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U.N. rife with corruption... national |
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news report
 Wednesday April 23, 2003 04:36 by gargoyle
 UN was running a program frought with kickbacks and hidden records The UN has been skimming off the top of the oil-for-food programme! Apparently, it was a cash cow not only for the previous saddam hussein regime (hence, perhaps it should have been called the oil-for-palace program), but for the UN and the defenders of the previous regime as well (france, russia). The game was to just keep the oil money and kickbacks rolling as long as possible and Iraqi people be damned. So it turns out the UN has been skimming 2.2% of all the oil-for-food money for itself. Also, the UN refuses to allow anyone to review their records of the program and Kofi Annan has flatly refused all requests to do exactly that! Another good link is Claudia Rosett's New York Times article, "Oil, Food and a Whole Lot of Questions" As she says, this program put "a veil of secrecy over tens of billions of dollars in contracts is an invitation to kickbacks, political back-scratching and smuggling done under cover of relief operations." The UN has covered all this while allowing Iraqis to starve and giving massive kickbacks to certain governments that should surprise no one, particularly the Russian and French governments and companies. Also noted is the UN's refusal to name suppliers while at the same time cooking the books with tricks such as supplying Japanese vehicles manufactured in Libya and Syria, of which there are none. In short, the UN has been using the oil-for-food programme to generate kickbacks for itself and those countries who keep the kickbacks rolling all at the expense of starving Iraqis. |
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Comments (14 of 14)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14Ooh that evil united nations the way they steal all that oil is just dastardly the commision for childrens rights have also been hiding chemical weapons in childrens lunchboxes, that Hans Blix and his evil mates were smuggling from Iraq for his secret lover the evildoer Mrs. Anthrax.Ooh, ooh yes it's all true the U.N. those dreaded evil doers and their terrible work in third world countries the sooner this club of devil worshippers is disbanded and the U.S. is allowed to look after the world and take care of us all in it's wonderfully democratic and freedom loving manner the better.
Oooh oooh because the Washington post and NY times are completely unbiased and have got it right on so many occasions, and this United Nations club has been skimming off the top and it's all been going into the presidents pocket and they've all been seen sneeking out of the security council at coffee break and exchanging bank account numbers and playing craps with that armless child from Iraq because they know he can't roll dice, the evil bastards.
They all conspired to do it, all the nations of the world every one of them, except for the U.S. of course who was so upset at their horrible terribleness that they decided not to pay their membership for years and years, and this is why they did't ratify the anti chem bio weapons treaties or treaties against child labour etc. because they knew that these were just covers for the conspiring nations of the world to skim off the top and for people like that evil Mr. Annan to get that new Rolex he always wanted ????????
Actually its good to see the pro-war crowd being honest and admitting that the war was all about who gets the oil revenue. Boiled down that's what the article above is saying, previously US and British corportations had to share the spoils with the French and Russians. Now they'll have it all for themselves.
[It's hardly news boys that the UN is little more then a front for the powerful imperialist powers - or that the US seems to have decided that it no longer needs this front.]
But if the UN did keep some (2.2% ?) of the money, it's still a fraction of what went to poor Kuwait's royal family (14 % of all oil for food revenue), and not much more than the 200 million dollars that went to Exxon for loss of business due to the first gulf war, which also came out of the oild for food money.
period.
period.
but in its place I'd put a free federation of autonomous work and community groups, organised from the bottom up, where everybody had an equal say in the decisions that affected them.
Oh and I'd also put your head on a stick on the smoking ruins of the UN building in NYC.
The United Nations was the great hope for many as an alternative to war, or to a peace where rich countries could do as they please. Even today many well-meaning people all too often refer to the UN as if it was an alternative to US or NATO domination of the globe. The UN may claim to be a global body representing all countries, but in reality - for effective intervention - it may only act with the say so of a tiny number of powerful military powers. These are the five permanent members of the Security Council (USA, Britain, France, Russia and China), each with the ability to veto any intervention that goes against their interests.
In effect the UN is a cover behind which these countries can wage war when it suits them - as when the UN supposedly went into Iraq to protect Kuwaiti sovereignty in the 1991 Gulf war. But they can stop the UN acting in other cases, so for instance no UN body invaded the US to protect Nicaraguan sovereignty when the Reagan administration were mining its harbours in the 1980's.
