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Special Report
UNESCO’S Tar-Baby
The more it grapples with its embarrassing $3-million prize, the worse it looks.
Those self-appointed guardians of world culture, the international functionaries at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Paris, surely know that popular folklore story, the Tar-Baby. It figures in over 200 tales in societies of all races, ancient and modern, from West Africa to South America and Asia. In America it was told most memorably by Joel Chandler Harris in his Uncle Remus yarn about Br’er Rabbit, the cottontail entrapped by Br’er Fox with a sticky doll made of tar and turpentine.
In all versions it is a cautionary tale about the danger of tacky situations that only get worse and entangling the more they are grappled with. As a bearer of universal, age-old wisdom, it is worthy of being included in UNESCO’s famous list of the world’s intangible heritage, right along with, say, Sbek Thom Khmer shadow theatre and the Mongol Biyelgee.
But whimsical folk tales are one thing, harsh reality is another. Now UNESCO is struggling to detach itself from a real-life Tar-Baby. It takes the form of the $3 million Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences, set up by UNESCO with his money in 2008. For those who may not have seen “The United Nations’ Rogue Agency” in the February American Spectator, the story to date:
The donor, President Obiang, is the brutal dictator of a tiny, oil-rich African nation, Equatorial Guinea — the 11th most corrupt country in the world, according to the 2011 corruption index kept by Transparency International. His colossal personal fortune makes him one of the world’s richest rulers. Sensing that some cynics might see impropriety in this, since his countrymen get by on about $1 dollar a day, he sought to whitewash his image by having UNESCO name a prize for him. Lured by this $3 million Tar-Baby, the organization readily accepted Br’er Obiang’s money four years ago.
Many countries, including the U.S., opposed the prize. Senator Patrick Leahy, for one, has warned Director General Irina Bokova that “It is likely that the $3 million prize itself was the product of corruption or theft from the public treasury,” and said it was a serious mistake for UNESCO to associate itself with Obiang. Nobel laureates and human rights defenders around the world also protested. Belatedly realizing its mistake, an embarrassed UNESCO clumsily suspended the prize and began trying to get the tar off its hands. It did what bureaucracies usually do: it created a committee to discuss the problem.
Meanwhile, investigations in the U.S. and France make clear just how compromisingly sticky UNESCO’s Tar-Baby is.
As long ago as 2004, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations began looking into President Obiang’s financial dealings in the U.S. It found that he and close family members controlled tens of millions of petrodollars in American banks. In 2010, it issued a 325-page report zeroing in on how his prodigal playboy son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, known as Teodorin, moved more than $100 million into the U.S. Not one to put his cash into mousy savings accounts, he laundered it via shell companies with names like Beautiful Vision and Sweet Pink, and spent it on trinkets like a $30 million compound in Malibu, where he had attended Pepperdine University. Last October the Justice Department went to court to seize some $70 million of his U.S. assets including the mansion, a Gulfstream jet, luxury cars, and a million dollars worth of Michel Jackson memorabilia.
Could a United Nations agency like UNESCO not have known the kind of people it was partnering with?
Or that in France, the organization’s home turf, investigating magistrates have been looking into Obiang’s brimming bank accounts and luxury assets, suspecting that they result from embezzlement, money-laundering, and other misuse of public funds? (He’s in good company: also suspected are his dodgy African neighbors, Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso, and Gabon’s late President Omar Bongo Ondimba.) In 2010, a French appeals court authorized the investigations involving the three heads of state and their relatives. Relatives like Teodorin.
Imagine then UNESCO’s chagrin when last September French police raided Teodorin’s six-story, 5,000-square-foot Paris mansion on Avenue Foch and towed away 11 cars from its garages and cobbled courtyard, including a Maserati, a Porsche Carrera, an Aston Martin and a Mercedes Maybach. Also two Bugatti Veyrons, the most expensive and fastest street car in the world, costing over $1 million apiece. But the tenacious French investigators hadn’t finished. The cops returned February 14 with a moving van and emptied the mansion of Rodin statues and other baubles worth an estimated $24 million. Equatorial Guinea’s local lawyer sputtered that the building benefits from diplomatic immunity. Indeed, President Obiang only last October named his son deputy permanent representative to —what else? — UNESCO, obviously intending to give him immunity from corruption charges. That’s unlikely to wash with French authorities.
That UNESCO teams up with such strange bedfellows does not seem to worry the Obama Administration. For months it has been trying to get Congress to waive or change the law, dating from the 1990s, that obliged the U.S. to cut off funding to any UN agency that admitted the Palestinian Authority as a full member, as UNESCO provocatively did last October.
Now the State Department has quietly included some $79 million in its new budget to cover its UNESCO contribution for FY 2013. “The President has also articulated quite clearly that he would like a waiver to allow us to participate in UNESCO,” said Thomas Nides,Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources at State, on February 13. “We have put the money in the budget, realizing that we’re not going to be able to spend the money unless we get the waiver, and we have made it clear to the Congress we’d like a waiver.… UNESCO does a lot of enormously good work.” One can only admire State’s chutzpah.
