Wikileaks Breaks $3 Billion Corruption Story

James Hardine writes Wikileaks, the website for whistleblowers, has broken one of the world's biggest corruption stories in the international press (Guardian, BBC, Forbes, Sydney Morning Herald). The site has leaked a secret report on looting by ex-president Moi of Kenya — and possibly altered the outcome of an impending national election. Moi has become a key player in political life in Kenya, and is now an essential pillar in President Kibaki's campaign for re-election in December 2007. From the Wikileaks page: 'The suppressed auditor's report reveals that currency worth billions of US dollars was looted from Kenya by President Moi and his associates. The money was laundered across the world and includes properties and shell companies in London, New York and South Africa and even a 10,000 hectare ranch in Australia.'"

Phew!

[evil agent (918566)]

See, this is why I stay away from Kenya and only deal with my legitimate business partners from Nigeria.

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[JazzyMusicMan (1012801)]

What are you talking about?? This Kenyan guy actually did have money he needed to transfer out of kenya! I guess none of his henchmen were long last relatives twice removed of mine. :(

this is the result of socialism

[backslashdot (95548)]

Socialism which centralizes all p;power in the government, causes this. When the same government that is responsible for policing, is repsonsible for economic activity such as providing electricity and even news to the public .. seriously fucked up shit like this can happen. It irreverasbly fucks a country hard.

Show me where socialism and government control over business activity has brought about prosperity and lifted a country out of poverty? I can show examples for capitalism: China, Singapore, South Kor

Re:

[Crazy Taco (1083423)]

Agreed. And just take a look at the countries of Eastern Europe as long as we are citing examples. They are doing FAR better than they ever were under the socialist/communist policies they followed throughout the cold war. Japan is another example of an Asian country that is no longer in poverty either. They got their buts kicked in WWII and didn't have anything, but now are one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

Now lets look at countries that are following socialism. I'm betting heavilly that we are

Re:this is the result of socialism

[GreyWolf3000 (468618)]

I gotta say, when I read reports like this, it's not 'capitalism' or 'socialism' that I end up blaming...

Re:

[gowen (141411)]

I'm betting heavilly that we aren't going to see Venezuela becoming an economic powerhouse under Hugo Chavez. They might stay afloat economically, but that will be almost entirely thanks to oil and nothing else. It certainly won't propel them into having any sort of real, diversified economy in which the vast majority of the population gets out of poverty.

And how is this different from beacon-of-capitalism and friend-of-America, Saudi Arabia? Except that Chavez is elected and the House of Saud isn't?

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[PPH (736903)]

And how is this different from beacon-of-capitalism and friend-of-America, Saudi Arabia? Except that Chavez is elected and the House of Saud isn't?

Same problems, different labels. The neocons still suffer from knee-jerk reactions against anything labeled 'Socialist' due to our experiences during the Cold War.

One other factor to consider is whether US interests are given a cut of the profits. The Saudis throw some business to American contractors, so they must be benign.

Re:this is the result of socialism

[roman_mir (125474)]

I live in Toronto, Canada. Yesterday night I was walking by the Mel Lastman's Square [wikipedia.org] and a kid, probably not older than 16 was standing there distributing a socialist newspaper. Another young girl was distributing some kind of a Che Guevara pamphlet. I wish the public education put more emphasis on history and philosophy education (as well as hard sciences,) and would provide these kids with enough information and thinking abilities to understand what exactly such people as Che have done in their lives and why exactly socialist propaganda ends up going the bloody road every time it attempts to change the human nature. Then again, I was born in the former USSR and this is sort of like second nature to understand these things.

Re:this is the result of socialism

[Watson Ladd (955755)]

In 1917 Russia was an agricultural nation that lost against Germany which was fighting a two front war. Russia had previously been defeated by Japan overnight in the Russo-Japanese war. In 1850 Japan was also an agricultural nation with no industry to speak of. Japan took 100 years to become a superpower, Russia took 20. Is that enough of a historical comparison? Just remember that Communism won the second world war without help. D-Day was major, but it didn't turn the war around like Staligrad and Kursk did. Oh, and who put the first satellite in space? The first heart-lung machine? The big bang? Explained superfluidity? All that from the USSR. Now, let's look at Israel. The kibbutzim produced most of Israel's elite despite having no more then 7% of the population. So it looks like socialism does work. Now remember the 1930's? The only nations not affected by the Great Depression were the USSR and Nazi Germany. This is the historical record, and what it shows is not what you think it does.

