The Hypocrisy Weblog

From the New York Post;

YASSER STASHED BILLIONS ALONG SHADOWY MONEY TRAIL

In his four decades as Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat has run a murky financial empire that includes far-flung PLO investments in airlines, banana plantations and high-tech companies, and money hidden in bank accounts across the globe.

Jaweed al-Ghussein, a former PLO finance minister, said Arafat and the PLO were worth $3 billion to $5 billion when he quit in 1996. No one will say how much the organization and its boss are worth now — some estimates say as little as a few million. But as Arafat, 75, fights for life in a hospital near Paris, Palestinians fear that what’s left will disappear or be pocketed by Arafat cronies.

“It’s the money of the Palestinian people,” said Palestinian legislator Hassan Khreishe. Arafat has long resisted proper accounting for the funds, which include Arab payments to the PLO in the 1970s and 1980s, and Western aid to his self-rule government, the Palestinian Authority, after interim peace deals with Israel in the 1990s.

Arafat lived frugally, but needed large sums to maintain loyalties. He would register investments and bank accounts in the names of loyalists, both to buy their support and protect the holdings from scrutiny and seizure, al-Ghussein said. Only Arafat had the full picture, he said, and it’s not clear whether he has left a will or any financial records.

Mohammed Rashid, Arafat’s financial adviser, denied his boss was rich. “Arafat has no personal property in any part in the world,” he told Al-Arabiya television on Sunday. “He doesn’t even have a tent, a house, an orchard or any account that we can call personal in the name of Yasser Arafat.” However, Forbes magazine ranked him No. 6 on its 2003 list of the richest “kings, queens and despots,” estimating he was worth $300 million. Shalom Harari, a former top Israeli intelligence official, said Arafat has stashed away $700 million.

Two names frequently come up in connection with Arafat’s money — Rashid and Arafat’s wife, Suha. Rashid has handled hundreds of millions of dollars in Palestinian Authority revenue Arafat diverted from the treasury. Suha Arafat, Arafat’s wife of 13 years and mother of his daughter, lives in Paris and has received monthly payments of $100,000 from Palestinian coffers, according to a senior official.

Al-Ghussein said the big money from the Arab world started flowing in 1979. For a decade, the PLO received about $200 million a year, $85 million of it from Saudi Arabia, he said. Al-Ghussein said that during that period, he would hand Arafat a check for $10.25 million every month from the PLO budget, ostensibly for payments to PLO fighters and families of those killed in battle.

Much of the Arab money dried up after Arafat infuriated his patrons in 1990 by siding with Saddam Hussein during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. But Saddam gave Arafat $150 million in three payments, al-Ghussein said. The PLO investments are said to have ranged from an airline in the Maldives to a Greek shipping company, banana plantations, a diamond mine in Africa and real estate.

A senior Palestinian Authority official with detailed knowledge of financial transactions said much of the money has been lost. Some of the companies went bankrupt. In other cases, Arafat cronies absconded with the cash. Some frontmen for PLO investments died, and the holdings passed to their families.

If all of this, or even parts of it can be proven, then the legacy of Yasser Arafat will be forever tainted. Of course, as the article suggests, I doubt that Yasser Arafat was and is alone in acting in such a manner, but the article above sure helps explaining why Yasser Arafat was able to cling on to power for so long; he had a great deal of help from his “friends”, and this help came at a high price, which in the end is payed by the Palestinian people.

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