One who does not is Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. “Resuming U.S. funding would give a green light for other UN bodies to follow in UNESCO’s footsteps and support the Palestinian statehood push,” she declared, reacting to State’s ploy. It “sends a disastrous message that the U.S. will fund UN bodies no matter what irresponsible decisions they make.” Adds Brett Schaefer of the Heritage Foundation, “These efforts are beyond shortsighted.”
Meanwhile, UNESCO’s 18-member committee labors mightily to find some way, any way, to get rid of the Obiang Tar-Baby. Whatever it does, its hands will stay tarred.
One solution, suggested by President Obiang, still lobbying hard to have the prize awarded, is to remove his name and endow it in the name of Equatorial Guinea. A committee insider tells me that won’t fly. Another idea is to temporize for a year, which should be easy for a UNESCO committee; the prize has a five-year time limit and will expire in 2013 if not awarded by then. But the favored solution at this point apparently is to create a new scientific award, named neither for Obiang nor his country, and accept contributions from any government. Given the kind of people UNESCO has shown it is willing to receive money from, that could produce the mother of all Tar-Babies. Anybody need their money laundered in Paris?
About the Author
Joseph A. Harriss is The American Spectator’s Paris correspondent. His latest book, An American Spectator in Paris, was released this fall.
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Appleby| 2.23.12 @ 6:54AM
Is Obama angling to receive this $3 million "prize" to add to his "Nobel Prize" on the mantlepiece?
P.S. I have been to Guinea. I barely remember it as a very primitive and dirty place, where many of my shipmates came back with liver flukes and other parasites not seen in America in decades. Sounds as if it hasn't changed a lot.
Von Mises Jr.| 2.23.12 @ 9:50AM
Perhaps he is going all in to have the prize renamed from "Obiang" to "Obama" prize. If only Obama had been born Teodoro, he would be ecstatic and beaming in writing "Dreams from my Father."
Samantha| 2.23.12 @ 8:03PM
How one can compare the President of the US to an African dictator responsible for massive human rights abuses and stealing millions of dollars to buy private residence and luxury cars is offensive and bigoted.
Robert| 2.23.12 @ 11:24PM
You're right, Sam! Obummer stole trillions. By comparison Obiang is a piker!
Von Mises Jr.| 2.23.12 @ 11:49PM
Right on Robert. And wait until ObamaCare kicks in. He will make Osama's death toll of low 3K figure look like a blip on the radar.
Samantha| 2.23.12 @ 8:00PM
The prize in question is for achievements in the life sciences. You have to be a scientist to be eligible to get it. By the way, the US administration and many other UNESCO member countries are agains the prize. What you say about Obama wanting the prize does not make any sense.
albert constantine jr.| 2.23.12 @ 9:47AM
Perhaps former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter could put in a claim for the prize. He shifted from being berated by then Senator Biden for being too strident on Iraq’s cheating on WMD inspections during the mid 90’s to Saddam Hussein apologist as a result of a “prize” that was reportedly about $300,000 to make a documentary. Perhaps he could characterize his solicitation of under age girls on line as “Life Science Research” in order to qualify (didn’t that work for Pete Townshend on his kiddy porn case?).
Kevin W Compton| 2.23.12 @ 10:02AM
I have very little pride and zero political ambitions. I'll take the $3 million if they really need to get rid of it that bad.
John Navratil| 2.23.12 @ 11:03AM
Kevin W Compton,
Don't be so all down on you ownself, dude! There's a huge industry supporting partying on OPM. If you can only do $3 Million, that's cool.
MizGeek| 2.23.12 @ 10:42AM
It's no surprise that Obama would want to fund this organization. He openly sides with the terrorist organizations Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood against Israel, his administration operates in the most corrupt fashion I have ever seen demonstrated most obscenely by the Soylindra debacle. It would not surprise me to see this "prize" awarded to Obama should he manage to get UNESCO funded.
Samantha| 2.23.12 @ 8:06PM
The Obama administration has consistently voted in favour of Israel at UNESCO at Executive Board meetings and against Palestinian membership in UNESCO at the General Conference which took place last October. You need to check your facts. Again, it's a prize for scientists, not politicians.
Robert| 2.23.12 @ 11:26PM
Yes, Sam...isn't it amazing how far this crook in the White House will pander for Jewish votes?
fwb| 2.23.12 @ 11:20AM
95+% of the people out there are greedy self-indulgent bastards. In the Third world even more are so.
The problem: Integrity and Honor are so lacking in humans that to have either makes one an persona non grata. Folks do not want others with integrity and/or honor to exist and especially do not want the honorable anywhere near themselves.
Our own politicians take money from corrupt individuals and if caught, give it back as though that settles the issue. Our grandparents and great grandparents lived by adages. The one here is: Birds of a feather clock together. Those in power are all alike. One could search til the end of time and not find one iota of difference.