Even where the smaller countries disapprove and partly block military action behind the UN banner, the NATO countries have proved adapt at ignoring calls for negotiated solutions and using UN resolutions as an excuse for war as in the ongoing bombing of Iraq. Often these excuses are astounding hypocritical. NATO could bomb Serbia supposedly to protect ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo from Serbian paramilitaries yet stands by while Turkey (a NATO member) massacres ethnic Kurds.
The Security Council mechanism by which the major powers control the UN and hence military intervention is quite well. However what is not so widely realised are the similar mechanisms that exist by which - without resorting to arms - the major imperialist powers, and the US in particular, can control the world economy. Once this is revealed the idea of globalisation becomes no more then a cheap card trick designed to disguise and take away our attention from the imperialist domination of the world.
in every country we see a pattern where a tiny, tiny minority control the bulk of the wealth. This is true even in the ring leader of the imperialist thugs that rule this order, the US where as of 1995 (the latest figures available), Federal Reserve research found that the wealth of the top one percent of Americans is greater than that of the bottom 95 percent.
And in every country this top 1% which inevitably controls the media sends its kids to elite schools and forms the layer from which most politicians and decision makers are drawn. Every US president this century has been a millionaire if not a billionaire. Every 4 to 7 years we might get to choose locally between which gang of these characters rules us but it should be obvious that even at this local level acceptability is nonsense - indeed one of the funnier web sites connected with the US election makes this point precisely as 'Billionaires for Bush and Gore'.
And it is these elites by processes which are not transparent that decide their national policy with regards to the UN or IMF and World Bank meetings. The problem is not simply that all these global bodies make 'bad decisions' in the interests of profit and not people. They are constructed in a way that ensures they can make no other decisions. The problem is also that in the global system that exists there is no way ordinary people can have a part in making these decisions short of - as we will do on Tuesday - blockading their meetings and stopping -at least for a while - any decision being made.
We understand that we are not going to bring down the world order headed by the UN or World Bank on Tuesday or by blockading any of their meetings. Instead we send out a clear message that there is an alternative. This alternative is not merely a question of policies but also of a new world in which for the first time the ordinary people of the world will take direct control over how our societies are run, not simply by occasionally choosing between professional politicians but by self management in the workplaces and the communities.
What happened on Tuesday, read the account at
http://struggle.ws/wsm/news/2000/prague_sept.html
i love this pro-war logic. first of all, all anti-war people are pro-Saddam and anti-American. Now anti-war people are also pro-UN.
do you seriously expect me, as a socialist, or any of the other anarchists, socialists or communists that come on this site to stand up and defend the UN?
I agree with what andrew says, its an imperialist club, that only 'intervenes' when it is in the interests of capitalism.
Where were they when the East-Timorese were being slaughtered bu Suharto (who was using western weapons)? Where were they when Saddam was gassing Kurds and Iranians (with weapons supplied by the west)? Where were they when Pinochet was 'dissappearing' thousands in Chile (with the help of the US)?
Of course the UN is corrupt, but just because it is doesn't mean that the US regime is any better.
Anti-Bush, Anti-UN, Anti-Saddam, Anti-War, Anti-Imperialist and Anti-Capitalist!
Maybe we have somthing in common with the left?We just all want to be left the fuck alone!And not be meddled with by any form of Govt of any political color.However I'll belive that we are anti UN when I see somone at the next anti war demo light up that UN flag along with the Irish tri color and Stars&stripes.
So I take it that in your world, no one has freedom of expression, and you would rule by fear and tyranny?
Nice utopian society there. Leave me out of it.
I'll be wearing a T shirt with a plane crashing into the UN with GOOD SHOT written under it.
Seriously if those planes on 9/11 had been aimed at the UN building Osama Bin Ladin would be now looking at being made a freeman of New York!!!
The UN with its parasitic diplomats costs NYC somthing like 160million in unpaid parking tickets,dodged rent,solicition of prostitutes charges and general misbehaving of "diplomats"under the privilidge of CD or diplomatic immunity.Please bomb it somone,just get them to pay their bills first.
And to replace it?NOTHING we were better off without it
Why doesn't NY just keep tabs on this, then deduct the amount from our UN dues every year?
Seems logical enough to me.
By the way, I understand diplomatic immunity, but does a country not have the right to at least expel a diplomat for not obeying its laws?
I still remember the case of a drunken Russian diplomat going 120mph on the beltway around washington and killing 2 sixteen-year-old high school kids on their way to the prom. He got off scot free.