DOGS DON’T BARK FOR THE GOP
By Ian Williams
AZG Armenian Daily
03/04/2007
Sherlock Holmes aficionados will remember the story about the dog that
did not bark. It sprang to mind this week as I strained to hear the
deafening sound of silence from the usual suspects – the Murdoch/Fox
hunters – who are so well trained to bay at the first hint of a UN
corruption story.
Consider. A senior official of a UN agency that Washington banned for
many years because of its alleged corruption and anti-American bias has
just resigned, shortly before the auditors closed in with a devastating
report. The official is a former legislator from the party currently
running his government back home – and currently mired in nepotism
and corruption scandals. Nominated by his President, once ensconced
in the agency’s offices, the official sliced and diced consultancy
contracts into segments smaller than $100,000 so that he could award
them on a no-bid basis to an influential company back home. To do so,
he used funds totaling over $2m earmarked to combat illiteracy in
Africa, and even used half a million at one point for a sycophantic
reception in honour of the spouse of the president who nominated
him. These charges were made in the French press three months ago,
and have been circulating among the knowledgeable ever since – even
though those who raised questions about the official found themselves
transferred from Paris to plum postings like Zimbabwe.
Wow. Are the Foxes hunting? Is the Wall Street Journal op-ed page
about to declare war on someone and demand US withdrawal from the UN?
No. The sound of silence is deafening. Why?
Elementary, my dear Watson.
The official concerned is former American Republican Congressman Peter
Smith, nominated by President George W Bush to go to UNESCO and reform
the organization after 19 years of American boycott. UNESCO is based
in Paris, and the auditors are those used by the French government.
The company that was the beneficiary of Smith’s Halliburtonesque
contracting practices was Navigant, a big Washington company whose
website, you will notice, does not claim any educational expertise
at all.
UNESCO critics claim he transferred over $200,000 from literacy
projects in Mauritania, Iraq and Palestine to bankroll the conference
hosted by Laura Bush and the White House in September last year,
where Ms Bush was feted as the Honorary Ambassador of the United
Nations Literacy Decade. The New York caterer was the beneficiaries
of the children’s loss.
Of course, it is possible that he is entirely innocent. But when you
consider the Oil for Food allegations, you have to wonder why some
parts of the fourth estate don’t show the same restraint before going
after foreigners, liberals and globalists of various hues.
Indeed, the relative silence is an interesting contrast to the
two-year furor over the Oil For Food programme. After hyperbolic talk
of billions of dollars improperly diverted, the scandal ended up as a
whimper, not a bang: The allegation is now that the former head of the
programme, Benon Sevan, received $160,000 over four years, which is
claimed to have come from a friend who bought oil from Saddam Hussein.
Sevan had declared it on his UN forms, saying it came from his aunt,
and denies any connection. (Of course, he is a Cypriot, and spent
a lifetime working for the UN, and had no known connection with the
GOP – so his guilt has been assumed from the beginning.)
But the silence is also reminiscent of the blanket over the $10bn
that the UN Oil for Food programme handed over to US occupation
authorities. Congressman Henry Waxman has been trying to find out what
happened – and has been quite successful in uncovering the serious
incompetence and corruption of the Americans who handled these huge
bricks of cash. His efforts have had less than one per cent of the
publicity of the unproven and frankly dubious Oil for Food scandal.
The lesson is clear. If you want to be corrupt in the UN, being an
influential Republican is as good as ticking the box for no publicity.