The Oil-for-Food Scandal – the Canadian Connection

[Wlyonmackenzie]

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/article ... 3225.shtml

The Oil-for-Food Scandal – the Canadian Connection

Charles R. Smith
Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2005

"Its all about the oil" was the chant issued by a vast army of protesters around the world.

Yes, it may have been "all about the oil" – but it didn't involve Americans, who did not own any of the oil in Iraq, but rather a horde of rich global fat cats who wanted to make millions in a so-called U.N. humanitarian program.

One of those who made out like a bandit is a rich Canadian whose bank made millions and whose Paris-based holding companies include the originally French-Belgian oil company TotalFina Elf, which cut lucrative deals with Saddam's Iraq and is currently operating in war-torn Sudan.Various congressional committees have launched hearings into what has been described as the biggest corruption scandal in history. Not surprisingly, U.N. officials have refused to cooperate with the congressional investigations.

The investigations have turned up a number of damning facts that point directly to the incompetence at best, complicity at worst of the most senior U.N. officials and those involved.

It is now well known, for example, that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's own son was getting big cash payments from a Swiss firm that profited from the program, in return for his "expert" opinions and advice. Recently published evidence shows that Annan's son was paraded as a high-level contact within the U.N.

The congressional investigations have surfaced preliminary accounting figures that show that Saddam Hussein likely siphoned off as much as $15 billion, almost a quarter of the entire funds transferred.

While the anti-U.S. critics wailed at the impact of the embargo on the Iraqi people, their attention miraculously centered on the nation that liberated the victims of Saddam's original aggressions – and not on the Thug in Chief or his numerous continental 'partners'.

Free to "govern," Saddam did so with a vengeance, and the rest, as they say, is history – which, thankfully, Congress is now exposing after the U.S. military put an "Out of Business" sign on Baghdad.

Hussein was not alone in his corruption, and several others involved in the money flow, including government firms and politicians in Europe, are now nervously following the investigations while checking out one-way flights to Paraguay.

BNP Paribas

Top among these is the European-based BNP Paribas bank, which the U.N. chose to administer the program and which reportedly received nearly $1 billion for its efforts. Congressional investigators reviewing the bank's actions have discovered broken rules, missing documents and improper transfers by BNP Paribas, which up until now has been assumed to be a French bank.

In fact, BNP Paribas is actually controlled by Power Corporation, an appropriately named Canadian company that has a shocking track record of 'business' relationships with the worst gangsters and tyrannical regimes in the world.

BNP Paribas also has one other distinguishing feature: a direct corporate and familial relationship with the persons running the government of Canada for the last 20 years.

The truth about BNP Paribas and Power Corp. sheds a new light on Canada's seemingly bizarre anti-American foreign policy in the Middle East, in China and elsewhere.

BNP Paribas bank is part of a holding company, Pargesa Holding, which is jointly owned and controlled by the Frère and Desmarais families. Paul Desmarais Sr. is the chairman of the group, while Albert Frère is the vice-chairman. Gerald Frère, Albert's son, is one of three general managers who oversee day-to-day operations, and Paul Desmarais Jr. is also an officer.

Pargesa, and thus Power Corporation and the Canadian Desmarais family, holds a controlling significant stake in TotalFina Elf, the Belgian-French petroleum multinational corporation formed from the merger of Total and Petrofina.

BNP Paribas and TotalFina may have blood-stained corporate histories, but the intimate and intricate connections of Power Corp. to Canada's governing elite raise the truly disturbing questions.

Power Corporation CEO Andre Desmarais is the son-in-law of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who went out of his way to oppose U.S. intervention in Iraq, where the family's business interests with the Saddam regime would be jeopardized.[/b]

[b]Current Canadian PM Paul Martin is a former Power Corporation employee who made his fortune when he bought Canada Steamship Lines from Power Corp. aided by loans from Power Corp. To this day both CSL and Power are reported to have mutual equity interests in each other.

The most senior foreign affairs/international trade adviser to current Canadian PM Paul Martin is Maurice Strong, former CEO of Power Corp. and a longtime U.N. and Kofi Annan adviser.

TotalFina Elf

So, who is TotalFina Elf? Just an oil company that cut a deal with Saddam to develop and exploit the Majnoon and Nahr Umar oil fields in southern Iraq. These properties are estimated to contain as much as 25 percent of the country's oil reserves.

With Saddam under arrest, the Canadian-controlled company has expanded its "client base" and now has a deal with the murderous Sudanese regime to quietly extract its oil and funnel profits back to Khartoum for its infamous social programs.

Disgusted by the lethargic pace and willful blindness of the U.N.-led investigation of itself headed up by Paul Volcker, the U.S. Congress opened its own investigation. Committee investigators found that eight government agencies notified BNP Paribas about "deficiencies" in handling money in the U.N. program.

No wonder Congress smelled a rat when it watched the deliberately ineffectual U.N. 'review' of the 'Food-for-Oil' program. Thankfully, it followed up on that and launched its own investigations which, if allowed to follow their natural course, will inevitably expose fraud, corruption, sleaze, theft, incompetence and, perhaps in the long run most significantly, the corrupt political and personal motivations of supposedly friendly governments, including Canada, in this entire mess.

