Qatargate. What a crackdown: a police raid to pillory social democrats, the European Parliament and NGOs. In total, bribes for 1.5 million euros. What a juicy opportunity to criticize lobbying in the Parliament of the European Union, ignoring the fact that, these same days, in Bern, the Council of States rejected an initiative prohibiting Swiss parliamentarians from accepting remunerated mandates from companies and state organizations that may be directly affected by laws drafted in the parliamentary committees to which they belong.
At the same time, Transparency International (TI) accuses Swiss justice of having condemned only ten Swiss companies for bribery of foreign officials since the entry into force of the punishability of companies in 2003. In reality, TI has missed the target: it criticizes repression, without focusing on prevention. Bribery of foreign officials from Switzerland is growing, see “Die Schatzkammer der Diktatoren” by Balz Bruppacher. This is because the corrupting billions pass through bank accounts which do not apply the anti-money laundering rule of special verification of transactions carried out by politically exposed persons or by persons close to them.
“Transparency International (TI) accuses Swiss justice of having condemned only ten Swiss companies for corruption of foreign officials.”
These spills of money from state oil organizations (Petrobras, PDVSA) or sovereign wealth funds (Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia) make these corrupt European parliamentarians appear like tramps of corruption: only banknotes in small denominations in briefcases.
What outrages is rather the purpose of these corruptions: Morocco, to sabotage initiatives that condemn it for human rights violations in Western Sahara. Qatar, to restore its image, tarnished by hundreds of deaths among the workers of Bangladesh harnessed to the construction of the new marvels of the Arab countries to the conquest of a new geopolitical visibility. State corruption to hide human rights violations. The means are also frightening: infiltrating international organizations to bend them to the strategies of dictatorships. Masterpiece of the Chinese Communist Party: win the support of some thirty Islamic republics to counter the condemnation by Western countries of the genocide in Tibet and Xinjiang.
While the Union Miniere in the Congo or the British and Dutch East India Companies used arms, the Chinese Communist Party, armed with age-old wisdom, invented a much more powerful weapon of economic, political and military penetration: the road to the silk. It is “One Belt, One Road”, inaugurated in May 2017, after its general approval at the WEF in Davos in January 2017 and with red carpets rolled out in Andermatt, on September 5, 2019, by the President of the Confederation, by Margareta Kiener Nellen, PS National Councillor, and by the CEO of UBS.
Cristiano Ronaldo will receive more than 400 million euros, half of which to promote Saudi Arabia’s candidacy for the 2030 World Cup. This looks very much like a showcase used to hide the massacres in Yemen, as well as the kingdom’s system of torture to stifle any political opposition.
Spark of hope: will the International Corruption Day of December 9, 2023 succeed in stemming state corruption?
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– State corruption: topical issue
Paolo Bernasconi – Professor, Dr. this