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Cover Story

Canadian colleague plugs annan in mainline media

by Judi McLeod, Canadafreepress.com

December 14, 2004

While some U.S. senators are clamouring for his head on the oil-for-food scandal, UN Secretary General Kofi annan is getting a prominent plug from Paul Heinbecker, Canada’s former ambassador to the United Nations (2000-2003).

In the lead op-ed piece in yesterday’s Toronto Star, Heinbecker makes his plea to Resist rush to judgment.

accusing annan’s Washington detractors of employing “frontier justice”, Heinbecker calls for a disentanglement of the facts and politics of the oil-for-food program.

“according to the uber-hawks in Washington, including their birds of a feather in Congress, UN Secretary General Kofi annan should not only resign, he should be arrested,” said Heinbecker. “and this at the outset, not the conclusion, of an investigation of the oil-for-food program (OFFP)--frontier justice, in the grand old West tradition.”

These days Heinbecker is senior research fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Director of the Centre for Global Relations, Governance and Policy at Wilfred Laurier University.

Nowhere in his bio at the end of the Star article does it mention that Heinbecker, if only by virtue of his pension, is on the UN payroll.

according to his official government Internet bio, Heinbecker headed the interdepartmental task force for Kosovo and “helped to negotiate the end of that war”. He was also head of the delegation for the negotiation of the Climate Change in Kyoto.

as Canada’s ambassador and Permanent Representative at the UN, Heinbecker was a “leading advocate for the creation of an International Court” and a “proponent of compromise on Iraq.”

In the Toronto Star article Heinbecker tries to make a case that the UN is totally detached from the oil-for-food program: The smuggling of oil outside of Iraq by the Iraqi regime was, by definition, not part of the OFFP. Nor was the responsibility of preventing it given to the UN secretariat.”

Heinbecker contends that “as far back as 1991, a multinational interception force, not administered by the UN, was established to combat smuggling, especially via the Gulf. The smuggling was not much of a secret. The fact that oil was smuggled to Turkey and Jordan was widely known.”

“The oil was not exported by donkey over mountain passes but moved in highly visible tanker trucks, even by pipeline.”

and where, according to Canada’s former UN ambassador, was the Security Council during all of the smuggling?

“The Security Council turned a largely blind eye because the two countries had suffered enormous economic losses in the first Gulf War and continued to suffer insignificant losses from the crippling of the Iraqi economy, a major customer for both.”

Smuggling and theft are apparently okay by Paul Heinbecker if economic loss happens to be a factor.

In his rant, tries to cover accusations that the UN is not cooperating with the U.S. congress with a lecture. …”The UN, like the Canadian government, is not subject to U.S. sovereignty and jurisdiction and also, like Canada, does not permit its officials to testify before congressional committees.”

Heinbecker concludes, “congressional and other opponents of the UN, friends of Haliburton to boot, evidently see an opportunity to diminish or destroy an organization they consider an obstacle to US foreign policy.”

Wilfred Laurier University’s senior fellow couldn’t be more wrong.

Congressional and other opponents of the UN want to diminish or destroy corrupt practices like the oil-for-food scandal at the world’s largest bloated bureaucracy.

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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