Africa/UN: knives out for Kofi Annan; Recent indications from Washington have exposed the Bush Administration's desire to see the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, removed from office. This is happening at a time when the UN is seeking to reshape itself for the 21st century. Stuart Price reports.

It was Kofi Annan himself who, in his address to the UN General Assembly in September 2003, admitted that "the United Nations had reached a fork in the road." After the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on America, the UN, as an organisation, needed to be modernised to keep pace with an ever-changing and increasingly globalised world.

It is for this reason that the findings of a review probing the UN's effectiveness entitled A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility was released at the beginning of December, outlining proposals for change. The High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change has set out "a bold, new vision of collective security for the 21st century."

It highlights that in the world today, conflict, genocide, poverty, infectious diseases, environmental degradation, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and transnational organised crime are the greatest threats to peace and stability.

To meet these challenges, the panel said the UN's existing institutions should work better. "It will take resources commensurate with the scale of the challenges ahead, commitments that are long term and sustained, and, most of all, it will take leadership--from within states, and between them," the panel said.

Yet, the man who is leading the reform agenda of the UN, Secretary General Kofi Annan, has come under attack by a Bush Administration which wants him to relinquish his post. Norm Coleman, the Republican chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is probing allegations about the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq, has already accused Annan of "incompetence and mismanagement."

The programme was established after the first Gulf War in 1991 to allow Iraq, which was then under economic sanctions, to sell oil and use the profits to buy food and medical supplies. It is alleged that the former Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, skimmed U$6.7bn of the proceeds and profited from an additional U$13.7bn through smuggling oil out of the country.

So how does Kofi Annan bear responsibility for this? The link lies in his son, Kojo, who was on the payroll of the Swiss firm, Cotecna, for consulting work in Africa. The same firm also inspected goods entering Iraq under the oil-for-food programme. Kojo was on their payroll until early 2004.

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However, six separate investigations into the oil-for-food programme have not found any wrongdoing on Kojo's part, and no formal charges have been brought.

His father, however, said in early December that such reports could lead to the perception "of conflict of interest and wrongdoing" within the UN, although he himself had no responsibility or involvement in the awarding of contracts to companies involved in the programme. But according to Senator Coleman. Annan has to "step down for the credibility of the organisation itself"--a reversal of the Biblical admonition that the "sins of the fathers should not be visited on the sons".

The real reason, however, lies elsewhere. Ever since Annan branded the war in Iraq "illegal" in mid-2004, the Bush Administration has been seeking his removal from office. He owes his position to American influence. Annan was their preferred candidate when the same US hounded out the former secretary general, Boutros Boutros Ghali in 1996.

Indeed, it is not the first time such tactics have been applied. In 2000, the firing of the then UN oil-for-food officer in Baghdad was seen as orchestrated by the US after he had documented the deaths of civilians by American bombings in Iraq's no-fly zones.

In recent weeks, Senator Coleman has written an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, saying: "I have arrived at this conclusion (that Annan is incompetent) because the most extensive fraud in the history of the UN occurred on his watch. The world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks and under-the-table payments that occurred under the UN's collective nose while Annan is in charge."

As a pretext, the Americans want Annan to take responsibility for the actions of a few unprincipled and dishonest individuals within the UN. But did anyone call for President Bush to be held accountable for the human rights abuses at the Abu Gharib prison by members of the forces of which he is commander-in-chief? Or the illegality of Guantanamo Bay? Or even taking America to war on a lie as no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq?

Instead, President Bush, far from being asked to resign, has been rewarded with another four years in office. Senator Coleman, however, appears not to see the double-standards in all of this.