-Caveat Lector-
HOW MARC HELPED PLUNDER RUSSIA
Thursday,February 15,2001
By ROD DREHER
EVERYBODY is boiling mad over the pardon of fugitive Marc Rich,
in large part because he is a traitor who did business with the
ayatollah, and helped keep the South African apartheid regime in
business under sanctions.
Overlooked so far is Rich's role in the looting of the
disintegrating Soviet Union by Communist Party officials and
their associates in the early 1990s.
You can read about it in "Godfather of the Kremlin," an
exhaustively researched book about Russian oligarch Boris
Berezovsky, which was published last fall. The author is Paul
Klebnikov, an expert on Russia and a Forbes magazine senior
editor.
The book details the myriad ways Berezovsky and his minions stole
untold sums from the Russian people through international
financial schemes.
According to Klebnikov, Rich came into the picture around 1990,
when the Soviet Union began to open up to outsiders.
"Governmental authority began to crumble. All these local
Communist Party bosses got to strike deals on their own," the
author tells me.
Based in Switzerland, with its secretive banking laws, Rich was
in a prime position to help Russia's plunderers carry out their
dirty work. Klebnikov reported that Rich dealt in oil, aluminum,
zinc and other raw commodities.
"He'd strike a deal with the local party boss, or the director of
a state-owned company," explains the author. "He'd say, 'OK, you
will sell me the [commodity] at 5 to 10 percent of the world
market price.
"'And in return, I will deposit some of the profit I make by
reselling it 10 times higher on the world market, and put the
kickback in a Swiss bank account.'"
For at least two years, as the Soviet Union was in its death
throes, Rich was that nation's largest trader of aluminum and oil
on a spot basis.
"He made a complete mint off of Russia," says Klebnikov.
A former foreign-trade minister told the author that Rich
instructed the robber-baron elite how to skirt the law by doing
secret deals through shell companies and the like.
"Marc Rich ended up being a mentor to all these young kids who
came out of the Communist Party establishment, and who made
billions off these schemes themselves," Klebnikov charges.
There were allegations at the time in the Russian press and
elsewhere that Rich was aiding and abetting capital flight from
the country, but he was never charged.
A widely read 1999 article in the foreign-policy journal The
National Interest, written by ex-CIA officer and National
Security Council staffer Fritz W. Ermarth, noted that as far
back as 1985, the KGB was engaged in the massive transfer of
assets abroad via commodities trading through front companies.
"The program evolved into . . . avenues for squirreling away
funds for the safe retirement or political comeback of embattled
communist leaders," Ermarth writes.
If Rich had anything to do with this, then he would have had a
key role in making the world safe for nuclear-armed communist
tyrants who were America's greatest enemies.
Can U.S. intelligence files from the era establish a link
between Rich and the transferred KGB billions? Congress should
find out.
Rich's profitable relationship with the Russians ended in 1993,
when the monster he helped create turned on him. The Russian
swindlers became so good at Rich's game that they muscled him out
of the action.
"Applying the lessons they learned from Marc Rich, they
bankrupted Russia," Klebnikov alleges. "As a result, you have a
ruined economy, bankrupt government, and an impoverished
population."
Tens of millions of Russians are suffering through the worst
winter there in 50 years. They and their government are broke.
There is no money to buy coal to run the power stations.
People are sick, cold and dying. They are freezing to death in
the dark. One man told the Red Cross that life has turned into
"a permanent struggle for survival. It's not even life, it's
just existence."
This is part of the legacy of the man pardoned by Bill Clinton.
It is now part of the 42nd president's legacy as well. Clinton,
his belly full, sleeps in warmth and comfort in cozy Chappaqua.
If he can sleep at all.
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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