U.N. oil-for-food figure 'friends'

The Associated Press
April19, 2005
CNN
Original Source: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/04/19/oil.food.ap/index.html

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali was good friends with South Korean businessman Tongsun Park, who has been accused of accepting millions of dollars from Iraq in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, former U.N. officials said Monday.
Also Monday, a prominent Canadian businessman who is currently Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special adviser on North Korea acknowledged ties to Park, but denied any involvement with the U.N. humanitarian program for Iraq.
Boutros-Ghali and the Canadian, Maurice Strong, have been the subject of speculation since a U.S. criminal complaint was filed against Park last week citing two unidentified high-ranking U.N. officials.
Park, who was accused of trying to buy influence in Congress in the 1970s in what became known as the Koreagate scandals, is now accused of accepting millions of dollars from Iraq while acting as an unregistered agent for Baghdad in the United States. The U.S. complaint calls for the arrest of Park, who was reported to be hiding in Tokyo and considering a U.S. plea bargain offer, according to South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo daily.
The reported ties to Park were likely to cast a new shadow on the world body, which has spent more than a year trying to get to the bottom of allegations of corruption in the $64 billion oil-for-food program that was aimed at helping Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions.
Several current and former U.N. officials said that while he was secretary-general from 1992 to 1997, Boutros-Ghali was good friends with Park.
I do recall at least two occasions when Tongsun Park met with secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, said Gillian Sorensen, a former U.N. assistant secretary-general who organized the 50th anniversary commemoration of the United Nations in 1995.
It would have been 1993, in the run-up to the commemoration, said Sorensen, now a senior adviser to the United Nations Foundation, founded by media figure Ted Turner. I had no dealings with him whatsoever. ... I gather he was a friend of the secretary-general.
Similiar comments were made by the other current and former officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. One official said the two men met during an Asian trip, and several said they saw Park at U.N. headquarters in New York.
Boutros-Ghali's office at the International Association of la Francophonie in Paris did not answer.
Strong said in a statement Monday that he has continued to maintain a relationship with Park and that Park invested in an energy company he was associated with in 1997. Strong led several power companies in Canada, including Petro-Canada, Ontario Hydro and the Power Corporation of Canada.
The statement did not identify the company, though one knowledgeable U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it failed. U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Strong was in the Dominican Republic recovering from an illness.
Strong said Park, a native of North Korea, had advised him on Korean issues.
Having served U.N. secretaries-general since 1970 in several advisory and executive capacities, I have had no involvement or connection whatsoever with the U.N.'s Iraqi oil-for-food program or any other of its Iraqi activities, he said.
The indictment against Park says that he arranged a meeting with a person identified in court papers as U.N. Official 1 and two Iraqi officials in Geneva around June 1993.
Boutros-Ghali was in Geneva in June 1993 with some U.N. staff for a meeting with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. They discussed Baghdad's reluctant compliance with cease-fire terms from the first Gulf War.
Park was accused of telling a government witness in 1995 that he needed millions of dollars from Iraq to take care of his expenses and his people. The witness believed that that meant U.N. Official No. 1.
In 1996, a second high-ranking U.N. official attended a restaurant meeting with Park, an Iraqi official and the government witness. After U.N. Official 2 left, Park allegedly claimed that he had used a $5 million guarantee from the Iraqi government to fund business dealings with U.N. Official 2, court papers said.
There was no hint in Strong's statement about whether he is U.N. Official 2.
Park told the government witness in 1997 or 1998 that he had invested about $1 million that he received from Iraq in a Canadian company established by the son of U.N. Official 2, though the company failed and the money was lost.
Strong said he is willing to give any further information to investigators so as to have this cloud removed as soon as possible.
The oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, was created to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It let the Iraqi government sell limited -- and eventually unlimited -- amounts of oil primarily to buy humanitarian goods. But Saddam chose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods.
The complaint calling for Park's arrest was made public at the same time as an indictment charging a Texas oil company owner and two oil traders from Britain and Bulgaria with paying millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Saddam to secure oil deals. The Texan and Bulgarian pleaded innocent on Monday.


Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.