINGTON — The senator leading an investigation into the United Nations' Oil-for-Food program in Iraq is calling on Secretary-General Kofi Annan (search) to resign.

Writing in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, Sen. Norm Coleman (search), R-Minn., argues that Annan should step down because "the most extensive fraud in the history of the U.N. occurred on his watch. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, as long as Mr. Annan remains in charge, the world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks and under-the-table payments that took place under the U.N.'s collective nose."

Annan's office declined to comment Tuesday night.

The humanitarian Oil-for-Food program (search), which began in 1996, allowed Iraq to trade oil for food, medicine and other necessities that became scarce under strict U.N. economic sanctions imposed after the Gulf War. The program was credited with preventing widespread starvation.

Two weeks ago, Coleman's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said it had uncovered evidence that Saddam Hussein's government raised more than $21.3 billion in illegal revenue by subverting U.N. sanctions against Iraq, including the Oil-for-Food program.

"Mr. Annan was at the helm of the U.N. for all but a few days of the Oil-for-Food program, and he must, therefore, be held accountable for the U.N.'s utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses," wrote Coleman.

The subcommittee's ranking Democrat, Carl Levin (search) of Michigan, has worked closely with Coleman on the investigation, but said Tuesday night he didn't see a need for Annan to resign.

"While I believe that one or more specific individuals working with the Oil-for-Food program at the U.N. may have acted improperly, I have seen no evidence of impropriety whatsoever on the part of Kofi Annan," Levin said in a statement issued to The Associated Press.

In a telephone interview Tuesday night, Coleman said: "Any private company would have asked for his (Annan's) resignation. But the members of the board, in this case Security Council members China, Russia and France, have all benefited from Saddam being in power."

Coleman said another factor in asking for Annan's resignation was the secretary-general's refusal to give his subcommittee access to the U.N.'s 55 internal audits and interviews with U.N. staff members. Annan has argued that doing so would interfere with an internal investigation by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

Coleman stressed that in calling for Annan's resignation, he wasn't coming to any conclusions about his involvement in the Oil-for-Food program.

"I'm not Kofi's boss," Coleman said.

He called Annan's resignation "inevitable," especially in light of this week's revelation that Annan's son, Kojo Annan, received $30,000 a year for over five years from a Swiss-based company under investigation in connection with suspected corruption in the Oil-for-Food program.

Coleman stopped short of saying he would move to cut U.S. funding for the U.N. if Annan stays on.

"I'm not prepared to say we need to step back from our (financial) commitments to the U.N," he said. "But ultimately, if our efforts are thwarted, I think that issue does come into play. The consequence of the path we're on right now is not a good path for the United Nations."

Coleman said he didn't ask any other senator to join his call for Annan's resignation, but said he had "no doubt" that many senators will support the effort.

cavemtmomma · 12-01-2004, 07:06 PM

There is no such creature as a "Palestinian Jew" most Jews don't recognize Palestine as a real place. Jews have lived in the Holy Land since we stopped following Moses around in the wilderness. The Romans called the land palestine as an insult to the Jews. It was a reference to the philistines that lived there prior to the Jews.(the philistines were not a semetic people)The so called occupied territories belonged to Lebanon and Syria prior to Israel taking them in a war. We also took desert from Egypt but we gave that back.We didn't give the territories back because they were used by Arabs to launch missles and attacks into Israel.

YNKYH8R · 12-02-2004, 09:48 AM

Kind of like the land of make believe from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood?

Technologist · 12-02-2004, 12:52 PM

Bush Calls for Full U.N. Oil-For-Food Probe

40 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) on Thursday called for a "full and open" accounting of the U.N. oil-for-food program but would not say whether he thought U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) should resign.

"I look forward to the full disclosure of the facts, get an honest appraisal of that which went on. And it's important for the integrity of the organization to have a full and open disclosure of all that took place with the oil-for-food program," Bush said.

Sen. Norm Coleman (news, bio, voting record) of Minnesota, who is investigating corruption in the oil-for-food program, Wednesday called on Annan to resign. He said former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) reaped some $21.3 billion from the program because of Annan's lack of oversight.

Bush, asked if Annan should resign, would not say.

"On this issue, it's very important for the United Nations (news - web sites) to understand that there ought to be a full and fair and open accounting of the oil-for-food program," he said.

"In order for the taxpayers of the United States to feel comfortable about supporting the United Nations, there has to be an open accounting," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...h_dc&printer=1

YNKYH8R · 12-02-2004, 02:44 PM

Sometimes I don't know wether people are angry with the UN or secretly happy that this is blowing up in their face.