Re:this is the result of socialism

[roman_mir (125474)]

Before 1917 Russia was a state based on slavery, it is true. Many believe that some form of a revolt was almost inevitable due to the top government not being able to do its job effectively and due to the general population's dissatisfaction with the status quo. Obviously the Russian-Japanese war did not help the matters much at all, why the Russian army was sent against Japanese machine guns with nothing more than some religious icons and crosses in their hands.

The USSR of-course has defeated the Fascist Germany, the first man in space was Yuri Gagarin and Lev Landau was at least as smart as Einstein. However you are contributing these obvious achievements to the socialist/communist regime set in place, which is a logical fallacy.

You see, after the October Revolution took place there were people (Stolypin) in the country who proposed reforms that could have turned the country around and brought it into a soft form of capitalism (small size landownership actually.) After all, the country itself was mostly agrarian.

What has actually happened was very different. My great-grandfather's 7 out of 12 children have died in Ukraine in the beginning of 1930th from hunger along with 30 million other people. So my great-grandfather was moved off his land, because he had to hire help to work in the field, this was against the communist law of the time. His remaining family and himself together with millions others were put on trains and moved to Siberia, away from their lands. His wife and one more kid died in the train during the move from diphteria. Now to some this may not mean much, but they may not understand what Ukraine actually was at the time (and still is today.) It was called the Bread Basket of the Soviet Union. For 30 million farmers to die from hunger is not something that can be explained easily, but the basics of it are these: the new communist government needed money, which it did not have, to jump start a non-existing industrial complex. The only way to do this was to take away what could be taken away from the farmers of the land and to sell it abroad, namely food. Food was taken away completely for at least 3 years in a row, which resulted in approximately 30 million deaths.

That is just one small bookmark in the novel written by the new communist regime.

Many probably do not realize this, but when Hitler attacked USSR, he hit Ukraine first. The initial reaction of the people was mixed, most were fed up with the Soviet form of government and they would have stayed away from the war completely and let the Nazi forces through, however Hitler made one of his many many blunders, he killed the civilians and he killed them in numbers and with ferocity that somehow outmatched the late doings of the Communist Party in the republic. At the end of it all Ukrainians had little choice, they had to fight the immediate danger of being exterminated.

You have cited some examples of ingenuity shown by the people of the former Soviet Union, what you have not seen though outmatches everything that you have heard off. The fate of the people of that land between 1912 and up to about the end of 1960th was terrible. From about 1970th and to the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union the life became much easier, but it was never free.

You see, the socialists do not want to free people from anything really, they want to tell the people how to live their lives too. If you weren't with 'it' in the former USSR, you were against the law, and the Communist Party set the law. There was no other party.

Personally I would rather live in a capitalist country during depression, then in a communist country in the best of times though.

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[bjourne (1034822)]

What has actually happened was very different. My great-grandfather's 7 out of 12 children have died in Ukraine in the beginning of 1930th from hunger along with 30 million other people.

Why do you have to make up stuff like this? The population of Ukraine was in 1927 32 million, so it is completely unimaginable that 30 million of them died. Historians place the death toll to anywhere between 2 to 7 million, not 30. Also note that while Stalin's collectivization program undoubtedly catalyzed the famine, f

Re:this is the result of socialism

[clang_jangle (975789)]

Thanks for posting that, it's a fascinating account. If you write a history book I will buy it.
However I must take exception to attributing the horrors and abuses of the Soviet government to socialism or communism. The USSR was about as true an example of "socialism" as the US is of "democracy".
Socialism didn't cause the problems, just as democracy didn't cause the oil war. The bastards who succeed at politics always promote an ideology, but they do not follow it. Whether it's socialism or capitalism, it's always the same kind of crooks doing the exact same things.
Some of the Scandinavian countries are doing very well blending socialism and capitalism, BTW. Something we are sadly still too brainwashed to do here in the US. :(

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[Scrameustache (459504)]

the first man in space was Yuri Gagarin

Corerction: The first man in space that survived the landing in good enough shape to be paraded in public afterwards was Yuri Gagarin.

