On Friday, June 29, 2001, six months before his term was up for re-election, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously re-elected Mr. Kofi Annan, secretary of the organization. Annan, from Ghana, the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to win its independence from Britain in 1957, was the second African to hold the post. The first was Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, who was refused a second term at the displeasure of the United States. The re-election followed a vote two days earlier by the 15-member Security Council, including the five veto-wielding countries, any one of which could have torpedoed his re-election by casting a lone vote.
Said the then President of the Security Council, Anwarul K. Chowdhury, the permanent representative of Bangladesh, "He [Annan] has excelled in his office, delivering under trying circumstances.” Ambassador Chowdhury lauded Annan's reform efforts, saying the secretary general had "made the United Nations more relevant in today's world, broadening its support base by developing partnerships with civil society and the private sector in particular."
Lauding the secretary general, the president of the General Assembly, Harri Holkeri of Finland, also said that today's "decision was testimony to the trust that the member states place in Mr. Annan." Stressing the need for the U.N. to become "more relevant to the world outside," Mr. Holkeri welcomed Mr. Annan's initiatives to build partnerships with others, both nationally and internationally. "I should like to assure you of the support of the member states as you guide this organization during the next five years," he said.
Most United Nations watchers attributed the secretary general's quick re-election and unprecedented unanimity between the five veto-wielding member states to [Annan’s] not ruffling any of their feathers in the four-and-a-half years he had been in the office. Some people had gone as far as to accuse the secretary general of merely being a puppet, especially of the United States. Even many African ambassadors to the U.N. felt that he was paying more attention to western issues and neglecting using the enormous powers of the United Nations to address the myriad of issues conflicting the African continent.
"Of course, he is a darling of the West, especially of the Bush administration. He cannot do wrong by them," said one of the African ambassadors who refused to allow his name [to be] used because he doesn't want his country punished. "Washington pulls his string and he dances to their music."
Kofi Annan would have continued to be the darling of the West – no, of the Bush administration – but for the decision of the Bush administration to invade Iraq. Annan's insistence on the United States following the U.N. Charter began to pique the ire of the [Bush] administration in their attempt [that Annan] rubber stamp its decisions. U.N. observers began to see a different Kofi Annan, and as some European newspapers began to notice a Kofi Annan not cowed by the jingoism of the American press in support of the war. His standing in the world had dramatically improved. He was no longer viewed as an puppet of the Bush Administration, but viewed as a fierce leader of the United Nations that could stand up to the administration.
Kofi Annan was riding high. But on Sept. 16, 2004, he presented a fait accompli, nay a new weapon, to the rightwing press to launch an unprecedented attack on his integrity. On that day, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Service (BBC), Annan said that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the U.N. Charter.
"The decision to take action in Iraq should have been made by the Security Council, not unilaterally," he had told the BBC. When pressed on whether he viewed the invasion of Iraq as illegal, he said, "Yes, if you wish. I have indicated it was not in conformity with the U.N. Charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."
Led by William Safire of the New York Times, the attack and retribution against Annan for this statement were immediate and fierce. Apart from the two major governments involved in the war, the United States and Britain, condemning Annan's statement, conservative commentators seized on the statement as a partisan effort on the part of the U.N. secretary general to influence the U.S. elections.
Writing [an article for] the Heritage Foundation's Policy Research and Analysis titled "Kofi Annan's Iraq Blunder," James Phillips and Nile Gardiner wrote, "Kofi Annan's ill-considered jibe undercuts efforts to stabilize postwar Iraq that have been endorsed by the U.N. Security Council. It stigmatizes the embryonic Iraqi government, while strengthening the hand of Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists determined to strangle democracy in Iraq and inflict a defeat on the U.S.-led, U.N.-backed security force in the country.
Going to the zinger, Phillips and Gardiner wrote, "Kofi Annan's ill-timed comments should be seen as a poorly conceived attempt to undercut the U.S. president's impending address to the U.N. General Assembly and to indirectly influence the electoral debate in the United States. The notion of U.S. isolation, a prominent theme advanced by Senator John Kerry, is a myth that Annan is keen to promote on the world stage. He ignores the fact that the United States is backed by over 30 allies with troops on the ground in Iraq, including 12 of the 25 members of the European Union and 16 out of 26 NATO members states." Of course, if you were from Mars and visiting Earth for the first time and read this statement, you would believe the whole world had decided to invade Iraq, and that the United Nations had sanctioned the invasion.
