Ayman El-Amir* ponders the extraordinary series of scandals that have rocked the UN In the careers of those who have achieved a measure of international renown there inevitably comes a time when their thoughts turn to their place in history. They wonder how history, and future generations, will judge them. One such moment arrived at the United Nations last week and is looking Secretary-General Kofi Annan straight in the face. Caught in a whirlwind of multiple scandals, Mr Annan's next move may well determine his and the United Nations' place in history for years to come. Scandals are nothing new to the UN. It is just that this time they have arrived in droves. First, in mid-November, the UN Staff Union censured "senior management" for the exculpation, by Annan, of one of his top aides. Dileep Nair had been accused of sexual harassment as well as favoritism in hiring and promotion. The catch 22 to the story is that Nair, who was investigated and later exonerated, is the UN's senior watchdog. As head of the Office of Internal Oversight (OIOS) he is charged with sniffing around for internal corruption, waste and mismanagement. In this capacity he had proposed, in 2000, to launch an investigation into what was called "the vulnerability" to abuse of Iraq's Oil-for-Food programme, which was already attracting a myriad of corruption charges. He was overruled by the programme director, Benon Sevan, a close friend of the secretary-general, who was also supported by Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette. It did not, as a consequence, take much imagination to guess where the instructions had come from. Nor does the saga end there. Recent press reports have suggested that Sevan received lucrative rights from Saddam Hussein for the purchase of Iraqi oil quotas estimated at 11 million barrels, worth $3.5 billion. He was allowed to sell these rights on the open market with a commission ranging from between 10 to 35 cents a barrel. An agreed percentage of the commission was deposited in secret bank accounts that Saddam's government used to bribe other helpful officials, businessmen and middlemen, as a means of busting UN sanctions. Sevan, who was director of the programme from October 1997 to November 2003, when it was terminated, denies any wrongdoing. According to another watchdog, the US Government Accounting Office, the $65 billion Oil-for-Food Programme allowed the regime of Saddam Hussein to collect more than $10 billion in kickbacks and illegal revenues. This included $5.7 billion from oil smuggling and $4.4 billion in illicit surcharges on oil sales. So far the UN has refused to release more than 50 internal audits and reports dealing with the Oil-for-Food programme for further review by independent investigators. Then, to add insult to injury, the secretary-general's son Kojo Annan stomped centre stage. He had reportedly been on the payroll of Swiss-based Cotecna Inspection Services, a company that landed a generous contract with the UN to monitor the arrival of goods to Iraq between 1998 and 2003. When alarm bells sounded about a possible conflict of interest between the secretary-general's family and the management of the multi-billion dollar Oil-for-Food Programme the matter was laid to rest by a company announcement that Kojo Annan had ceased to be on Cotecna's payroll by late 1998. But last week a UN spokesman disclosed that Kojo was still receiving payments from Cotecna as recently as February 2004, that is, three months after the Interim Coalition Administration terminated the Oil-for-Food Programme. The secretary-general responded to press queries last April on this issue by stating that "neither he [Kojo] nor I had anything to do with the contracts with Cotecna." For almost five decades people around the world have idolised the UN, treating it as a panacea for all the ills of the world. But the UN, like any other institution, is neither better nor worse than its membership and the people who run it. It is a coalition of revolving-door interests between member countries, the bodies they created as vehicles for their policies and the secretariat staff, headed by the secretary-general, who serve the interests of member-states and their own. It is an imperfect instrument in an imperfect world. When the dust settles and the full scale of the scandals now rocking the UN are revealed the world will find out the extent to which some of the most powerful members of the world organisation also benefited from the corrupt practices of the Oil-for-Food bonanza. The UN has a time-honoured whitewashing mechanism that weathers storms, reforms and scandals. It is almost a tradition. When, in 2002, the secretary-general apologised for UN shortcomings that resulted in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda he also pointed a finger at the UN Security Council. When everyone is guilty no one is more guilty than the others are. This is how UN whitewashes work. Everyone in the family will be found innocent of wilful wrongdoing: it is a face-saving logic that has long been damaging to the UN. There is a sense of uneasiness, however, that the usual practice will work in the face of the current blistering series of scandals. The UN Charter contains an abstract that says the secretary-general shall appoint the staff of the secretariat "on the basis of the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity". Integrity -- and the public perception thereof -- underwrites the world body, and it is difficult to see how the UN Secretariat will get by this one. It is all the more reason to expect, and to believe, that Secretary-General Kofi Annan will let the axe fall wherever the Volcker independent panel of inquiry may see fit. Conventional wisdom has it that power corrupts. But it is corrupt people that abuse power. Kofi Annan's place in history is yet to be decided though there are many lessons in the annals of the UN from which to draw. The first secretary-general, the Norwegian Trygve Lie, resigned in the middle of his second term, in 1953, because the Soviet Union had refused to cooperate with him. A clear choice exists between personal interests, no matter how they are presented, and the integrity of the world body. It is the choice Kofi Annan makes, after a full and independent investigation has been completed, that will determine his place in history. * The writer is former correspondent for Al-Ahram in Washington, DC. He also served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York.