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[evilviper (135110)]

Just remember that Communism won the second world war without help.

Gee, by far the largest country in the world managed to defeat the tiny nation of Germany, and merely by throwing wave after wave of it's own men to be slaughtered in the millions.

And even with that, I still seriously doubt the USSR would have won the war on it's own. You're completely dismissing the aid the USSR received, and amount of effort the Axis put into fighting the other Allies. England and the US weren't on the ground in Europe a

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[roman_mir (125474)]

It is of-course a possibility, but judging from the curriculum of our public school, a very remote one.

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[Alex Zepeda (10955)]

You're right. The "free" press of the USA is far from complacent. Ha.

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[alnjmshntr (625401)]

Hang on did socialism cause this, or did corrupt people cause this? Cause it seems to me that corrupt people caused this. Granted socialism stands to be abused far more by corrupt people, but it in itself is not corrupt.

In any case there are *many* examples of successful socialism, almost every major European nation exhibits varying degrees of socialism.

no, it's not.

[Scrameustache (459504)]

Socialism causes corruption? Why don't you show me an example of a corruption-free capitalist country?

Socialism which centralizes all p;power in the government, causes this. When the same government that is responsible for policing, is repsonsible for economic activity such as providing electricity and even news to the public .. seriously fucked up shit like this can happen. It irreverasbly fucks a country hard.

Show me where socialism and government control over business activity has brought about prosperity and lifted a country out of poverty?

My socialist prosperity, let me show you it: http://www.hydroquebec.com/profile/index.html [hydroquebec.com]
Interestingly enough, when deregulation in Ohio led to the great blackout of 2003, the Quebec grid was mostly unaffected because Hydro-Quebec keeps its grid out of sync with its neighbors because they expected something like that to happen, since the states around it are dangerously under-regulated.

And the CBC is a much more reliable source of news than any of the conglomerate-operated sources in the USA, FOX news they ain't.

prosperity and lifted a country out of poverty? I can show examples for capitalism: China

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3641 475.stm [bbc.co.uk]
  It was not clear of the counterfeit powder included any toxic ingredients, but some children were reported to have died within three days of being fed the fake milk.
Others were hospitalised when their parents realised they were ill. Fuyang's People's Hospital alone received more than 60 babies who had been fed fake milk formula, according to the Beijing News.

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[Oldsmobile (930596)]

Actually, Kerala in India is one of the richer states of India and is *gasp* socialist.

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[RAMMS+EIN (578166)]

Wrong. _Power_ is what allows people to do this. Being in the government gives people power, whether the government is socialist or otherwise. Corruption happens in decidedly un-socialist governments as well, and it happens in companies, ... I could go on, but I've already made my point: it's power that facilitates corruption.

So thanks for wrongly knocking socialism, and thanks to the moderators who modded you up. It reminds me just how much bollocks is flying around when it comes to politics.

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[jandrese (485)]

Power alone isn't good enough though, it needs to be unchecked to really be abused. That is why even though the US and Europe have plenty of abuses, a lot of them are caught and the effect on the economy is kept in check somewhat. This can break down in the US for example when the same party grabs all three branches of Congress, but the situation cannot last for long because the people eventually vote them in and the entire government is kept in check by the media.

This is why whenever you see a governme

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[RAMMS+EIN (578166)]

Exactly. 100% right.

Except that, perhaps, western media aren't really doing enough to get the important issues exposed, and people are to complacent. That's my view, anyway.

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[isaac (2852)]

Show me where socialism and government control over business activity has brought about prosperity and lifted a country out of poverty?

The US after the Great Depression? You know, the one that came about because of ineffective government regulation of the financial sector?