For reasons best known to him, nobody has been more vociferous in his attempt to oust Kofi Annan from the world's number one post than William Safire of the New York Times. His personal animosity against Kofi Annan is beyond reason and comparison. Next to Michael Moore, Kofi Annan seems to come to the closest of people he hates. Safire has written more than 20 negative articles on Kofi Annan, and I don't believe he is yet satisfied, short of seeing to it that the secretary general is ousted from office.
We say back home that you are looking for bed bugs in your bed when they are in fact behind your ears. William Safire had been looking for a rope to hang Kofi Annan when the Iraqi "Oil-for-Food" crisis erupted. Since then, he has written everything, calling Annan all kinds of names, but short of calling him a crook. And the irresponsible behavior of Kojo Annan, Kofi's son, has played right into Safire's hands.
The oil-for-food program was established under the United Nations Resolution 986 of April 14, 1995, to allow Iraq, devastated by years of sanctions, to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian supplies, principally food and medicine. The program was run out of the United Nations Secretariat, and supervised by members of the Security Council. It was often described as the biggest humanitarian program in history, delivering over $30 billion-worth of goods to Iraq.
The program ended after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began. The U.N. resolution was passed 18 months before Kofi Annan assumed the post of secretary general of the United Nations.
Allegations of fraud in the program had been suspected by the United States and Britain. But the measure of the breadth and depth of the alleged fraud was not known until an independent Iraqi newspaper, al-Mada, published a list of 270 names (of individuals, companies and institutions) it claimed to have found in Iraqi oil ministry documents. Those named were said to have received oil contracts under the program, either as thanks for political support for Saddam's regime, for turning a blind eye to corruption or in payment for illegal imports. Those who were handed these contracts could then sell them on to legitimate oil traders.
The list is alleged to have included a top U.N. official, Benon V. Sevan, a national of Cyprus, who was appointed to the post of executive director of the Iraq program by Kofi Annan on October 13, 1997, to consolidate the management of the U.N. activities under Security Council resolutions 986 (1995) and 661 (1990).
During his tenure, which ended November 2003, Sevan is alleged to have opposed some internal efforts to review the program, as well as disagree with an effort in late 2000 by the U.N. corruption watchdog, Dileep Nair, to submit the program to a major vulnerability assessment, saying that at a cost of nearly $50 million it would be too expensive.
Another weapon handed to the anti-Annan zealots is the relationship between Annan's 31-year-old son, Kojo, and a Swiss-based company, Cotecna Inspection Services, SA. In 1996, at the age of 22, Kojo was employed as a consultant for Cotecna, but on the day the company won a contract from the United Nations to start servicing the Iraqi Oil-for-Food Program on December 31, 1998, he resigned from the company, but with a proviso that he would not compete with the company in West Africa. For this he would be paid $2,500 a month. Kojo continued to receive this fee until February, 2004, despite the alarms that had been sounded and insinuations against his father.
Despite the fact that there is nothing legally wrong, and, in fact, he obeyed the rule of his contract with Cotecna, the question most Africans are asking is why this 31-year-old man should not have known the implications of his action and how it could have been interpreted by anybody with a sense of objectivity, decency and respect for a father's high position. Mr. Kofi Annan later issued a statement that he was disappointed that he had not been fully informed that Kojo was still on the payroll of Cotecna until February of this year.
With all these weapons, the conservative media is doing everything it can to engineer Kofi Annan's ouster. Safire is already calling for Annan's resignation. "Even if personally innocent," Safire said of Annan, "he should resign, having brought dishonor onto the Secretariat of the United Nations."
Joining in the chorus of those calling for Annan to resign is the powerful chair of the U.S. Senate's bipartisan subcommittee on investigations, Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, who said Mr. Annan should step down because "the most extensive fraud in the history of the United Nations occurred on his watch." He charged that the "full extent of the bribes, kickback and under-the-table payments" that allegedly took place under the oil-for-food program would not become public knowledge while Mr. Annan remains in charge.
But Sen. Coleman came under severe criticism for calling for Annan's ouster even from his colleagues in the Senate. Although he agreed that the program was corrupt, Mr. Carl Levin, the senior Democrat on the Senate committee investigating abuses of the program, said he saw "no evidence of impropriety whatsoever on the part of Kofi Annan."
With the exception of the United States, all the members of the U.N. Security Council have offered unflinching support to the secretary general, including China, France, Russia and Britain, U.S.’s ally in the war in Iraq.
African leaders have vowed that they will not see Secretary General Kofi Annan hounded out of office, because nothing remotely associates him with any scandal or corruption at the United Nations. "The African Union is solidly behind one of the best secretaries general of the United Nations, if not the best," said an African president.
We have a saying that when your child fights a good fight outside, you need to support him no matter what wrong he might have done at home. Kofi Annan is fighting a good fight, and he has our support.
