N.Y. Lawmakers Deal a Blow to U.N. Expansion

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The New York Sun

New York State legislators turned back United Nations real-estate expansionists yesterday as the Senate decided against taking up a proposed U.N.-expansion bill next week, with the majority leader citing “tremendous community opposition” to the plan and one assemblyman declaring: “Let them move to Mozambique!”


The setback comes as three members of the New York congressional delegation – Reps. Peter King, Sue Kelly, and Vito Fossella – added their voices yesterday to the growing chorus of politicians asking Secretary-General Annan to resign.


Had it been adopted in a special session planned for next week, the U.N.-expansion legislation would have permitted the U.N. to continue with plans to erect a new building on what is currently a park next to the U.N. complex.


In his announcement, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno cited “tremendous community opposition” to the U.N.’s expansion plan, plus a lack of financial accountability, as reasons for blocking the bill.


According to Mr. Bruno’s press release, the U.N. Development Corporation was expected to provide $600 million in bonds to finance the expansion. Fees collected from U.N. member nations would pay for the debt service on the bonds, but there would be no oversight of the finances by the state Public Authorities Control Board.


“Without any state oversight or review of the project’s financing through the PACB, it is difficult to determine exactly who would be liable to pay off the debt, should there be a default. It certainly should not be State or City taxpayers,” said Mr. Bruno. He questioned whether the U.N. could be trusted to pay off its debts, considering that U.N. representatives from roughly 200 countries already owe more than $195 million in city parking fines.


Kevin Quinn, a spokesman for Governor Pataki, told the Associated Press that “while the governor supports keeping the United Nations in New York City for the economic benefit, he does strongly believe they need to cooperate with congressional investigators regarding the oil-for-food scandal.” Mr. Pataki, according to a wire dispatch, had earlier said he would sign the legislation that would have allowed the U.N. to use the playground land.


Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat of Brooklyn, was pleased with the decision.


“I was gratified to have the opportunity in Albany to work on the Assembly side to organize people against the U.N.’s doing anything in New York,” Mr. Hikind said. “I’m so delighted, on behalf of my community and New Yorkers, to tell the U.N. to go to hell, plain and simple. They want to expand? Forget it!” he added. “Let them move to Mozambique, or Paris, or God knows where.”


State Senator Martin Golden of Brooklyn was quoted by the AP yesterday as saying that Americans “have been insulted by the U.N. repeatedly since September 11, 2001, as we have sought to defend ourselves from terrorism. This is hardly the time to assist the United Nations with expansion efforts on American soil.”


And state Senator Serphin Maltese, a Republican from Queens, also weighed in on the embattled U.N.: “It has evolved into an anti-Israel, anti-Semitic group of petty, sniping bigots who are pursuing an anti-freedom, antidemocratic, anti-American agenda. To authorize an expansion of their headquarters would be a slap in the face of American citizens.”


Stymied real estate expansion plans were not the U.N.’s only New York problem yesterday.


The clamor of calls for Mr. Annan’s resignation – and for disciplinary action against the U.N. – grew louder yesterday when three Republican representatives from the New York congressional delegation joined in. Reps. King, Kelly, and Fossella urged a change of leadership at Turtle Bay.


At a press conference held across the street from the U.N. building, they also announced their support for legislation that would withhold 10% of assessed contributions to the U.N. in 2005, and another 20% in 2006, until President Bush confirms that the U.N. is cooperating with Senate and House investigations into the oil-for-food scandal. America’s annual contribution to the U.N. is $1.12 billion, or roughly one fifth of total contributions the organization receives.


The three legislators were frustrated by the lack of U.N. cooperation and transparency in investigations into possible corruption at the U.N. Mr. Fossella said in a press release yesterday that “[Saddam] Hussein and diplomats conspired to rob the Iraqi people of $21 billion while leaving them hungry, penniless and merciless against the brutality of the regime. Despite the overwhelming evidence of fraud and abuse, the U.N. continues to stonewall a truly independent investigation of the alleged criminal activity.”


“This travesty cries out for action,” Mr. Fossella added. “The world has a right to learn the full extent of the mismanagement, corruption, and sweetheart deals. Anyone who illegally profited from the oil-for-food program must be tried and, if found guilty, punished for his crimes.”


Mr. Fossella was also highly critical of Mr. Annan.