I don't buy the argument that services for which the delivery infrastructure is a classic natural monopoly and the demand is inelastic - like electricity - should be put in the hands of a private entity with a profit motive.

Nice troll, tho

Re:this is the result of socialism

[localman (111171)]

Agreed: pure socialism doesn't work well. But neither does pure capitalism. What is interesting to me is trying to find the balance. I tend far towards the capitalist side myself, even sympathizing with Libertarian ideas. But then I realize that all ideals are subject to their limitations when implemented in reality.

For example: welfare. In a perfect world there would be no such thing and everyone would make their own way or pay the price. So we abolish welfare. Problem is, there will always be a percentage of people who don't make it and who cause those who do to pay the price through theft and violence and being a general nuisance. So it is better for the people who make it to set aside some amount of their income to keep these people living at least at a level where crime upon others is minimized but so is freeloading. Make living at the bottom of the barrel nice enough to prevent crime yet uncomfortable enough that only the most serious hard cases would put up with it. There's no perfect solution, but there is an optimal balance point.

Call it extortion by the poor, but in a pragmatic sense your money that goes towards welfare stabilizes things in a way that benefits you more than just holding on to that money would. There are countries that go too far in that direction, redistributing wealth, and have serious problems. There are countries that don't do any wealth redistribution, and they have different serious problems. Finding that balance... which few talk about... is really the puzzle. But we just get caught up in arguing about which extreme is correct, holding on to impractical ideals.

The same balancing act applies to many areas; health care, government mitigating the tragedy of the commons, copyright. How much should the governement get involved in things? For a healthy society the answer is close to "none", but it's not "none".

Cheers.

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[pipingguy (566974)]

That's interesting. thanks.

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[Pig Hogger (10379)]

Socialism which centralizes all p;power in the government, causes this. When the same government that is responsible for policing, is repsonsible for economic activity such as providing electricity and even news to the public .. seriously fucked up shit like this can happen. It irreverasbly fucks a country hard.

Oxdung. Poverty and ignorance (citizens who don't know the law, their rights and who can then be bullied by local bullies) are what cause corruption.

In Canada and France, for example, the governm

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[DeepHurtn! (773713)]

"Less corrupt than *even* the USA"...? America has just institutionalized and legitimized corruption in the forms of lobbying, massively expensive and well funded election campaigns, and promises of cushy corporate board positions after political retirement. They're incredibly corrupt.

Because capitalist politicians are never corrupt..

[fantomas (94850)]

Yup, because politicians in capitalist countries are never corrupt, right? ;-)

In Soviet Russia

[Watson Ladd (955755)]

We can compare the Russian revolution to the Meij restoration in Japan. Both Imperial Russia and the Shogunate were agricultural, with no heavy industry to speak of. Soviet Russia was a superpower by 1945, only 28 years later. Japan only caught up around the same time, and then got bombed back to the beginning. Another fun comparison is Yugoslavia. From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] we have that Yugoslavia had 6% annual GDP growth during the 1960's and 1970's. The collapse of the economy was brought about by following the advi

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[StarTux (230379)]

Erm, this has nothing to do with socialism (and I know Kenya way better than you having actually lived there). Its been pretty much known that this sort of thing has been going on for years under Moi, but its not something anyone in Kenya could safely talk about.

Is Kenya unique? in a word no...

Re:this is the result of socialism

[mike2R (721965)]

Germany. The Netherlands. Belgium. France. The UK. The Scandinavian countries. And even Canada. Need I go on?

Of course, after privatizing essential facilities such as electricity and railways, some of these countries are now significantly more fscked up than they were ten or twenty years ago.

The only way I can describe that is Bollocks.

I'm not supporting grandparent's idea that socialism is the cause of corruption in Kenya, but to see socialism in Britain as an economic success story is just plain wrong.

What was the economic legacy of socialist governments in Britain? Rampant unions, unemployment, loss making state-owned manufacturing industries that were decades out of date.

caricaturisation

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[Watson Ladd (955755)]

Please learn what communism [marxists.org] actually is before you say it is authoritarian.

Kenya...

