Date: 22 Jan 2000 01:09:00 +0200
From: I-AFD_2-AT-anarch.free.de (Nico MYOWNA)
Subject: Re: Arkan dead, reported by Reuters



carpo wrote incognito / in coito?:

> > Seems that, for the last 16 years, we had a "system Kohl", meaning that
> > there was inofficial funds carefully hidden from all control and tax
> > offices which Kohl used to buy political support with.
>
> Over on this side of the pond this has all been legitimatized and the
> offsprind are called "political action committees."  They are outside the
> realm of standard political contribution laws, but any politician or
> corporation wirth their salt contorls at least one.
>
> bart

After there was a big stink about donation from Flick to CDU and the  
practice of using "laundring organisations" to raise donations for CDU at  
the beginning of the 80ies, new regulations were introduced. The  
"laundring device", an organisation called "Civic Assocation", was ruled  
illegal and they had to terminate their little collecting agency. The  
Flick corporation had to pay a substantial sum to the tax office since  
that money had been made on the side plus some more money as fines, and a  
few politicians shared this fate. Since then, the way of bookkeeping for  
political parties also has been revised, so that they should have to take  
down donations of DM 20,000 and above including the name of so generous a  
person.

As it turns out now, these changes were done in the best of intentions,  
but there's still loopholes: apparently, CDU in Hessen tried to avoid  
undue repayments and troubles by claiming that the monies in their secret  
bank account were inheritances - from exiled Jewish citizens! They have  
meanwhile produced the apology the German Jewish council insisted on.

According to what we hear, the procdure to re-label donations into  
inherited sums was quite "normal" for CDU treasurers, we have been told  
that it was business as usual to raid newspapers for names of people who'd  
just kicked the bucket to use them in their accounting practice.

It is assumed that the money Hessian CDU received comes from a) monies  
donated by Flick, b) monies collected by this "Civic Association", or
c) from both sources.

Actually, investigations are under way: the Hessian General Attorney  
collected all files dealing with finances and thus provides valuable  
assistance to CDU treasurers ;) Today, the Hessian Prime Minister Koch  
(CDU) in a press conference had to admit a few more things: the  
Liechtenstein account holds more than DM 18 million. In 1998/99, 2 million  
were drawn from this account, DM 1,7 million of which can be accounted  
for, so they're still looking for a mere 300,000. Between 1993 and 1999,  
sums were only drawn from this account, a total of DM 7.8 million. The  
only entries there are were taken up as payments of interest - but Koch  
had to admit that the amounts were so substantial that it's more than what  
you'd expect interest-wise. So either their treasurer has been speculating  
wildly and successfully, or there's entries which were called "interest"  
but weren't really. We may trust for more interesting (double meaning  
intended) info to be presented in due time.

We should also be very surprised if Hessian CDU was the only one to  
receive the "Civic Association" funds when they were terminated, and  
nothing went to the party organisations in the other federal states.

Another interesting aspect is that yesterday, a high ranking CDU employee  
hung himself in his Berlin flat. He was responsible for the party's  
finances, and already had been asked to show up at the investigating  
authorities to answer a few questions they were confident he was in a  
position to answer. He apparently left a letter in which he explained this  
somewhat drastic way out of whatever problems he saw, but nothing has  
leaked as to the contents of this letter - as yet.

Apparently, there's different interest groups within CDU - Kohl still has  
his followers and supporters who share his point of view that he is a  
martyr run down by journalists in a totally unfair and unjustified way. He  
has already had some of his people leak info to the press, anonymously of  
course, about things to be held against some of his party friends, like  
Schaeuble, who is his successor as CDU chairperson. He seems to think that  
he might have to go down eventually, but he doesn't want to be on his own.

The CDU decision to demand that Kohl abstained from exerting his honorary  
presidency of CDU has not only led Kohl to resign, reinforcing that he  
will keep quiet about the names of the alleged donors. It has also  
resulted in pretty open words from parts of the party who now demand to  
have Kohl expelled from membership in CDU and/or that Kohl should resign  
as a member of parliament. Kohl has since had a public appearance in  
Hamburg where he insisted he wasn't going to rat on those he gave his word  
of honour to and who were all law-abiding good citizens, and this to him  
was a matter of honour....

Kohl of course has his enemies within the party, as he used to get rid of  
any person who came up with remarks he reckoned to be on the critical  
side. So he kicked the arse of a former general secretary of CDU, a  
certain Herr Geissler, who now happily presents what info he has to  
provide. For example he informed that, already in the 80ies, he stumbled  
across secret accounts and money hideaways, and strongly advised to put an  
end to this business.

When Geissler had his arse kicked, Kohl picked another person as gen.  
sec., a Mr Ruehe, who is also known under the nickname "Ruepel" (=lout) in  
praise of his exquisite manners towards critical journalists and so on. He  
stepped down from that office some time ago to become Defence Minister and  
now runs for elections in the northernmost federal state of Schleswig- 
Holstein. This fed.state has been governed by a coalition of SPD and  
Greens for the past say 15 years.

It does have something like an "haut-gout" that this fed.state used to  
have a CDU government before, with its Prime Minister Barschel also having  
severe problems as to financial habits, or selling drafts to build  
submarines to South Africa in an operation which was just slightly on the  
illegal side, and for having hired persons to look for any dirty info on  
his Social Democrat competitor for the next elections (including the  
illegal attempt to copy that person's tax files, and writing anonymous  
letters to the tax office claiming that person doged tax). The PM, in a  
press conference widely broadcasted at that time, gave ------ his word of  
honour that he never did all this and knew absolutely nothing about it.

Some three weeks later, info came up which proved him to be a liar, and so  
he had to resign. Another few weeks later, this very same ex-PM was found  
dead in the bath of his hotel room in Geneva .... so Kohl perhaps should  
be careful about giving words of honour.

But Mr Ruepel - err Ruehe is constantly talking about "me no know  
nothing", and nobody believes it. He's not what you'd call a shy person,  
and noone accepts that he'd just shut up if anybody told him "that's none  
of your business".

This apparently has drastically lowered CDU's chances to win these  
elections: from some 42% established in polls to a mere 29% now. The  
results of recent elections in Hessen are also viewed with suspicion now,  
as CDU won this on a massive campaign against the SPD plans to facilitate  
dual citizenship for immigrants living here on a steady basis. It is now  
suspected that this massive campaign might have been funded with money  
from said secret bank account which new PM Koch denies to have been  
informed about and thus refuses to resign.

And the Elf-Acquitaine business about the purchase of Leuna refinery  
including the chain of "Minol" petrol stations in the East does sound very  
promising indeed: today we were informed that the Swiss Attorney General  
wants to question a few Grrman politicians, and named five persons as  
having received bribes! The entire sum Elf spent on bribes amounts to a  
meagre DM 120 million as far as investigations have ascertained so far,  
and the amounts that went to these five persons is not even 25% of the  
entire sum, so we may be confident of more interesting details, and names,  
to be presented.

The situation is already compared to the scandals that eventually offed  
Democrazia Cristiana in Italy, and I suppose there's hopes.

Oh yes, it all started out with a warrant against former CDU treasurer  
Leisler-Kiep in November for some measley 100,000 he doged tax on and  
couldn't quite account for..... Having his arse neatly up against the  
wall, he had to come up with more interesting info which included the  
secret stash of ex-Chancellor Kohl... Yep, it's always a tiny little  
pebble causing huge landslides....

Nighty-night,

catkawin






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