THERE has been considerable international unease that Pakistan has expelled the six foreign staff of Save the Children, on suspicions that they may have had links with the CIA, and assisted in the US special forces operation that assassinated Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in May.
On the face of it, it seems highly unlikely that all six foreign staff at the charity could have been involved in an intelligence operation. The information on which the Pakistani authorities have acted may never be known, but it might be imagined that they had some evidence, which they believed pointed to an unidentified individual in the charity. Hence the mass expulsion.
It cannot be thought that the decision was taken lightly. Save the Children, along with many other outside charities working in Pakistan, has been doing valuable work, helping local hospital and welfare services battle with the considerable task of caring for young people. It is also important to note that the work of the charity will continue in Pakistan under local managers.
Even if the expulsions were a mistake by the Pakistani authorities, they highlight a growing concern among many governments around the world about the activities of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). There are many hundreds, coming in all shapes and sizes from Save the Children and Oxfam to tiny bodies that specialize in disaster relief.
Many of these are charities, supported by donations, given generously to support their worthy causes. Nor should there be any doubting that by and large, these bodies do excellent work, supplementing the often under-resourced local health and welfare programs. In the last 20 years there has been a notable improvement in the attitudes of NGOs, especially from the Developed World. They were once accused, with some justice, of arrogance and riding rough-shod over the views and priorities of local authorities, who were actually in charge of health and welfare.
The NGOs have come to recognize that just because their cause is “worthy” does not make what they want to do, in the way they want to do it, automatically right. Increased sensitivity to local opinion and needs, has enabled NGOs to build far better and productive relationships with their local partners. Greater transparency over the direction and distribution of aid, has also cut out once-widespread misuse of funds and physical aid such as food. Visit most local NGO operations and you are likely to find a mutual respect between the in-country foreign administrators and workers and the authorities.
Yet NGOs are not perfect and, even if they do not know it themselves, it is entirely possible that among their staff are intelligence agents, planted to gather information on the country in which they are working. After all, what better position could a spy be in, than to be able to travel a country extensively, working on a range of aid projects, while at the same time gathering intelligence for his or her real masters? In addition, foreign administrators working in-country are likely to have regular contact with government officials and thus an excellent opportunity to pick up information on what is happening in local politics. Now, while it could be argued that this is the job of foreign embassies, the fact remains that every diplomat come with a health warning in terms of intelligence. However, a senior member of an NGO will have built up a position of trust with local administrators and politicians. It is that trust that could be betrayed.
Just as, unfortunately, not every international journalist, is not simply working for the media, so it cannot be that everyone involved in the work of NGOs, is entirely dedicated to their excellent cause.
The onus therefore lies on the NGOs to properly vet the staff they hire and impress upon those already working for them, that they must never ever allow the organization to be compromised by a successful approach from a foreign intelligence service. The NGOs will protest that they do not have the resources to carry out such vetting. This can only be partly right. If they are suitably suspicious in their recruitment processes and vigilant in the way they monitor existing personnel, they ought to be able to reduce significantly, the likelihood that they are being used to provide cover for spies.
What will not do, is to fall back on loud protests that they are “worthy” organizations, whose credibility should not be questioned. The world is what it is. NGOs should accept the possibility that they are being used, and act accordingly.
Editorial: Not above suspicion
