Oil-for-Food Program

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The oil-for-food program ( english Oil-for-Food Program , OFFP ) was used by the United Nations launched the 1995th The OFFP was supposed to enable Iraq, despite the economic sanctions imposed by the UN in 1990 , to exchange oil for humanitarian goods (in particular food and medicines) on the world market . By the end of the OFFP in 2003, about 64 billion US dollars and 5 billion US dollars had flowed in this way as interest income and exchange rate gains on a UN office ( Office of the Iraq Program Oil-for-Food , OIP ) Escrow account. Of this, more than $ 38 billion was approved for the purchase of humanitarian goods. US $ 18 billion was used for reparations payments to victims of the occupation of Kuwait and US $ 3 billion for various other activities (including weapons inspections in Iraq and covering administrative costs). The remaining proceeds of almost 10 billion US dollars were transferred to the Iraqi Development Fund . The German UN diplomat Hans-Christof von Sponeck led the implementation of the oil-for-food program on site from 1998 to 2000 in Baghdad.

Due to allegations of corruption , in 2004 Kofi Annan set up an Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) headed by Paul Volcker and the other commission members Richard Goldstone and Mark Pieth . In its final report of October 27, 2005, the Volcker Commission found that outside the OFFP, Iraq could illegally sell oil for almost eleven billion US dollars. She also suspected 2,200 international companies of having paid kickbacks totaling 1.8 billion US dollars to the Iraqi government. For this reason, the OFFP is considered to be one of the largest known corruption cases in the last few decades. Nevertheless, only in a few countries have criminal investigations been initiated against people or companies or even criminal judgments pronounced on the basis of the documents listed by the Volcker Commission.

background

The program was proposed in 1995 by the US administration under Bill Clinton to counter allegations that the civilian population in particular was suffering from economic sanctions against Iraq. These were imposed as a result of the Second Gulf War and were intended to disarm Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The sanctions ended with the invasion of American troops and the takeover of the coalition interim administration .

Criminal offenses

Suppliers of goods within the scope of the program were regularly forced to pay a “sales and after sales services charge” of around 10% of the value of the goods to the Iraqi government so that deliveries could cross the borders to Iraq. This regulation was introduced by order of the Iraqi Vice President in August 2000.

These were so-called kick-back payments , which violated Resolution 986. According to German foreign trade law, this was a criminal offense under Section 34 (4) AWG ( Foreign Trade Act ) in conjunction with Section 69e AWV ( Foreign Trade Ordinance ) ( Time Act ). On the basis of the findings set out in the IIC's Volcker report, numerous investigative proceedings have also been initiated against those responsible for the companies involved in the Federal Republic of Germany . Based on these findings, it can be assumed that a significant proportion of the sums spent on food and goods were misused as kick-backs, especially since the companies involved regularly took these surcharges into account in their price calculations.

Such payments were not bribes or " kickbacks " within the meaning of criminal law, as they were not payments to obtain an unlawful official act by a public official within the meaning of §§ 334 ff. StGB and also no unfair preferential treatment by a representative or employees of the contract partner in terms of corruption and bribery in business dealings ( Section 299 Paragraphs 2 and 3 StGB). According to the IIC's findings, the payments did not remain with the officials entrusted with the handling of the deliveries or the placing of orders, but went directly to the budget of the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government would, however, be regarded as the "business owner" of the trading partner placing the order and the latter cannot be bribed as he is excluded from the offense of bribery (cf. also Tröndle / Fischer on § 299, No. 11). According to Art. 2 Paragraph 1 of the Law on Combating International Bribery (IntBestG), foreign public officials are treated as equivalent to domestic public officials within the meaning of Sections 334 et seq. StGB, but the Iraqi public officials acted on the instructions of the Iraqi government and therefore their employers. In contrast to corrupt officials who act against the instructions of the employer, they fulfilled their service obligations by helping the Iraqi government to obtain funds. A punishment of these kick-back payments as corruption offenses according to German criminal law is therefore not possible.

Around 2,000 companies around the world are or were suspected of having paid these surcharges.

literature

Movies

  • Denis Poncet, Rémy Burkel: Oil, Bread and Corruption . France, 2008, 90 min. ARTE, F. The documentary by Burkel and Poncet investigates the allegations made in 2004 by an Iraqi daily that bribes were paid to numerous people and companies as part of these activities in the program over US $ 30 billion). They show, among other things, those involved in the Walker Commission in the UN investigation.
  • Per Fly: Backstabbing for beginners . Denmark / Canada 2017, 108 min. With Theo James, Ben Kingsley, Jacqueline Bisset. The political thriller is based on the memoirs of Michael Soussan, who worked for the UN in the 1990s and who exposed the corruption scandal in a book.

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ UN Resolution S-RES-986 of April 14, 1995 ( Memento of October 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 17 kB)
  2. ↑ Oil-for-Food Facts ( Memento from January 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ www.un.org Office of the Iraq Program - About the Program Oil-for-Food. Accessed January 3, 2014.
  4. ↑ Information on the official website of the OIP
  5. ↑ Report on the manipulation of the Oil-for-Food Program, October 27, 2005 ( Memento of September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ ICC press release of October 27, 2005 ( Memento of March 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (English, PDF, 48 kB)