 By Claudia Rosett
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.
| Excellent. He was so deep in Saddam's pocket he was coated with lint. Now let's see if he'll roll for a lighter sentence, because if not he should be turning boulders into gravel for years to come. |
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.
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