from the hip

Corruption seems to be everywhere. Now a corruption case is shaking little Denmark as well. On Greenland, it turns out that the Greenland Government (“Grønlands Hjemmestyre”) sold houses to politicians and top bureaucrats for roughly half their real value.

A legal report, by Nuna Advokernes, concludes that this practice was unlawful. Big surprise. The report concludes that the selling of public property to individuals has to take place at the real market value.

For a while the Government at Greenland sought to block the investigation. Now that it’s on the table, the opposition in Greenland demands the resignation of the sitting government.

They should.

I always get very suspicious when governments, at whichever level, are eager to block, halt or close down fraud investigations. Now Gordon Brown is eager to close down the fraud investigation against BAE Systems.

It is a strange case. Tony Blair pressed Robert Wardle, the director of the Serious Fraud Office, to drop the investigation into secret payments by the arms company to Saudi Arabia. Then the case was brought before the high court. On Thursday, the high court, according to Guardian, 

rejected claims that the inquiry had had to be closed down for security reasons because “lives were at risk” if Britain no longer received intelligence on national security from Saudi Arabia.
…  Lord Justice Moses, .. with Lord Justice Sullivan attacked the government’s interference as unlawful.
In their ruling, the judges said: “We fear for the reputation of the administration of justice if it can be perverted by a threat … No one, whether within this country or outside, is entitled to interfere with the course of our justice. The rule of law is nothing if it fails to constrain overweening power.”

Gordon Brown and the Conservatives in England are trying to hide something. For the moment it is difficult to know exactly what. But that it is something that would be hard to defend publicly is clear.

I don’t think Gordon Brown will be able to stop the investigation. I don’t like it when politicians place themselves above the law and above the high court.

From freeinternetpress.com:

The court said that the Saudis should have been made to understand “the enormity of the interference with the U.K.’s sovereignty, when a foreign power seeks to interfere with the internal administration of the criminal law. It is not difficult to imagine what they would think if we attempted to interfere with their criminal justice system”.

The high court will reconvene in a fortnight to decide what remedy to award the two groups of anti-corruption activists who brought the judicial review of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) decision to end the inquiry.

The UK activist groups Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and The Corner House have done a great job in bringing this before the high court and winning. They deserve support in the continuation of this story as well.

I certainly will support them!

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Here is a little background on the case:

The arms company BAE secretly paid Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia more than £1bn in connection with Britain’s biggest ever weapons contract, it is alleged today.

A series of payments from the British firm was allegedly channelled through a US bank in Washington to an account controlled by one of the most colourful members of the Saudi ruling clan, who spent 20 years as their ambassador in the US.

It is claimed that payments of £30m were paid to Prince Bandar every quarter for at least 10 years.

No, even that doesn’t bother me very much. Until recently, under UK law, even this was legal. Indeed, it was tax deductible, so legal was it.

This is the bit that does worry me though:

It is alleged by insider legal sources that the money was paid to Prince Bandar with the knowledge and authorisation of Ministry of Defence officials under the Blair government and its predecessors. For more than 20 years, ministers have claimed they knew nothing of secret commissions, which were outlawed by Britain in 2002.

See also: BAE corruption investigation switches to Tanzania

Power is the ability to get things done. Viewed from such a perspective it is a magic wand that can be used to make wonderful things happen. Viewed from a somewhat different angle, power is a good that can be traded or sold.

A German professor of law used his power this way:

A court in Germany sentenced a law professor to three years in prison for giving students better marks in exchange for sex and money.

The 53-year-old from the central city of Hanover admitted accepting 156,000 ($318,300) euros in total for awarding doctorates to students who failed to make the grade.

The man also told the court in nearby Hildesheim he had given female students better marks in return for sex.

The academic, whom the court on Wednesday convicted on 68 counts of corruption, said he had resorted to taking bribes because he was having financial difficulties.

His net monthly salary of nearly 5000 euros had not been sufficient to pay off his debts, the court heard.

I am not sure why the court didn’t ask the obvious question: How did sex from female students improve his financial situation?

Among the few very certain things in this world, is the fact that Mugabe has been a disaster for Zimbabwe. Fraud, corrupsion and poltical terror have been a fact of live for people in Zimbabwe for many years.

A land rich on resources and fairly well off at the time of independence have been reduced to one of the poorest countries in the world. Its GDP per capita have fallen with more than 80% since independence.

Now there may be a light in the tunnel, despite the fact that the desperate Robert Mugabe recruited dead voters (The Times) to rig the election.

According to The Guardian, the opposition claims that they have won the election in the country:

Zimbabwe’s opposition party claimed an overwhelming victory against President Robert Mugabe in yesterday’s presidential election, saying that the flow of results showed its candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, had ‘massacred’ the ruling Zanu-PF party.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) defied a government ban on pre-empting the official announcement of the election results and released the count from polling stations that showed Tsvangirai beating the man who has ruled Zimbabwe for 28 years, even in the president’s home territory of Mashonaland.

‘We’ve won this election,’ said Tendai Biti, the MDC’s secretary-general. ‘The results coming in show that in our traditional strongholds we are massacring them. In Mugabe’s traditional strongholds they are doing very badly. There is no way Mugabe can claim victory unless it is through fraud. He has lost this election.’

The government’s electoral commission has yet to release the counts formally. But the MDC said that declarations posted at polling stations across Zimbabwe last night, and gathered from its agents observing the counts, showed Tsvangirai ahead of Mugabe in every province where results were available. The most dramatic gap was in Mashonaland West, where the MDC candidate had 88 per cent of the vote to the president’s 12 per cent.

However, it is still too early to say. And even if the opposition should win, the likelihood of a peaceful transition of power is probably very, very small. The most likely outcome is that Mugabe will cling to power and a civil war will ensue.

In my opinion, that is.

PS: The election results are not forthcoming. Election observers now fears that this means that Mugabe is yet again doctoring the results. Journalists have not so far been able to ascertain when the results will be made public.
PS2: Read about some of the local election results from The Independent.

Some good readings about the election in Zimbabwe:

The Independent – Mugabe: the writing’s on the wall, Opposition leaders go into hiding as poll result is delayed
New York Times: Zimbabwe Opposition Insists Mugabe Lost
The Guardian: Zimbabwe opposition fears vote-rigging, Secret Mugabe meeting ponders military move or fixed result
Information (Danmark – in Danish): Dødt løb efter valg i Zimbabwe