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U.N. and Green Corruption Charles R. Smith What lives in China, is tied to both North Korean dictator Kim Jun Il and former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and wants you to pay a global U.N. sponsored "carbon" tax? The answer to this tangled riddle is a person few people outside of U.N. headquarters knows; Canadian tycoon Maurice Strong. Yet, every time you plug into an electric outlet, or pay for gas at the pump, Maurice Strong has his hand in your pocket. The 77-year-old Strong is best known as the godfather of the environmental movement. The multimillionaire, who describes himself as a "life long socialist," served from 1973-1975 as the founding director of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) in Nairobi. Strong earned his pro-green points when he served as the organizer of the U.N. 1992 environmental summit in Rio de Janeiro. The Rio riot act kicked off the anti-growth movement and the biggest scam of the century — the 1997 Kyoto Treaty on controlling greenhouse gas emissions. Today, Strong is hiding out in China after being implicated in the Iraqi/U.N. oil-for-food scandal and another scandal involving illegal kickbacks related to North Korea and nukes. Strong is so closely aligned with the communists in Beijing that he has an office in a Chinese government-hosted diplomatic compound. According to Strong's assistant in Beijing, the perks from the PRC are repayment for the "many continuing relationships arising from his career including 40 years of active relationships in China." Strong's choice of China as a hideout raises other issues. For example, China makes a great deal of money trading carbon emissions credits, a creation of fiction for money from the U.N. These same U.N. emissions credits were created by Strong during the 1990s.
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Ironically, while Beijing cashes in using U.N. emissions monopoly money it is the world's biggest producer of industrial pollution. In addition, for a program intended to re-distribute the wealth it would seem that all too many rich Chinese Generals and PRC officials are the singular beneficiaries. So much for saving the planet. Strong has also been linked in press reports to planned attempts to market Chinese-made automobiles in North America. Again, ironically, many of the Chinese made autos to make it to the shores of the U.S. are, enviromentally speaking, gas-guzzling antiques with poor milage and even poorer performance.
While at the U.N., Strong created the Office of the Iraq Program better known as the oil-for-food program. That office was headed by Benon Sevan, who was indicted for taking bribes via the Iraq oil-for-food deals. The entire Iraqi oil-for-food scandal involved the U.N. at the highest levels. Money intended to help starving Iraqi children was either siphoned off into massive bribes or channeled into Saddam's military. Strong cut and ran from the U.N. in 2005 when U.S. investigators discovered that he had taken a check for almost $1 million in 1997, while serving as a top adviser to then U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The money came directly from Saddam Hussein.
The check was delivered by a South Korean businessman, Tongsun Park, who was recently convicted of conspiring to bribe U.N. officials on behalf of Baghdad. Park is currently awaiting sentencing for his conviction. During Park's trial, court testimony showed that a few years after Strong accepted the $1 million dollar check, the two men had also set up another business deal. In 2000, according to evidence presented in court, Tongsun Park paid the rent for a private office that Strong used in Manhattan. This was in addition to Strong's official U.N. work as special adviser to Annan at the U.N. and undersecretary-general.
While most American consumers are ignorant of Strong, U.S. based energy group El Paso Corp. is right in the thick of things. El Paso recently agreed to pay $7.7 million in penalties amid an ongoing criminal probe into alleged kickbacks tied to the now defunct U.N. oil-for-food program with Iraq. "The oil-for-food kickback scheme in which El Paso participated is especially troubling because it systematically diverted millions of dollars from a humanitarian program intended to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people," said SEC enforcement director Linda Chatman Thomsen. Thomsen said El Paso's actions had violated key provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars American executives from making illicit payments to foreign governments and officials. According to the SEC charges, El Paso purchased some 21.4 million barrels of Iraqi crude oil between June 2001 and June 2002 through 15 contracts from third parties who participated in the oil-for-food program. The SEC claims that 25 to 30 cents per barrel of the oil bought by El Paso was "illegally kicked back to Iraq in the form of a secret oil surcharge and that El Paso knew, or was reckless in not knowing, that illegal surcharges were made." This is not the first time that El Paso has been a bit reckless with its energy contacts. During the Clinton years, El Paso, Enron, Edison Mission Energy and many others were involved in corruption inside Indonesia. According to State Department documents, El Paso Energy was subject to "corruption, collusion and nepotism" in a billion dollar power plant deal with Indonesia during the reign of then dictator Suharto. One State Department cable included an entire section titled "Dealing with unwanted partners." According to the State Dept., U.S. electric power manufacturer El Paso International entered into the Sengkang power project with Suharto's second daughter "Tutut." In an effort to deal with the "unwanted" Suharto partner, El Paso tried to buy Tutut out of the Sengkang project. "Tutut holds two and one half percent in PT Triahsra Sarana, which has a 5 percent share in PT Energi Sengkang. According to Sengkang, Tutut does not intend to divest from the project at this time," states the document. While many consumers may gasp at the price of energy these days, some like El Paso and Maurice Strong seem to want to add more of a burden on you. More taxes, more price hikes generated by bureaucrats, greedy corporate executives and corrupt politicians. The criminal cost of doing business comes out of your pocket. The "corruption, collusion and nepotism" so well documented needs to be cleaned up.
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