For our Canadian friends and supposed partners, we are left with the disturbing question: Who's really in charge and whose interests are they really serving?

[Frankie]

This is one shady story of how pauly bought into the family so to speak.

Thankfully, it followed up on that and launched its own investigations which, if allowed to follow their natural course, will inevitably expose fraud, corruption, sleaze, theft, incompetence and, perhaps in the long run most significantly, the corrupt political and personal motivations of supposedly friendly governments, including Canada, in this entire mess.

I long for the day when a foregin power has the proof and the willing media to shame the crooks here in Canada who have made money on the backs of the poor. We know the majority of Canada's media could care less.


This was a great article.

[Splendor Sine Occasu]

Are any American MSM outlets broadcasting this stuff?

[Wlyonmackenzie]

This is one shady story of how pauly bought into the family so to speak.

Thankfully, it followed up on that and launched its own investigations which, if allowed to follow their natural course, will inevitably expose fraud, corruption, sleaze, theft, incompetence and, perhaps in the long run most significantly, the corrupt political and personal motivations of supposedly friendly governments, including Canada, in this entire mess.

I long for the day when a foregin power has the proof and the willing media to shame the crooks here in Canada who have made money on the backs of the poor. We know the majority of Canada's media could care less.

The sad thing about it Frankie is that Martin's CSL conflict of interest investigation that would reveal his corporate links to Powercor and Desmarais was stalled then shelved when he selected a toaddie as ethics commissioner.....the file with the sleaze lies in his office marked "secret".

This was a great article.

[rbacon]

Keep on hammering WLM. More info. http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=34121

[styky]

Wm...

Send this information to one of the most conservative new cross country radio talk show host in the country. Charles Adler.

cadler@corusent.com


He lives for this stuff.

[Wlyonmackenzie]

Are any American MSM outlets broadcasting this stuff?

Fox, ABC and NBC so far...stories in the washington Post, NY post and many other pubs that have been watching the UN corruption inquest.

Not sure if Drudge headlined it but I do recall seeing it there.

[Wlyonmackenzie]

Wm...

Send this information to one of the most conservative new cross country radio talk show host in the country. Charles Adler.

cadler@corusent.com


He lives for this stuff.

Feel free GG...I sent my share of Desmaris stuff to Fox.
This has to have legs in Canada...the basis of this corruption is the very core of the Liberal regime of the last 30 years.

[rbacon]

I sent it to Rob Breakenridge at 630 CHED which is corus. Face it the media in Canada are kept whores, they recieve a lot of subsidy from the state and should not be considered a free press at all. The only one I know that is 100% independent is Ezra Levant and the Western Standard. But let me say this to you, were the hell are our opposition parties on this, they have the protection of Parliamentary Priveledge and won't speak. What does that say about our system. We are talking about the complete control of our government in Ottawa for the last 40 years by one man and a cabal. Read my footer. Is it not time ladies and gentlemen to raise the Gadsden. Are we less than numbered sheep, what will be next an ear tag, if the corrupt Liberal/NDP/Sodomites can force queer marriage on you all and you will not rise up and light the bonfire of Freedom and Liberty I can't see why Canadians would show interest in theft and corruption and colution of a scale never seen in all the history of the English speaking people.

[styky]

Wm...

Send this information to one of the most conservative new cross country radio talk show host in the country. Charles Adler.

cadler@corusent.com


He lives for this stuff.

Feel free GG...I sent my share of Desmaris stuff to Fox.
This has to have legs in Canada...the basis of this corruption is the very core of the Liberal regime of the last 30 years.

Done

[rbacon]

Thanks WLM I owe you a cold one. The mechanical dust is beginning to rust. If Harper does not pound on the Liberal/NDP about this he is not worthy of Opposition Leader. Bob Rae is also implicated along with Jowls and Muldoon according to some folks and articles I have read.

[rbacon]

Open this link and look at the connections very telling. http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb06?_DESMARAIS_PAUL_SR

[littleharbour]

Wm...

Send this information to one of the most conservative new cross country radio talk show host in the country. Charles Adler.

cadler@corusent.com


He lives for this stuff.

Feel free GG...I sent my share of Desmaris stuff to Fox.
This has to have legs in Canada...the basis of this corruption is the very core of the Liberal regime of the last 30 years.

Done

I wish that the conservative radio/tv media in the US would pick this up an run with it. A front page expose in the National Review or a lead by Rush Limbaugh would blow this wide open. The networks would have to pick up the controversy if Fox took the lead on this and if Senator Norm Coleman's UN investigation directly ties the Desmarais corruption to the oil for food scam. Americans would probably love to learn why Canada turned its back on them in Iraq.

[styky]

littleharbour...That's it exactly If only they would. and that leads to another question..why would'nt they.

[Federal 1/2 Slave]

Hey there Mad Willy, great post! I sent this to a very nice, very naive gent who thinks Canada can be fixed. I will let you know of his reply.

I wonder if the Sinclaire (sp?) broadcasting group (state side) would run with this? I'll see if I can find them and forward the article.