Friday, December 15, 2006

The best speech that was never made

In his real farewell speech SecGen Kofi Annan (father of Kojo) says among other things:
During my decade as secretary-general, and indeed for some time before that, I have indulged in more than my share of half-truths, quarter-truths, cover-ups, immoral inanities and staggering hypocrisies. I have shuffled paperwork while ignoring genocides, I have rushed to shake hands with tyrants while deriding democrats; I have suffered from memory gaps while adroitly recalling just enough to know what needs covering up. I took office promising to reform the U.N., and instead produced a record that deserves to be summed up by such phrases as peacekeeper rape, procurement bribery, and Oil-for-Food.
Well, no, he doesn't. But he would have done if he had made the speech written for him by Claudia Rosett, the journalist who investigated the oil-for-food scam but, astonishingly enough, was not even short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize.

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