Ron| 2.23.12 @ 12:45PM
I am going to play the Devil's Advocate this morning...So what? Since when are we worried about how these chuckleheads rip off their own people? What, exactly, gives us the right to accuse someone of money laundering, when presumably it is their money?
Otherwise, we start to all sound like globalists...It is not "fair" that they are taking advantage of their own people (gee, that happens here with our politicians), but it is up to the people of that country to do something about it...So, what now we are one big happy global NWO? What if someone in France decides that Von Mises Jr., Kevin, or MizGeek are corrupt and "ripping people off" with a product or service? (In the case of the subject of the article, he is a ruler, so his good or service is running the damn place.) Can they come after you next?
Bulgaricus| 2.23.12 @ 1:12PM
It is quite clear that the O regime is very much in favor of this kind of looting. State just wants to make it more legal. The big bonus for O is that terrorist organizations will now be recognized & UNESCO can keep ripping off the US. It is simply a win-win situation for the lamebrains running things in DC.
wolflen| 2.23.12 @ 3:48PM
im not sure what pornography is .. but i know it when i see it...
cicero| 2.23.12 @ 4:46PM
The State Department has been anti-American and out of control since the Roosevelt administration. It should have been cleaned out years ago. These are the same guys that were giving out visas to Saudis and other middle eastern terrorists sponsoring countries that resulted in our entertaining the 9/11 band of brothers. When will we learn.
Africa has been ruled, by and large, by kleptocracies since the end of colonialism. At least most of the colonial countries (with the exception of Belgium) made a show of trying to bring some benefits to the indiginous peoples.
Dave Williams| 2.23.12 @ 5:08PM
The US out of the UN.
The UN out of the US.
NOW!!!!!!!
triumph| 2.24.12 @ 2:40AM
Here, here!
Occam's Tool| 2.23.12 @ 5:10PM
Why are we still in UNESCO? Why don't we follow the LAW? Why does the Obama administration bow to Terror?
Martin Owens| 2.23.12 @ 6:13PM
" Embarrassing" ? How quaint!
As if anything embarrassed that den of con men, agitators and thieves.
Samantha| 2.23.12 @ 7:57PM
UNESCO does excellent work. It has an amazing program on how to teach Holocaust history. Do you know how many Afghan women and soldiers can now read and write because of UNESCO literacy programs? UNESCO also advocates for freedom of expression and the safety of journalists which I would think Mr. Harriss would appreciate. It helps to protect and promote over 20 world heritage sites in the US alone like the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty as well as other sites across the world ( eg the Egyptian Pyramids). Go to the UNESCO website and see for yourselves: www.unesco.org. Last I checked, UNESCO is an organization made up of countries. While sometimes the US feels like another planet, last I checked we can't leave this planet yet nor should we leave UNESCO.
trmph| 2.24.12 @ 2:45AM
Samantha, stop already. You obviously have a personal dog in this UNESCO thing. Probably more than just that.
UNESCO is just one more crock. Except it is worse than that.
You really need to wake up. I guess you will at some point, about the split-second you are trampled by the very liberal idiots you support.
Yes, your trampling fellow travellers.
Please don't think that your six posts here make a bit of difference. Most readers here have picked up dozens of articles, spanning many years on the grotesque ineptitudes of the UN and all its over-sized, over-budgeted, and fully corrupt agencies.
This here is not a dull crowd, this.
POST American| 2.23.12 @ 9:35PM
"As every red indian knows,
'charity' is the white man's MOST
insidious poison."
D H Lawrence
1922
And NOW, as we survey the record of
nearly a century of such 're--sun--Abel'
and 'charitable' management
iniatives from the capstone such
as the 'Marksism' ---'So-Shell-ALL-ism'
----'National So-Shell-ALL--ism'
(BOTH German and now
RED Chinese versions)
--------------EVERYONE knows.
UNESCO is an unelected,
PRIVATE corporate borg
front for world banking,
consolidation and -
---TOTAL EUGENICS---.
NO more, NO less.
"By comparison, even the Catholic
Church in the heyday of corruption
and empire were a bunch of angels."
Word is out about the UN and its
chief instrument of 'pro-gress--ive'
'so-shall engine--eering'.
And BTW ---WHERE'S John Bolton
on the UN these days?
He seems even more neutered than
FOX 'News'.
Russell| 2.24.12 @ 9:17PM
Bravo!
Harriss should be given a running tab at Tour d'Argent and raised to the rank of TAS counsel-general for the Bight of Benin.
POST American| 2.25.12 @ 10:57PM
---------FURTHER
Laying aside those reports of some 250,000
small farmers in India having committed suicide in
the face of the Big Agra GMO takeover of
their system (--CHECK IT OUT!)
------AND!
the almost daily revelations of the
GMOs organ destroying, cancer causing,
brain addling ---inter-generationally
sterilizing properties
YES, YES ----WHERE'S BOLTON?
------------WHERE'S BOLTON ON ANY OF THIS?