Oil-for-Food: The Korean Connection, Part II

Claudia Rosett and I have had an intermittent e-mail correspondence now for about a year. For those of you not familiar with Claudia’s work, she’s a columnist at the Wall Street Journal and the one person more responsible than any other for investigative reporting of Oil-for-Food–a fact that guaranteed that she’d be ignored by the Pulitzer committee. Claudia reported from the scene of the Tienanmen Massacre in 1989 and has also been one of the most outspoken writers on the plight of the North Korean people, and the failure of the “international community” (how I loathe that oxymoron) to ease it.

When I wrote this post (start there if you haven’t read it yet) about the new Korean connection to Oil-for-Food, I forwarded Ms. Rosett a link to the post and asked for her comment. She responded with this link to a column she wrote for today’s New York Sun. Money quotes:

Who are the two mysterious high-ranking U.N. officials fingered in one of the latest indictments of the oil-for-food scandal? The indictment, issued last Thursday, doesn’t give the names of these two U.N. officials, designating them only as U.N. officials “#1” and “#2.” But we do know the grand jury thinks they took millions in bribes from the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, in exchange for trying to shape the oil-for-food relief program along lines that helped Saddam manipulate and corrupt it so as to evade U.N. sanctions. We also know the grand jury thinks one of these mystery U.N. officials has close family business ties to Canada and is acquainted with the South Korean lobbyist named in the indictment, Tongsun Park, alleged to have served as go-between for the bribes.
. . . .

Maybe Mr. Annan should ask a longtime United Nations undersecretary general, Maurice Strong, special adviser to the secretary-general since 1999 and currently Mr. Annan’s personal envoy to the Korean Peninsula.

The New York Sun is not asserting, or even suggesting, that Mr. Strong himself is one of the U.N. officials in question [OFK: does my spidey-sense detect the presence of lawyers?]. But Mr. Strong’s history indicates he might be especially well-placed to offer insights into at least the likely identity of U.N. official #2, who according to the indictment had family business ties to Canada, and along with U.N. official #1, met with Mr. Park sometime around 1996 – the year the flawed terms of oil-for-food took shape.

Mr. Strong is a Canadian tycoon with extensive experience at the United Nations, where he has served as secretary-general of the 1992 Earth Summit, as chief architect of the Kyoto Treaty, and as the world body’s guru of governance in the 1990s. Mr. Strong also has abundant connections in both North and South Korea [emphasis mine]. According to a recent dispatch from the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, Mr. Strong is also said to be acquainted with Mr. Park [link here].

Mr. Strong could not be reached for comment on the indictment , but the Sun spoke with his U.N. assistant, who said Mr. Strong plans to issue a statement today, saying he had no involvement with the oil-for-food program.

Park was reached for comment, in Tokyo (kudos to the Joongang Ilbo for this excellent reporting). Park partially admitted the substance of the charges, says he’s strongly considering a deal to roll over on the unnamed U.N. officials for prosecutorial leniency, and stated that Kofi Annan himself is in the prosecutors’ gunsights. What’s so troubling about this is that it sets up a scenario in which two parties each want something from the other, and each has something to offer in exchange. South Korea wants the U.N. (and some of its key members) to take a soft line on North Korea. The U.N. (and some of its key members) would very much like for Park Tongsun to find safe haven in Seoul–or perhaps even in the North–away from nosy American prosecutors. I’m just saying . . . .

Read the whole thing.