Selma,
World Vision is far to the right of Bush but its site doesn't publicize
this view:
http://www.wvi.org/home.shtml
Bill
On Fri, 20 Jun 2003 17:43:11 -0400 "Selma Singer"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I find this terrifying.
>
> Selma
>
>
> : Friday, June 20, 2003 5:22 PM
> Subject: Bush to NGOs: watch your mouths
>
>
>
> http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0620-06.htm
>
> Published on Friday, June 20, 2003 by the Globe and Mail (Canada)
>
> Bush to NGOs: Watch Your Mouths
>
> by Naomi Klein
>
>
> The Bush administration has found its next target for pre-emptive
> war, but
> it's not Iran, Syria or North Korea -- not yet, anyway.
>
> Before launching any new foreign adventures, the Bush gang has some
> homeland
> housekeeping to take care of: It is going to sweep up those pesky
> non-governmental organizations that are helping to turn world
> opinion
> against U.S. bombs and brands.
>
> The war on NGOs is being fought on two clear fronts. One buys the
> silence
> and complicity of mainstream humanitarian and religious groups by
> offering
> lucrative reconstruction contracts. The other marginalizes and
> criminalizes
> more independent-minded NGOs by claiming that their work is a threat
> to
> democracy. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is
> in
> charge of handing out the carrots, while the American Enterprise
> Institute,
> the most powerful think tank in Washington, D.C., is wielding the
> sticks.
>
> On May 21 in Washington, Andrew Natsios, the head of USAID, gave a
> speech
> blasting U.S. NGOs for failing to play a role many of them didn't
> realize
> they had been assigned: doing public relations for the U.S.
> government.
> According to InterAction, the network of 160 relief and development
> NGOs
> that hosted the conference, Mr. Natsios was "irritated" that
> starving and
> sick Iraqi and Afghan children didn't realize that their food and
> vaccines
> were coming to them courtesy of George W. Bush. From now on, NGOs
> had to do
> a better job of linking their humanitarian assistance to U.S.
> foreign policy
> and making it clear that they are "an arm of the U.S. government." If
> they
> didn't, InterAction reported, "Natsios threatened to personally tear
> up
> their contracts and find new partners."
>
> For aid workers, there are even more strings attached to U.S.
> dollars. USAID
> told several NGOs that have been awarded humanitarian contracts that
> they
> cannot speak to the media -- all requests from reporters must go
> through
> Washington. Mary McClymont, CEO of InterAction, calls the demands
> "unprecedented," and says, "It looks like the NGOs aren't
> independent and
> can't speak for themselves about what they see and think."
>
> Many humanitarian leaders are shocked to hear their work described
> as "an
> arm" of government; most see themselves as independent (that would
> be the
> "non-governmental" part of the name).
>
> The best NGOs are loyal to their causes, not to countries, and they
> aren't
> afraid to blow the whistle on their own governments. Think of
> M�decins sans
> fronti�res standing up to the White House and the European Union
> over AIDS
> drug patents, or Human Rights Watch's campaign against the death
> penalty in
> the United States. Mr. Natsios himself embraced this independence in
> his
> previous job as vice-president of World Vision. During the North
> Korean
> famine, he didn't hesitate to blast his own government for
> withholding food
> aid, calling the Clinton administration's response "too slow" and
> its claim
> that politics was not a factor "total nonsense."
>
> Don't expect candor like that from the aid groups Mr. Natsios now
> oversees
> in Iraq. These days, NGOs are supposed to do nothing more than
> quietly pass
> out care packages with a big "brought to you by the U.S.A." logo
> attached --
> in public-private partnerships with Bechtel and Halliburton, of
> course.
>
> That is the message of NGO Watch, an initiative of the American
> Enterprise
> Institute and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy
> Studies,
> which takes aim at the growing political influence of the non-profit
> sector.
> The stated purpose of the Web site, launched on June 11, is to
> "bring
> clarity and accountability to the burgeoning world of NGOs."
>
> In fact, it is a McCarthyite blacklist, telling tales on any NGO
> that dares
> speak against Bush administration policies or in support of
> international
> treaties opposed by the White House.
>
> This bizarre initiative takes as its premise the idea that there is
> something sinister about "unelected" groups of citizens getting
> together to
> try to influence their government. "The extraordinary growth of
> advocacy
> NGOs in liberal democracies has the potential to undermine the
> sovereignty
> of constitutional democracies," the site claims.
>
> Coming from the AEI, this is not without irony. As Raj Patel, policy
> analyst
> at the California-based NGO Food First, points out, "The American
> Enterprise
> Institute is an NGO itself and it is supported by the most powerful
> corporations on the planet. They are accountable only to their
> board, which
> includes Motorola, American Express and ExxonMobil." As for
> influence, few
> peddle it quite like the AEI, the looniest ideas of which have a way
> of
> becoming Bush administration policy. And no wonder. Richard Perle,
> member
> and former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, is an
> AEI
> fellow, along with Lynne Cheney, wife of the vice-president; the
> Bush
> administration is crowded with former AEI fellows.
>
> As President Bush said at an AEI dinner in February, "At the
> American
> Enterprise Institute, some of the finest minds in our nation are at
> work on
> some of the greatest challenges to our nation. You do such good work
> that my
> administration has borrowed 20 such minds." In other words, the AEI
> is more
> than a think tank; it's Mr. Bush's outsourced brain.
>
> Taken together with Mr. Natsios's statements, this attack on the
> non-profit
> sector marks the emergence of a new Bush doctrine: NGOs should be
> nothing
> more than the good-hearted charity wing of the military, silently
> mopping up
> after wars and famines. Their job is not to ask how these tragedies
> could
> have been averted, or to advocate for policy solutions. And it is
> certainly
> not to join anti-war and fair-trade movements pushing for real
> political
> change.
>
> The control freaks in the White House have really outdone themselves
> this
> time. First they tried to silence governments critical of their
> foreign
> policies by buying them off with aid packages and trade deals. (Last
> month
> U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said that the United
> States would
> only enter into new trade agreements with countries that offered
> "co-operation or better on foreign policy and security issues.")
> Next, they
> made sure the press didn't ask hard question during the war by
> trading
> journalistic access for editorial control.
>
> Now they are attempting to turn relief workers in Iraq and
> Afghanistan into
> publicists for Mr. Bush's Brand U.S.A., to embed them in the
> Pentagon, like
> Fox News reporters.
>
> The U.S. government is usually described as "unilateralist," but I
> don't
> think that's quite accurate. The Bush administration may be willing
> to go it
> alone, but what it really wants is legions of self-censoring
> followers, from
> foreign governments to national journalists and international NGOs.
>
> This is not a lone wolf we are dealing with, it's a sheep-herder.
> The
> question is: Which of the NGOs will play the sheep?
>
> Naomi Klein is the author of 'No Logo' and 'Fences and Windows'.
>
> � 2003 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc.
>
>
>
>
>
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