UNSCAM: Kojo Lied

Did anyone see this one coming? Really now. Everyone involved in UNSCAM is lying through their teeth to avoid being prosecuted somewhere. Benon Sevan managed to get out of the US before the report came down and is sitting pretty in Cyprus where US prosecutors cannot get him because the US doesn't have an extradition treaty with Cyprus.

The charges against Kojo Annan, 30, were the most damning findings of a blistering 800-page report by the U.N.-appointed Independent Inquiry Commission of its probe of the oil-for-food scandal — which Kofi Annan conceded yesterday was "deeply embarrassing to all of us."

The five-volume document said the panel recently obtained bombshell evidence revealing that despite his repeated denials, Kojo Annan was in direct contact with U.N. procurement officials — and even his father's personal assistant — while the Swiss firm Cotecna, which had hired him as a consultant, was bidding to get the Iraq contract.

"Memoranda and telephone records show that Kojo Annan used his contacts at the United Nations to assist Cotecna's effort to obtain the Iraq inspection contract — most significantly that Kojo Annan placed several calls to the U.N. procurement department at critical times in the bidding process in the fall of 1998," the report said.

The commission said that the phone records and Cotecna communications "refute" statements Kojo made in an interview with committee investigators in October, and in a follow-up letter in March, that he played no role in Cotecna's bid for the contract to inspect shipments of humanitarian goods.

The commission also uncovered previously undisclosed payments worth $75,000 Cotecna made to companies connected to Kojo Annan after he resigned, and issued a second "adverse finding," blasting the younger Annan for using his father's name and diplomatic status to save $20,644 in taxes and customs duties on the purchase of a new Mercedes.

Despite Kojo Annan's dangerously close contacts with the United Nations, including calls to his father's personal assistant Wagaye Assebe, the commission said it found no evidence that the secretary-general was aware that Cotecna was bidding on the Iraq contract or that he played a role in the company receiving it.

That last part I find particularly difficult to believe. This was a huge scandal, and there were failures galore, but no one is responsible.

On other aspects of the scandal, the commission said it found no evidence that Iraq was successful in its campaign to steer bribes to the elder Annan through South Korean hustler Tongsun Park and Iraqi-American businessman Samir Vincent, although it said investigations continue.

I'm sure those investigations will continue, though I hope that it is US prosecutors working that case and not a commission set up by the UN, which has managed to deflect criticism and responsibility at every turn.

UPDATE:
Captain Ed uncovers a London Times editorial that calls for Kofi's resignation. I concur. I've been saying that for quite some time now actually. Kofi has brought a tremendous amount of misery and suffering to all corners of the planet - from his inaction to stop genocide in Rwanda to failing to act on the Sudanese genocide. Or, try the slow UN response to the South Asian tsunami. Or the failure to properly manage and oversee peacekeeping operations so that the peacekeepers don't become sexual predators on the refugees they're supposed to protect. Or firing a sexual harasser in the Secretariat even though everyone in charge knew it was ongoing. UNSCAM is only one more reason.