by Judi McLeod
February 7, 2005
archie Bunker's immortalized role in television's all in the Family takes a backseat to the role family ties play in the United Nations Oil-for-Food brouhaha.
a gem laid out in Paul Volcker's tabled Interim Report: Director of the discredited Oil-for-Food Program Benon Sevan, helped steer oil contracts to a relative of former UN Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali.
The relative is Ghali's son, with whom Sevan was in business. and then there's Sevan's Panamanian bank account with Boutros Ghali.
Ghali was head honcho at the UN in 1966 when Oil-for-Food got underway. He's also the guy who chose the Banque Nationale de Paris, now known as BNP Paribas, to handle the program's account.
With documented connections to BNP Paribas is the Montreal-based Power Corp, which lists three BNP Paribas members on its International advisory Council. They are: Michel Francoise-Poncet, andre Levy-Lang and Pierre Haas.
Volcker himself gets paid to attend Power Corp.'s International advisory Council meetings.
His Excellency Sheikh ahmed Zaki Yamani, on Power Corp.'s International advisory Council, brings us to UN all in the Family, Chapter Two.
Sheik Yamani's son, Hani hangs out with Kojo, son of UN Secretary-General Kofi annan and is in business with him.
Volcker, who says he won't get around to tabling his final report until bees are buzzing in June, might file another interim report to deal with the alleged role of annan's son in Oil-for-Food.
Kojo, who worked for Swiss company, Cotecna in West africa, was caught on the Cotecna payroll long after the assignment ended.
While gumshoeing, Volcker should check in with the Times Online, which has obtained information showing that Kojo was involved in oil deals related to Oil-for-Food.
It shouldn't take too much detective work now that Kojo has admitted that he was involved in negotiations to sell two million barrels of Iraqi oil to a Moroccan company in 2001.
This was in annan Jr.'s role as a close business associate and chum of Hani Yamani, son of Sheikh Yamani, former Saudi oil minister and founder of OPEC (Organization for Petroleum Countries.
In 2001, Yamani was brokering a deal to sell about $60 million worth of Iraqi oil to a Moroccan company. Deal tracking, conducted by the investigative Sunday Times netted statements from two close business associates of the Sheik's son. Those statements claim that Kojo participated in the Moroccan deal.
Present at key meetings, Kojo was in Morocco to close the sale. But for reasons unknown, Yamani abandoned the deal. Nor is it known whether the oil was to have been bought direct from Saddam's oil ministry or whether a third party was involved.
Networking goes easier when you have a family name like annan to rely on in african countries.
FYI to Volcker: Kojo's waiting to be exonerated. His Cotecna involvement placed him in faraway Nigeria and he claims he knew nothing about any deals going down in Iraq.
How Kojo and Hani hooked up is probably the stuff of Hollywood. While Hani's Daddy, the Sheik is larger than life, Hani dabbles in business with worldwide interests in construction, banking and aerospace.
Daddy was Saudi arabia's oil minister from 1962 to 1986. During that time span, he escaped the assassin who killed King Faisal and survived kidnapping by Carlos, `The Jackal'.
These days, the Sheik runs the al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Centre in swanky South London.
Meanwhile, the younger generation of today's global custodians is doing all right. Their entrée to the business world is all but guaranteed as the sons of famous fathers. and when it comes to facing $30-million investigations into UN scandals, they seem to get by with a little help from Daddy's friends.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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