World

Kohl Implored To Come Clean

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

November 30, 1999 / 12:19 PM EST / CBS

Germany's beleaguered Christian Democrats appealed to former Chancellor Helmut Kohl on Tuesday to reveal what he knows about a campaign financing scandal that has stained his party and tarnished his standing as a statesman.

CDU general secretary Angela Merkel said before an extraordinary CDU executive meeting in Bonn on Wednesday that it was time for Kohl to come clean with his knowledge of an affair that has stopped the party's recent comeback in the polls.

"I believe it would be good if he (Kohl) did everything he could to help uncover what happened," said Merkel, distancing herself from the man who promoted her. She said the affair has badly shaken the party.

Kohl, chairman of the CDU for 25 years, reluctantly admitted last week that he had kept secret bank accounts to finance party campaigns. He rejected allegations he had been bribed during his 16-year reign as chancellor.

Kohl, now a backbencher in parliament, has declined to say how much was in the accounts, what they were used for and where the money went, refusing to answer any questions about the affair. He has failed to appear in the Reichstag for debates since his confession last week.

It was also unclear whether Kohl would attend the meeting of the executive board called at CDU headquarters in Bonn to discuss the affair. Neither the CDU nor Kohl's office in Berlin could say whether he would participate.

CDU officials in Berlin said it would be astonishing if Kohl, the CDU's first ever honorary chairman and a member of the executive board, were to stay away from the meeting called to shed light on financial dealings while he led the party.

"It would be truly disastrous if we didn't come clean with everything we know," Merkel said. Asked if Kohl, 69, should quit parliament, she said the "evidence" had to be collected first before any such decisions could be made.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder fiercely attacked Kohl for his part in the funding scandal in his strongest comments yet on the issue at the annual congress of his Social Democrats in Berlin.

"He's more concerned about personal fiddles," Schroeder said, adding that other CDU leaders now trying to distance themselves from Kohl were involved in the affair.

Kohl's party faced more bad news on Tuesday when the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported that the CDU had deposited campaign donations in anonymous Swiss bank accounts.

The paper said it had learned of at least one account at a Zurich bank where 500,000 marks had been paid in on Kohl's instructions. ARD television had a similar report, adding it was possible the bank had advised the CDU on avoiding German taxes.