The United Nations Development Programme office in Pyongyang, North Korea, sits in a Soviet-style compound. Like clockwork, a North Korean official wearing a standard-issue dark windbreaker and slacks would come to the door each business day.
He would take a manila envelope stuffed with cash — a healthy portion of the U.N.'s disbursements for aid projects in the country — and leave without ever providing receipts.
According to sources at the U.N., this went on for years, resulting in the transfer of up to $150 million in hard foreign currency to the Kim Jong Il government at a time when the United States was trying to keep the North Korean government from receiving hard currency as part of its sanctions against the Kim regime.
"At the end, we were being used completely as an ATM machine for the regime," said one U.N. official with extensive knowledge of the program. "We were completely a cash cow, the only cash cow in town. The money was going to the regime whenever they wanted it."
The development program, known as UNDP, quietly suspended operations in North Korea this month, saying it could not operate under guidelines imposed by its executive board in January that prohibited payments in hard currency and forbade the employment of local workers handpicked by the North Korean government.
But some diplomats suspect the timing of the suspension was heavily influenced by a looming audit that could have proved embarrassing to the U.N.
Interesting.
First, are you surprised? I'm not. I can't even generate any outrage. This is what the UN does, this is what it's about. It's dog-bites-man. No, it's more basic, more in general purpose every day character than dog-bites-man, it's dog-sniffs-butt.
Second, good luck to the new Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with his audit. Like he's free of corruption himself. Sure. Nudge nudge wink wink. But even if Ban is serious and above board, his shiny new audit will go nowhere. Hey, how's that Oil for Food investigation going? The world's biggest scandal, swept under the rug.
Third. Seriously. Why do we want any part of the UN any more? Why shouldn't we pull out of it tomorrow?
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