[mobby_6kl (668092)]

I knew they had lions in Kenya [youtube.com], but I'd never suspect they'd have any bi-lions, let alone three of them!

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[Tribbin (565963)]

I don't know why I find your post so funny.

Best dept. EVAR

[slittle (4150)]

from the all-for-moi dept.

I loled.

There's corruption in Africa?

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS (313647)]

That's the LAST thing I ever expected to hear.

Fortunately, China is raping that continent now instead of Europe, and we know how the Chinese deal with corruption. When it's really obvious. And someone notices. And someone dares to write about it.

Related stories, huh?

[Goaway (82658)]

Funny how there's no link in "related stories" to the original Slashdot post about Wikileaks [slashdot.org]. You know, the one that was all about how Wikileaks was a scam and would never get off the ground.

Congratulations

[RAMMS+EIN (578166)]

I can't believe it has been over 80 posts without anyone actually congratulating Wikileaks on this great feat.

So let me be the first to welcome our new, leaking overlords!

Congratulations, Wikileaks!! Keep up the good work!

It's the corruption, not the ideology

[wytcld (179112)]

All this discussion about "capitalism" versus "socialism" - as if worshiping the correct ideology could ward off the corrupt, who will take anything and everything, given the chance. It isn't the ism. There's no magic ism that make all your children beautiful and virtuous, and all of some competing ism's children ugly thieves. That mistake is the one Cheney's people made: that if we just give corrupt foreign lands democracy-ism they'll become virtuous paradises of freedom.

Not that the isms make no difference. But the difference is of style, not virtue. It's like the difference between rock-n-roll-ism and jazz-ism. Most rock-n-roll, and most jazz, is a faint and corrupted echo of the truly great exemplars. Virtue in a musician isn't a matter of which ism they've pursued, but of how they've pursued it. There are great jazz bands, and lousy ones; great rock bands, and lousy ones; great socialist countries (e.g. Sweden), and lousy ones (e.g. Burma); great capitalist countries (e.g. Taiwan), and lousy oness (e.g. Nigeria). Your taste in examples my differ; the point remains that its not what you do (socialist, capitalist, whatever), it's how you do it.

Donor money is fair game.

[Neuticle (255200)]

In a lot of places in Africa, the presence of corruption at lower levels is just tacitly accepted. It's not hard to understand why when sometimes people need bribe money just to put food on their table.

The problem it's that in many cases when you deal with "donor" money, they don't consider it necessarily stealing from their people, but just getting "free" money from the donors.

I've seen it first hand on the national scale:
In Tanzania, during the midst of a severe power crisis I sat down in a cafe in Dar and had chai with the president of the Richmond Development Corperation "based" in Houston TX. They were under contract to import and install emergency power generators to the country. This was a deal worth 10s of millions of USD (This money was of course aid money, Tanzania doesn't have 10 Million in hard currency to toss about). We talked about the power situation and how nice it would be to have it fixed, about foreign aid, and about the USA and Tanzania in general. He was a very pleasant man overall, he gave me his business card and even paid my tab.

Several weeks later it came to light that RDC was basically a shell company with no real corporate presence anywhere, or capability to buy and ship generators (Google it if you want). It was purely an attempt to swindle millions of dollars (the attitude being that since it was donor money, it wasn't really taking money from Tanzania) How the heck did they win the contract in the first place? I'm sure they greased a few palms along the way.

Even on the village level, if you write a grant for a building and budget X TSH money for concrete, you can damn well be sure that someone will try their hardest to short a bag or two and pocket the money (concrete is very expensive FWIW). Receipt tracking for grants would be hell if you were not solely in charge of buying and paying for things.

Considering the harshness of life there, I can't be to angry at people for trying for a few bucks, but with that in mind, the people stealing millions are even more reprehensible.