“Under [Mr. Annan’s] stewardship, the U.N. seems to be going in the wrong direction. If this is not criminality, it is certainly bordering on criminality.” He added that, under Mr. Annan’s watch, the U.N. has “lost its moral compass,” and said that if Mr. Annan “really believes in the U.N.’s mission, he should step down.”


Of a similar mind-set was Mr. King, who criticized the U.N. for “shielding the truth” and said that if Mr. Annan “did know what was going on, it was criminal. If he didn’t know, it’s criminal negligence.” “The time has come for [Mr. Annan] to step down,” Mr. King said.


According to a spokesman for Ms. Kelly, the congresswoman also believes that “changes in leadership at the top would help the U.N. begin to repair its image to the world. If Mr. Annan stepped aside, there would be greater transparency and openness at the U.N.”


These statements came on the heels of calls for Mr. Annan’s resignation within the U.S. Senate. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece on Wednesday, Senator Coleman, a Republican of Minnesota who is leading one of the investigations into the oil-for-food scandal, called for Mr. Annan to step down.


Also on Wednesday, Senator Shelby, a Republican of Alabama who serves with Mr. Coleman on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, urged Mr. Annan to resign. In an interview on MSNBC’s “Hardball” with Chris Matthews, Mr. Shelby said, “For many reasons I think [Mr. Annan] should go. The no. 1 reason is you look at the U.N., the U.N. is in dire need of reform everywhere. And it starts at the top. He is the secretary-general.”


Mr. Shelby added, “What I would like to see…is real, meaningful audits of all the U.N. accounts. Let them appear on the Web sites. Let the American people and the world…know what the U.N. is doing, who is running the U.N., how short they are in various areas, and I believe this calls for new leadership. I agree with Senator Coleman. He’s right on.”


Mr. Shelby also criticized Mr. Annan in the wake of a New York Sun report last week. Mr. Annan’s son, Kojo Annan, the Sun disclosed, turned out to have been receiving payments as recently as early this year from a key contractor in the oil-for-food program, Cotecna Inspection Services SA.


This is one of several reasons cited by a bevy of magazine and newspaper editorial pages as justification for Mr. Annan’s resignation. The New York Sun, National Review, the New Republic, the New York Post, and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review have called for Mr. Annan’s resignation, as has New York Times columnist William Safire.


Critics have also questioned whether the U.N. is withholding evidence and failing to cooperate with congressional investigations. But the fact that Mr. Annan stood by while a program intended to help the Iraqi people instead profited key U.N. member nations – and perhaps went to fund Palestinian terror and the insurgency against American troops in Iraq – is cause enough for his removal, some have said.


According to the Associated Press, however, many U.N. member states – including Russia, Britain, and other members of the Security Council – have rejected these calls for Mr. Annan’s resignation.


President Bush said yesterday that he looks forward to “the full disclosure of the facts, [to getting] an honest appraisal of that which went on. And it’s important for the integrity of the organization to have a full and open disclosure of all that took place with the oil-for-food program.”


Mr. Bush remained noncommittal on the matter of whether Mr. Annan ought to resign.


Some local political figures remained either supportive of, or agnostic toward, Mr. Annan and the U.N. At a press conference yesterday, Senator Clinton said that “there is an ongoing investigation headed by a very distinguished American, Paul Volcker, who I think everyone has great confidence in. I understand his report is going to be available early in January. I want to wait and see what it says.”


Rep. Charles Rangel, the Harlem Democrat, said that he didn’t see how senators could be calling for Mr. Annan’s resignation.


“It seems to me that no country has the right to tell the U.N. what to do,” he told the Sun. “This is the first time that I’ve heard that American politicians are calling for [Mr. Annan’s] resignation. That means that we could have politicians in countries all over the world demanding things.”


A spokesman for Mr. Rangel, George Dalley, added that he thought it was “another opportunity for right-wing attacks on the United Nations,” as part of “a tendency to disparage the U.N. under any particular guise.”


To Mr. Hikind, however, the “U.N. is a cesspool.” He declared, “It’s the most corrupt organization if the history of the world. Why any of us in New York would want to support this organization’s being here, on principle, is beyond me.”


“The U.N. is evil, it is racist, it is anti-American,” he added. “New York will do very, very well without them.”


The New York Sun

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