http://www.textfiles.com/magazines/ONESHOTS/issue.001 (you have to "View Source" to actually read the BBS magazine)
The New American * April 3, 1995 *
UNICEF: BEHIND THE MASK
+++++++++++++++++++++++ By William P. Hoar
Halloween trick or treating and greeting cards are what most Americans think about when they hear the name UNICEF. The greeting card operation alone, according to a recent Yearbook of the United Nations, brings in an annual take of $76.6 million. But behind the marketing facade that supposedly raises funds for international child welfare programs is an agenda to augment the power and influence of global government.
UNICEF specifically supports, as noted in its State of the World's Children, 1994, "sustainable development following the guidelines of Agenda 21, the blueprint for the world's environment agreed to at the 'Earth Summit' in Rio de Janeiro in 1992." An Agenda 21 document acknowledges that it "proposes an array of actions which are intended to be implemented by every person on earth...."
One outgrowth of UNICEF's 1990 World Summit for children was the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It was pushed through in 1990, has 176 signatories, but has yet to be ratified by the United States. Hillary Clinton announced at a memorial service for James Grant, the late head of UNICEF, that the U.S. would, in his honor, sign the world pact and send it to the Senate for ratification.
Proponents argue that the plight of children is so ghastly as to require that there be an immediate world "right" to protect them; but they also insist that the resultant "protections" (at least in the U.S.) would be so meaningless that no one should worry about any changes that might occur. Are we to believe that global power grabbers would spend so much effort on empty symbolism?
Former UN consultant Graham Hancock points out in his book, The Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige and Corruption of the International Aid Business, that "personnel and associated costs" absorb some "80 percent of all UN expenditures," with UNICEF and other "humanitarian" agencies spending an inordinate amount on self-promotion.
But in view of some of the "beneficiaries" of UNICEF aid, the inordinate administration cost is not necessarily bad news. Consider the help given the communists in Vietnam (or substitute other dictatorships for similar results). As Robert Heinl of the Detroit News commented in a May 1975 column called "UNICEF Aided Vietnam Fall":
Last fall when you gave the kids trick-or-treat money for UNICEF Christmas cards, did it occur that you, and behind you, the U.S. Government, were bankrolling the Communist takeover of South Vietnam"
Well, you were....
UNICEF collected and disbursed a total of $13,649,433 for its Indochina children's programs....Of this eight-figure sum, $8,976,587 went to Communist recipients: $6,313,130 diectly to Hanoi and $1,975,567 more - via Haiphong and Hanoi, of course - to the Viet Cong....
Here's more recent notoriety: Auditors for UNICEF itself have found it necessary to criticize the agency's propensity for bribery payments - sometimes euphemistically called "salary supplements" or "commissions." According to a UN audit conducted for the auditors general of Britain, Ghana, and India, "the practice appears to be widespread among United Nations organizations, multilateral and bilateral organizations and non- governmental organizations."
The problems of bribery, reported the New York Times for December 25, 1994, are "particularly pervasive" in Africa. However, the most bothersome thing seems not to be the amount of bribery, nor the principle. Such payments, commented the Times, "divert money from development efforts and pose the risk of steadily increasing. Indeed, the auditors did not stress the amount involved but rather the potential threat to programs."
In other words, if the complicity with bribery and graft becomes known, the scam might suffer and globalizing efforts be set back. The plight of children remains part of the shell game.