Oil-for-Food has had its first airing in federal court, and the verdict is in. South Korean businessman Tongsun Park was accused of conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in shaping the United Nations Oil-for-Food program. He has been found guilty.
Park’s conviction comes at a time when the scandal-ridden U.N. is demanding $1.8 billion for the renovation of the same Turtle Bay headquarters where the grand U.N. conclave has been failing utterly to cope with such urgent matters as the nuclear crisis in Iran, the missile crisis in North Korea and the long-running genocide in Sudan. Against this backdrop, Park’s trial can be viewed as the best argument in ages for letting the U.N. even stay in the country. The U.N. itself operates immune to any system of justice, with a resulting lack of accountability that explains much of its corruption, both financial and political. But at least the U.N.’s current location puts within reach of the law some of the private players who feed illicitly off the U.N. stew of money, secrecy, diplomatic immunity, and privilege.
A few other countries deserve respect for delving into their own roles in the $18 billion or more in exploitation, scamming, skimming, and oil smuggling that flourished under the U.N.’s relief program for Iraq. Australia, India, and even France have launched inquiries. But in scores of U.N. member states where Oil-for-Food left a wide and greasy trail — in Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, and Vietnam, to name just a few — the idea of any serious investigation is apparently seen as a complete joke. In places such as Canada, home to tantalizing leads, the authorities appear to be snoozing at the switch. On Cyprus, where former Oil-for-Food director Benon Sevan now resides beyond reach of U.S. extradition, there has been no visible follow-up by Cypriot authorities to allegations by the U.N.’s own $35 million probe that Sevan took $147,000 in Oil-for-Food payoffs. (Sevan says he is innocent.)
So, as with billions in U.N. funding, the burden falls on the U.S. — where prosecutors in lower Manhattan have been slogging for the past two years through the sludge of the uptown U.N. According to testimony heard in Park’s trial over the past three weeks, the U.N.’s presence from 1992-2002 turned Manhattan into one of the hubs of an influence-peddling scheme that ran from Baghdad to the U.N. executive floor. Along the way agents of Saddam served as couriers of cash, messages and clout via such places as New York coffeeshops, restaurants, hotels, and the upmarket Sutton Place official residence of the U.N. secretary-general.
These were among the haunts of the 71-year-old Park, who was not officially employed by the U.N. (at least not that we have heard) — but who made a specialty of working its fancier venues. Park is a jet-setting businessman who has kept offices in Seoul, London, and Washington, among other places. He previously made a splash on the U.S. scene as a central figure in the 1970s congressional bribery scandal known as Koreagate. In that episode, he testified in exchange for immunity.
