-Caveat Lector-
Is nothing sacred?
>From Associated press (via Sydney {Australia} Morning Herald)
Friday, December 18, 1998
IOC bribes: Hodler mistrusts 25
Zurich: The Olympic executive whose accusations of bribery and blackmail
rocked the International Olympic Committee said yesterday that as many as
25 members of the IOC's 114 voting members might have received favours or
cash for votes in four recent elections to choose sites for the Games.
"That's the absolute maximum because I trust all the others," Mr Marc
Hodler was quoted as saying in yesterday's edition of USA Today.
Mr Hodler, an 80-year-old lawyer and senior member of the IOC executive
board, has not identified any IOC members who might have taken bribes.
The IOC began investigating Salt Lake City's successful 2002 winter
Olympics bid after organisers disclosed they had made payments of about
$650,000 in scholarship funds to 13 people, including six relatives of IOC
members.
Mr Hodler said Salt Lake City had turned over 25 pages listing payments in
its "humanitarian assistance" program.
"They've got a lot of information. They're not limited to the
scholarships," Mr Hodler was reported as saying.
He said the new summary detailed more than $1million in payments, some of
it unrelated to IOC members.
Mr Hodler said he went public on Saturday with allegations of corruption in
the Olympic bidding process because he feared a cover-up of the Salt Lake
City scandal.
"The feeling crept up on me that certain people are afraid of this case and
wanted to sweep everything under the carpet," he told the daily newspaper
Neue Zuercher Zeitung in Zurich, Switzerland.
"Because of various misunderstandings, I was under the impression that some
of my colleagues might try not to uncover mistakes made by some members of
the IOC and lay all the blame on the Salt Lake City organising committee,"
he also told Zurich's Tages-Anzeiger daily.
"I'm not acting for Salt Lake City but for justice."
Mr Hodler said on Saturday that Salt Lake City had been "blackmailed" by
agents promising to secure votes during its Olympic bid. He said four
agents, including one member of the IOC, had been involved in vote-buying
schemes over the past 10 years.
He cited supposed irregularities over the selection of Sydney, Atlanta,
Nagano and Salt Lake City, although under questioning conceded he had no
proof of corruption with Sydney's bid.
"I don't enjoy being a member of a club that has a bad reputation," Mr
Hodler told Neue Zuercher Zeitung. "In contrast to what you might believe,
I'm probably the best friend of IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch."
Mr Hodler said he wanted a small group to select Olympic cities rather than
the entire IOC membership.
- Associated Press
~~~~~~~~~~~~
>From National Post (Canada)
Thursday, December 17, 1998
IOC representative claims he has a 'cheat list'
Vote-Buying Schemes: Most accusations focus on officials in developing
nations
Chris Jones
National Post, with files from The Associated Press and The Canadian Press
Salt Lake City's Olympic flame is fuelled with dirty money, and Marc
Hodler, a top member of the International Olympic Committee, says he has
the names to prove it.
Hodler, who claimed last week that some IOC officials have been involved in
vote-buying schemes for a decade, said yesterday he has a list of members
allegedly involved in influence-peddling during Salt Lake City's successful
bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
He said that at most, fewer than 25 members of the 115-member IOC received
favours or cash in exchange for their votes.
Salt Lake City officials have admitted that during the bidding process,
which ended in 1995, scholarships and athlete-training programs were made
available to 13 people, at least six of whom were relatives of IOC members.
The payments were bankrolled under the guise of "humanitarian assistance."
But the $632,000 in payments, detailed in bank statements now in Hodler's
possession, may have broken IOC rules which ban bid cities from offering
gifts worth more than $150 to committee members or their relatives.
Sonia Essomba, the daughter of the late Rene Essomba - an IOC member from
Cameroon - has been named by a Salt Lake City television station as one of
the beneficiaries. The senior Essomba was a wealthy and well-connected
professor of surgery and the secretary general of the National Olympic
Committees of Africa.
Most of the accusations of vote-buying centre on officials from developing
countries.
"We see exactly to whom the payments were transferred," Hodler told the
Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung. "Some of the recipients are IOC
members. Others are apparently the sons and daughters of IOC members.
"Then there are also the names of unknown people. But this may have to do
with relatives of IOC members. Checks on this are being carried out."
Since the Salt Lake City scandal broke three weeks ago, and Hodler's
startling admission last week that "there has always, always, been a
certain part of the vote given to corruption," an ever-widening pall has
been cast over the Olympic movement. Hodler has cited supposed
irregularities in the elections of at least four Olympic Cities: Atlanta,
Nagano, Sydney, and Salt Lake City.
Jean Grenier, director-general of Quebec City's rival bid for the 2002
Games, told Le Soleil three "special agents" approached the bid committee,
and offered to help buy the votes of IOC members for a fee.
A Quebec government civil servant also alleged that a French go-between had
asked for about $1-million to buy off 20 IOC members, again from developing
countries.
In Australia, newspapers reported cash payments of between $5,000 and
$10,000 were made to IOC members during Melbourne's failed bid for the 1996
Summer Olympics.
The Sydney Morning Herald also reported that bid officials for Sydney,
which was awarded the 2000 Summer Olympics, channelled millions of dollars
into a fund for an African Olympic Training Centre, in an attempt to sway
wavering African voters.
And an official involved in Manchester's failed bids for the 1996 and 2000
Summer Games told The Times some IOC members tried to extort money from the
English committee. One IOC member sought more than $20,000 to replace money
allegedly stolen from his hotel room, and another billed the committee for
an airline ticket for which he had already been reimbursed by the IOC.
The Swiss Hodler, 80, said he went public because he feared a cover-up of
the Salt Lake City scandal, with IOC members laying blame on bid officials
rather than on the IOC itself. It is his sense that Salt Lake City, which
had failed to win the Games five times over 30 frustrating years, was a
"victim" that was "blackmailed" into buying IOC votes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
A<>E<>R
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes
but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
