Canada is the most corrupt country in the West

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Posted by ShadoWolf on Apr-21-2005 05:30:

http://www.reuters.ca/locales/c_new...storyID=8243013

Top UN Aide Steps Aside During Oil-For-Food Probe

Wed April 20, 2005 4:32 PM GMT-04:00

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Canadian Maurice Strong, an influential entrepreneur, withdrew as U.N. envoy for Korea on Wednesday while investigators probed his ties to a lobbyist suspected of bribing U.N. officials with Iraqi funds.

Strong, who has served in a variety of U.N. posts since 1947, was a part-time adviser to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the six-party talks aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs.

"He is suspending himself with the secretary-general's approval," Mark Malloch Brown, Annan's chief of staff, said in an interview with two journalists. "Given the controversy, I think he's doing absolutely the right thing," he said.

But some diplomats said that Strong acted only after senior U.N. officials suggested he resign.

Annan also is considering a policy that would force part-time employees like Strong to disclose their finance to avoid conflicts of interest, Malloch Brown said. Currently only full-time staff have to do so.

Known worldwide for his work on the environment, Strong, 76, acknowledged this week he had business dealings in 1997 "on a normal commercial basis" with the lobbyist, Tongsun Park, a South Korean born in North Korea.

But he denied having any involvement in the oil-for-food program, which is being investigated by federal prosecutors and by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who was appointed by Annan to probe wrongdoings.

Park, a central figure in an influence-peddling scandal in Washington in 1977, was charged last week with being an unregistered agent for the Iraqi government before President Saddam Hussein was overthrown in a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

DEALINGS WITH NORTH KOREA

Despite the Washington scandal, Park was known to visit former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali at U.N. headquarters in about 1993, said Gillian Sorensen, a former U.N. assistant secretary-general. But "I know nothing more," she told Reuters.

Strong, who had worked at the United Nations as an adviser for reform in 1997, said that Park had proved extremely helpful in dealings with North Korea.

The criminal complaint said Park accepted millions of dollars from Iraq. An informant told U.S. authorities some of the money was funneled to two high-ranking U.N. officials, one in 1993, the second one in 1997 or 1998.

Malloch Brown said prosecutors in the Southern District of New York had not given any hint of who the U.N. officials might be. The United Nations has asked the State Department for information.

Park, the complaint said, also invested about $1 million in an unnamed Canadian company established by the son of the second U.N. official. However, Park said the money was lost because the company failed.

Strong's son Frederick Strong is a Canadian businessman who has worked in the energy industry. He could not immediately be reached for comment but the federal complaint did not mention Strong or anyone from his family.

The oil-for-food program, which began in late 1996 and ended in 2003, was set up by the U.N. Security Council to ease the impact of sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein troops invaded Kuwait in 1990. Baghdad was allowed to sell oil to buy basic goods and could negotiate its own contracts.

After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Iraq disclosed a veritable who's who of political groups and individuals around the world from whom Saddam Hussein wanted to buy influence to get the sanctions lifted. ((Reporting by Evelyn Leopold; Editing by David Storey; Reuters messaging: [email protected]; 1-212-355-7424)

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