By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 20 -- Contrary to a cable released by Wikileaks describing Susan Rice the US Permanent Representative to the UN being told by International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo about Sudan's Omar al Bashir “stashing” $9 billion in “illegal accounts,” Ambassador Rice on December 20 told Inner City Pres that “I don't have a recollection of that being told to me directly.” Video here, from Minute 4:18.
Inner City Press asked Ambassador Rice about the cable and what she and the US Mission to the UN had done after Moreno Ocampo told her and her then Deputy Alejandro Wolff being told about Bashir's $9 billion.
“I'm not going to comment on cables,” she began. After denying any recollection of being told “directly” about Bashir's billions, she said “I don't know if it was said to anyone else.”
The cable begins that ICC “Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told Ambassadors Rice and Wolff on March 20 [2009] that Sudanese President Bashir needed to be isolated. Ocampo suggested if Bashir's stash of money were disclosed (he put the figure at possibly $9 billion), it would change Sudanese public opinion from him being a 'crusader' to that of a thief. Ocampo reported Lloyd's Bank in London might be holding or knowledgeable of the whereabouts of his money.”
As Inner City Press reported earlier on December 20, “in January 2009 US authorities fined Lloyds $350 million for concealing the origins of wire transfers from Sudan, Iran and Libya in violation of US sanctions against the countries... Lloyds' so recent fine, for concealing the source of money from Sudan, would have given Rice and the Obama Administration leverage to get Bashir's accounts confirmed or denied by Lloyds at that time. At issue is not only corruption by a leader indicted for war crimes and genocide: under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, oil profits were to be split between North and Southern Sudan. Southerns have alleged that the Bashir government had improperly kept and hid revenue. Could this have been the money? What did the US Mission to the UN, State Department and Obama administration do to find out?”
Expecting to receive some sort of answer to this question, Inner City Press later on December 20 asked Susan Rice, as transcribed by the US Mission to the UN:
Inner City Press: there's a report that Ocampo of the ICC told the U.S. Mission or yourself that Bashir had $9 billion taken from Sudan and put in London, Lloyd's of London, is what he mentioned. And I just wondered, it's one of these cables, I don't want to talk about the cable aspect of it, but I just wanted to know what do you think of that? Is that something Ocampo met with you and Ambassador Wolff and said, and if case, what did the U.S. do to find out if it's true?
Ambassador Rice: I'm not going to comment on cables. I don't have a recollection of that being told to me directly, and I don't know if it was said to anybody else.
