Posted on 04/27/2005 1:37:19 PM PDT by quidnunc
Next up in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal is a trip down the money trail, by way of the French bank tapped by the United Nations — in cahoots with Saddam Hussein — to handle the main escrow account of the graft-laden U.N. program. Tomorrow, the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing delving into some of the oil-for-food banking details. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican of California who will lead the hearing, expects that with some of the material due to be disclosed, "heads will turn."
At the United Nations itself, heads have already been rolling, as one scandal after another has bubbled up from the oil-for-food morass. Several high-ranking U.N. officials close to Secretary-General Annan have been forced to "step aside" — as U.N. lingo has it. Federal prosecutors are investigating allegations that Saddam sent millions in bribes to two as-yet-unnamed high-ranking U.N. officials to help shape the program in his favor. But all the investigating so far has barely begun to expose the full extent of the corruption and mismanagement involved in oil for food, under which Saddam grafted billions out of more than $110 billion in U.N.-approved oil sales and relief purchases meant to help the people of Iraq. "Follow the money," says Mr. Rohrabacher, who adds, "Sometimes it's easy to miss the fact that the bank is right in the middle of it."
That bank is the New York branch of the French bank, BNP Paribas (formerly the Banque Nationale de Paris). Asked to answer questions related to BNP's role in oil for food and its handling of such matters as letters of credit and banking fees, BNP officials responded via a public relations firm, saying they "really don't want to talk to anybody before the hearing."
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
I was hoping it would be Societe Generale. That would be Soros' bank.
Looks like the Canucks got a free pass again, or is Rohrabacher going to expose that the maple-sticky fingers of Canada are all over this scandal?
BNP Paribas is owned by Power Corp - is that not true?
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/1/17/133225.shtml
BNP Paribas
Top among these is the European-based BNP Paribas bank, which the U.N. chose to administer the program and which reportedly received nearly $1 billion for its efforts. Congressional investigators reviewing the bank's actions have discovered broken rules, missing documents and improper transfers by BNP Paribas, which up until now has been assumed to be a French bank.
In fact, BNP Paribas is actually controlled by Power Corporation, an appropriately named Canadian company that has a shocking track record of 'business' relationships with the worst gangsters and tyrannical regimes in the world.
BNP Paribas also has one other distinguishing feature: a direct corporate and familial relationship with the persons running the government of Canada for the last 20 years.
The truth about BNP Paribas and Power Corp. sheds a new light on Canada's seemingly bizarre anti-American foreign policy in the Middle East, in China and elsewhere.
BNP Paribas bank is part of a holding company, Pargesa Holding, which is jointly owned and controlled by the Frère and Desmarais families. Paul Desmarais Sr. is the chairman of the group, while Albert Frère is the vice-chairman. Gerald Frère, Albert's son, is one of three general managers who oversee day-to-day operations, and Paul Desmarais Jr. is also an officer.
Pargesa, and thus Power Corporation and the Canadian Desmarais family, holds a controlling significant stake in TotalFina Elf, the Belgian-French petroleum multinational corporation formed from the merger of Total and Petrofina.
BNP Paribas and TotalFina may have blood-stained corporate histories, but the intimate and intricate connections of Power Corp. to Canada's governing elite raise the truly disturbing questions.
Power Corporation CEO Andre Desmarais is the son-in-law of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who went out of his way to oppose U.S. intervention in Iraq, where the family's business interests with the Saddam regime would be jeopardized.
Current Canadian PM Paul Martin is a former Power Corporation employee who made his fortune when he bought Canada Steamship Lines from Power Corp. aided by loans from Power Corp. To this day both CSL and Power are reported to have mutual equity interests in each other.
The most senior foreign affairs/international trade adviser to current Canadian PM Paul Martin is Maurice Strong, former CEO of Power Corp. and a longtime U.N. and Kofi Annan adviser.
Rather see heads roll than turn...
Another Demarais-Chretien-Martin-Gangster Liberal Oil for Food story.
Ho hum.
Gotta do worse than that to affront Liberal-voting Ontariarioans, I suppose.
I have a better idea.
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-"No Blood for Oil"- Kojo & Kofi: Unbelievable U.N. stories--
Now it won't just be Canadians trying to put our top brass in jail!
"...should have raised red flags. But the United Nations made no complaint..."
Claudia was just on the John Batchelor show.
She says to expect really big revelations
regarding 'International Flowers' and 'East Star Trading Company'
in her article
the day after tomorrow.
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