Posted on 03/28/2005 4:56:46 PM PST by Pikamax
Annan 'will sacrifice son to save himself' By Alec Russell in Washington (Filed: 29/03/2005)
Kofi Annan, the beleaguered United Nations secretary general, is expected to sacrifice his son's reputation today as he fights to save his own position after a damaging report into a family conflict of interest.
The long-awaited report by the commission set up to investigate the scandal-hit oil-for-food programme for Iraq, will criticise the UN leader for a series of management failings.
Mr Annan: ‘exasperated’ by Kojo's behaviour In particular, he will be accused of failing to recognise or deal with conflicts of interest involving the work of his son, Kojo, for Cotecna, a Swiss firm that had a lucrative UN contract in the multi-million-pound humanitarian programme.
Leaks of the report suggest that Mr Annan will be absolved of having organised or benefited from the United Nations' allocation of contracts.
But there is mounting concern at UN headquarters in New York that new revelations over Cotecna and Kojo Annan will intensify the pressure from Washington for him to step down.
The Wall Street Journal said the report would say that Kojo Annan received nearly $400,000 from Cotecna, more than twice the money previously acknowledged.
It will also focus on four previously undisclosed meetings between Mr Annan and Cotecna starting in 1992, five years before he became secretary general.
Mr Annan has denied any impropriety but his many critics in Washington say that, by failing to disclose the meetings before, he has given the impression of a cover-up.
Republican Right-wingers in Congress who are baying for his blood will seize on the report to press home their argument that he is too discredited to keep his job.
The report has been drawn up by Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, who heads an independent commission appointed by the UN to investigate the oil-for-food programme.
This is the second of three interim reports by the commission and is seen at the UN as being potentially the most damaging to Mr Annan.
"There is a fair amount of anticipation and turbulence," a UN source said. "This is the one that might hurt."
Mr Annan has said that he was "disappointed and surprised" when he learned that Kojo continued to be paid by Cotecna after 1998 when the firm was awarded a contract to monitor the oil-for-food programme.
But in his response to the report he is expected to go much further in distancing himself from his son. UN officials are privately briefing that he has never had a close relationship with his son and that he is exasperated by his behaviour.
The UN set up the oil-for-food programme to allow Saddam Hussein's Iraq, then under strict sanctions, to sell oil for food and medicine. It subsequently emerged that Saddam manipulated it to receive billions of dollars in bribes for lucrative contracts.
Cotecna and both Annans deny any connection between the firm's contract and its employment of Kojo. Cotecna says that Kojo was paid his fee for agreeing not to work for a rival firm in west Africa.
But the report will criticise him for appearing to trade on his family name and will claim that he misled his father over the extent of his involvement with Cotecna, which employed him from 1995 to 1998, as it won the key contract. The report will say that Cotecna paid the $400,000 between 1996 and 2004.
The UN is on the back foot over a range of issues, including a sex scandal in its peacekeeping operation in the Congo, and the first Volcker report last month that savaged the record of Benon Sevan, the former head of the oil-for-food programme.
It has since emerged that up to the publication of the first Volker report the funds for Mr Sevan's legal defence came from the remains of the oil-for-food project.
The White House was furious with Mr Annan over his remarks to the BBC last year that the war against Iraq was "illegal" and for his call for the American-led forces not to launch an offensive on the former insurgents' stronghold of Fallujah.
As the Bush administration seeks to repair relations with its former allies, it has toned down its criticism of the UN, leaving the attacks to Republican congressmen who have long seen it as a bumbling and corrupt restraint on American interests.
"This report will greatly increase the pressure from Congress for Kofi Annan to go," said Nile Gardiner, of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank. Mr Gardiner works closely with the congressional inquiries into the oil-for-food programme.
"What will hurt him is the impression that he has not been completely honest, the impression of a cover-up."
Mr Annan has been secretary general since January 1997. His second term ends at the end of next year.
In reality koffi won't have to work hard to save himself or his son. He considers himself a monarch who is untouchable--and it's probably true.
How third worldly and ignoble.
http://www.rogerlsimon.com/
is the hot blog now on this subject.
SO9
Why am I not surprised!
Thanks Shermy.
At least those nasty Republicans are not starving poor Kofi to death.
Um, this isn't Clinton's White House.
Annan got his son hired, with a glowing reference, I'm sure, and he should be held accountable for that.
LOL!
It won't work.
It would sure suck to have to go back to Ghana...
A good question would be to ask....."how much money did Kojo get fron shaking down Swede Control/Intertek Testing Service the other major survey house in Nigeria.
Gee, thanks Daddy. Don't expect a present for Father's Day this year, 'kay?
btw: Do ol' Koffi and his son have Immunity?
Like how?
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