UN cash for accused Nazi (Waldheim got 4,1 million)

Herald Sun ^ | October 20 2002

[knighthawk]

KURT Waldheim, the former United Nations secretary general accused of committing Nazi atrocities, has received a $4.1 million golden handshake from the world body.

The money has been paid secretly over the past 20 years, despite Mr Waldheim being linked to war crimes.

The former UN secretary general has been banned from setting foot on United States soil since 1987, when he was found to have "assisted or participated" in Nazi deportations and the executions of Jews and soldiers in the Balkans during World War II.

But now it has been revealed that the UN gives the 83-year-old ex-Wehrmacht intelligence officer an annual pension of $227,367 -- which he receives in Vienna and can expect to collect every year until he dies.

Mr Waldheim served two five-year terms as head of the UN from 1972 to 1982 -- and has been a UN pensioner ever since.

His time at the UN is now seen as a low point in the organisation's history.

In 1986, then US senator Daniel Moynihan introduced a non-binding rider to an anti-terrorism Bill that would have frozen Mr Waldheim's pension by withholding US contributions to it.

Although the measure was approved, no action was taken.

Sixteen years have passed, and the payments have never ceased.

Mr Waldheim's annual haul has shot up in the past 20 years, thanks to five budgetary resolutions passed in the General Assembly by acclamation.

The assembly voted Waldheim a series of pension-allowance raises even as evidence surfaced of his alleged role in the mass deportations of Greek and Yugoslav Jews to Nazi death camps, and in the execution of Allied prisoners in 1942-45.

Attempts to reach Mr Waldheim at his home in Vienna this week were unsuccessful.

Secretary General Kofi Annan, through spokesman Fred Eckhard declined to say whether he felt the pension was "wise or unwise, fair or unfair".

Because it is allocated as part of the UN budget by a ballot of the 190-member General As-sembly, Mr Eckhard said, "The question of whether the pension is appropriate or not is a question you'd have to put to 190 governments."

The UN payments will continue until Mr Waldheim's death, at which point his wife, if she survives him, will collect half his pension until her death.

[knighthawk]

ICC anyone?

[knighthawk]

No more UN for US!

Link and petition here

Link and petition here

Link here

[contessa machiaveli]

why am i not surprised?

[denydenydeny]

They don't want the other shoe of Waldheim's life to come out: That for the entirety of the time that he was UN General Secretary, he was controlled by someone--almost certainly the USSR--who was blackmailing him.

[Pontiac]

Even something as low as the history of UN must have high points. After all it’s all relative.

[Brush_Your_Teeth]

ICC anyone?

Why? At the expense of making it a legit court? I would rather have his head bashed in by a "botched robbery".

[dalebert]

bump!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I think you're on to something.

[Mudboy Slim]

GET THE UN OUTTA THE US AND THE US OUTTA THE UN!!

FReegards...MUD

[Mudboy Slim]

"They don't want the other shoe of Waldheim's life to come out: That for the entirety of the time that he was UN General Secretary, he was controlled by someone--almost certainly the USSR--who was blackmailing him."

Somebody's got their thinking cap on this morning, don't they?!

Good catch...MUD

[knighthawk]

No, just making a joke. They pretend that convicting war criminals is so important to them. But they are paying one of them a lot of money.

SO much for the ICC!

[Diogenesis]

"This just in. Saddam's puppet and UN Abu Annan has something to say about
the latest UN cash for an accused Nazi.
Emperor Abu Annan may deign to say something about the recent Palestinian condemned to death for speaking to an Israeli.
He may also, at last, finally discuss the three billion dollars per year which the UN
has given Terrorist Saddam to promote his regime,
and he may even possibly discuss his UN support of on-going Islamic slavery
in Africa, piracy, and other terrorists like Arafat.
At last, we will find out ..... here at last is the Emperor Annan .........
........
........
........
........ hold on .............
........
........ his Imperial Excellency ......
........
........ but..... but .... your Excellency ... gross .... ugggh.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[backhoe]

I'm communicating from my "backup browser"-- a 66 mhtz. 486 with a sticking keyboard & gritty trackball- so excuse the weird typos, they are hard to go back to & correct.

---

That aside, I'll ask rhetorically

"Which is a bigger, more bitter joke?
The un?
Or the nobel peace prize?"

[denydenydeny]

I am not a tinfoil hatter, and I've had my share of arguments with those I call "conspiracy nuts" (and I have been called a "coincidence nut.") But I remember the day that the Waldheim story broke on the front page of the New York Times in 1986. Facts, names, places, dates, photographs, all at once. Full documentation. With no prior warning.

Forty-year-old stories just do not break that suddenly and completely. It could only have been stuff that was in someone's file. There is no doubt in my mind about this. The full story has yet to be told.

[madfly]

ping

[blackie]

Get Out Of The UN, Now !!

Let's Roll !!

The RATS Are In Disarray...Eradicate The Rodents !!

Fire Democrats, Hire Republicans !!

GWB Is The Man !!

Snuff Saddam, NOW !!

Death To all Tyrant's !!

The Second Amendment...
America's Original Homeland Security !!

Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!

Molon Labe !!

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

How about we start with a wedge issue? We condemn the UN for this for starters. We get a House vote to condemn this and demand that the UN pay us back our 25% of these wages. Either that, or they don't get a stinking dime. The Holocaust version of the Mexico City Language.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

"Which is a bigger, more bitter joke?
The un?
Or the nobel peace prize?"

The answer is Bill Clinton.

[Dick Bachert]

Hey, Kof, baby, give Kurt a jingle. He has PLENTY of that other jingle -- thanks to YOU and your moron friends.