RPCV Tanzania 2005-2007
Still have the business card and newspaper clippings

Google knows all

[Colin Smith (2679)]

Apparently Bush thinks it's one of his accomplishments to have met this alleged embezzler.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=h ttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.whitehouse.gov%2Finfocus%2Fafrica% 2Fafrica_accomplishments.pdf&ei=NMTZRqrcF6WqxAGf5M 2OAw&usg=AFQjCNGsylMvKy5w5W7fvYJ9XGJdSbcpQw&sig2=T 3B32gMv7qDOnRQkSthpoQ [google.co.uk]
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/12/20 021205-2.html [whitehouse.gov]

So, not exactly his fault, but perhaps unwise to be supporting someone who the EU, Denmark and UK had warned

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[mordors9 (665662)]

It's the new era. We used to love every dictator out there that wasn't on the side of the Soviets. They were looked upon as being on our side, so we would "overlook" their indiscretions. Now it is about Islamo-terrorism. If you help us (or at least say you are), then you are once again embraced regardless of other baggage that may come along. Remember the Bush doctrine, you are either with us or against us.

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[eli pabst (948845)]

Wait, I though the meme this week was to crucify Bush for *not* engaging in foreign affairs? I hate Bush as much as the next person, but it's like he's the freakin' boogieman or something...don't look under the bed or W will git ya!

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[physicsphairy (720718)]

I hope future politicians will take note that they should not spare any kind, encouraging, or otherwise positive words for any person, ever, just in case the person in question gets pinned for something.

Also, it is unwise to have any other sort of friendly diplomacy with persons/nations for the same reason.

(Bombing them is ok though... worst case scenario, we'll apologize and move on.)

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[RAMMS+EIN (578166)]

It wasn't Bush's fault. It was Gore's. If Gore hadn't frustrated GWB's attempts at every turn, Bush would have sent in the Marines, liberated Nigeria, and been received as a hero a long time ago!

*listens to whispering voice*

Ah, Kenya. Of course, I meant Kenya.

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[FlopEJoe (784551)]

Bonus points for pic with Bush!

Even though Bush doesn't appear anywhere in the article, they have to some how connect the two? I can hear the article submitters not "Don't we have a pic of both of them in front of a Haliburton sign?" Seriously, you don't have to be a GW fan to realize that this kind of goofy crap hinders the cred.

What do I win?

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

Bonus points for pic with Bush!

You mean, like this one [wikileaks.org]? No Halliburton sign, or pile of dead Iraqi babies to stand on (at least not that we can see), but a little Photoshop can fix that right up.

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[FlopEJoe (784551)]

ah, yeah... that's the pic I was talking about in the first place.

Re:What about legal looting?

[krou (1027572)]

I've been following the Wikileaks idea for a bit, every since Cryptome [cryptome.org] published a bunch of info about it.

I'm in two minds about Wikileaks. On the one hand, the idea is kind of cool - I'm all for whistle-blowers, and think they perform a vital function. It's sometimes important for the public to see information that could be blocked [guardian.co.uk] from public release due to legal pressures.

But on the other hand, maybe that information should not be in the public domain, as it could put lives at risk (as was argued in the previous link).

Also, it's ultimately flawed in the same way that business Web 2.0 review-type sites are flawed: you can't trust the information worth a damn. People have a terrible habit of trying to set up someone they feel disgruntled about, or wish to slander a company that they feel treated them unfairly. Or, of course, they could just be out to rubbish a competitor.

Wikileaks is likely to become a stomping ground of disinformation, misinformation, and vendettas, and if they think the wisdom of the crowds is going to be able to judge that a piece of information is, in fact, a forgery, they're fools.

Also, who exactly will be held accountable when it's used, say, to swing an election, only for us to discover that the information in question was bogus? Wikileaks? Will they hand over the leaker?

I can't help but feel that Wikileaks may, in fact, do more harm than good. A few bad incidents at Wikileaks, and it's highly likely that the law (and government, business etc.) is going to come down hard to silence legitimate whistle-blowers under the pretext of protecting themselves from slander and libel.

What's really needed is a system of legal mechanisms to encourage and protect leakers in the real world, as well as allow a system of accountability. The incidents described [msn.com] by leakers who stepped forward regarding corruption in Iraq indicates that there are simply not enough legal avenues open to help and protect whistle-blowers.

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[Ant P. (974313)]

It's nothing to do with race, it's a third-world country. Cry "politically correct" all you want, I counter with "America".