Memos Prompt Renewed Investigation Of Links Between Annan and Cotecna
BY BENNY AVNI - Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 15, 2005

UNITED NATIONS - Two newly discovered memoranda yesterday forced investigators to re-examine whether Secretary-General Annan used his influence at the United Nations to help his son Kojo's former employer, Cotecna, win a bid in the oil-for-food program.
Mr. Annan claimed in March that he has been exonerated on the issue by the findings of a U.N.-appointed investigative team, headed by a former Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker. Yesterday the Volcker committee said in a statement that it is urgently reviewing newly disclosed information concerning possible links between U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and representatives of Cotecna Inspection Services.
The Cotecna memos were written by a former employee of the company who provided crucial contacts between the Swiss-based inspection company and the United Nations. The man, Michael Wilson, recruited Kojo Annan to the company and is a friend of both him and his father.
Cotecna maintained in a statement yesterday that its 1998 U.N. contract was obtained fairly and on the basis of price. The Swiss company distanced itself from Mr. Wilson in the statement, and noted that it is fully cooperating in investigations.
The Volcker committee has been scrutinized after concluding in its March 29 report that Mr. Annan did not influence the Cotecna contract - particularly after the committee's top investigator, Robert Parton, resigned because he disputed the finding.
For Mr. Annan and the world body, the memos are ill-timed, as the House of Representatives prepares for a crucial vote tomorrow on proposed legislation by the chairman of the International Relations Committee, Rep. Henry Hyde, a Republican of Illinois. The legislation, which passed in the committee last week in a vote split along party lines, would cut American funding to the United Nations if measures to reform the organization are not enacted.
Yesterday, eight former American U.N. ambassadors, including Republicans Jeanne Kirpatrick and John Danforth, urged Congress to refrain from threatening to withhold dues. Congressional opponents of Mr. Hyde's legislation said the new findings would not necessarily strengthen the chances the legislation will pass.
I don't think it will affect decisions, a spokeswoman for Rep. Tom Lantos, a Democrat of California, Lynne Weil, told The New York Sun. She said Mr. Lantos planned to present an amendment to Mr. Hyde's legislation tomorrow, which would remove the threat of automatic American nonpayment of U.N. dues.
Mr. Wilson is a son of a former Ghanaian ambassador in Geneva and a childhood friend of Kojo Annan. According to the Volcker report, he was known to call Kofi Annan uncle. The newly discovered memos he wrote were first reported yesterday by the New York Times.
One memo, written just a week before Cotecna obtained its oil-for-food contract, describes a Paris meeting with Mr. Annan, referred to as SG. We had brief discussions with the SG and his entourage, read the memo, which was addressed to four top Cotecna executives. Their collective advice was that we should respond as best we can to the Q&A session of the 1-12-98 and that we could count on their support.
Mr. Wilson told the Volcker committee, according to its March report, about a mid-November 1998 conversation with Mr. Annan. When he would meet the secretary-general, he would do so in Geneva. But he would also meet the secretary-general with Kojo Annan in Paris or London. The report stated that Mr. Annan's itinerary shows no trip to Geneva at the time but that he was in Paris in late November and December.
Mr. Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said yesterday that Mr. Annan's itinerary and phone records from a trip to a 1998 Paris summit of French speaking nations show no meetings or calls between Mr. Annan and Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson used the word we in the memo, which could have referred to his childhood friend. Mr. Eckhard said he could not know whether the elder Mr. Annan met his son on that trip.
A second Cotecna memo detailed later meetings Mr. Wilson had at the United Nations, which, in the first memos, he referred to as the Q&A session of the 1-12-98. The memo details how in that meeting, mere days before the contract was awarded to Cotecna, Mr. Wilson had been instructed on the various aspects of the bid, saying it would be sealed after approval has been obtained from B. Sevan and the SG. Benon Sevan was the director of the oil-for-food program. Mr. Eckhard told the Sun that only Mr. Sevan approved such contracts and, under normal circumstances, Mr. Annan was not involved.
The memo concludes by saying, With the active backing of the Swiss mission in New York and effective but quiet lobbying within the diplomatic circles in New York, we can expect a positive outcome to our efforts.