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Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 20. August 27 1979

World Vision loses out

World Vision loses out

Despite sending its executive director for New Zealand, Mr Geoff Renner, to try and refute allegations made against it, mainly of political and religious bias, the World Vision organisation remains in NZUSA's black books.

After explaining to the International Commission and a roomful of observers the aims of his organisation, Mr Renner was subjected to almost an hour of very close questioning, some of which he answered, most of which he evaded. The end result was that the commission passed a motion saying that NZUSA would give World Vision no support, financial or otherwise, because "it is not a genuine aid organisation in that it applies religious and political criteria in its aid programme." No votes were recorded against the motion and there was only one abstention, predictably enough from Lincoln.

A Recurring Debate

The question of whether or not NZUSA should support World Vision first came up at May Council in 1978, when it was reported that the AGM of the Massey University Students Association had defeated a motion to make a donation to the organisation, largely as a result of criticisms levelled at it. MUSA undertook at that Council to prepare a report on it. That report, prepared by Massey's then International Affairs Officer, Don Carson, was tabled at this Council's International Commission, as was a reply, prepared by Geoff Renner, to some of its main points. The criticisms in Mr Carson's report relate to administrative extravagance, political bias, religious bias coupled with a strong evangelical emphasis and an attempt to treat poverty without trying to treat its causes, especially political ones.

Mr Renner, speaking to the Commission, admitted that his organisation was a Christian one. "We make no apology for It," he said. "Our history is primarily a conservative evangelical history. But while we are a Christian organisation we don't give aid with Christian strings attached. That is our rule. Sure, there are people (in the organisation) who break the rules but you get that in any organisation."

Photo of Geoff Renner

Geoff Renner comes under the scrutiny of the International Commission.

He said that the main fault in Mr Carson's report was that it was a "snapshot" of World Vision in 1974, and that this does not coincide with World Vision in 1979. Like the Handy Andy, it seems, it's all been changed.

A Squirmy Question

With regard to politics, Mr Renner called this question a "squirmy" one. "Every organisation giving aid is a political one, but World Vision doesn't get involved in political parties here or overseas, (hough some of the groups we are working with are very political," he said.

Asked whether in giving aid priority to places with a Christian bias his organisation was not making religious distinctions, Mr Renner replied that "it may seem that way" but that the organisation acts on requests, and often requests come from churches. "We don't chase them, they chase us," he said. "We get a lot of requests for aid from churches and we don't have the resources to look beyond that, although there are some, as in Bangladesh, one of our biggest projects, which have no Christian contact. "If a Christian community asks us for help but it is not as poor as some other community then we always help the poorer first, always," he said.

Lindy Cassidy then said that she found claims by Mr Renner that World Vision tries to tread a middle path politically, neither supporting nor opposing unjust regimes "hard to swallow", because "what that means is that you work to maintain the status quo, whether the status quo is any good or not."

Not surprisingly, Mr Renner said he disagreed with this view. "We don't set out to criticise governments or regimes. I'm not saying that isn't a defensible stand to take. I don't hold any truck for martial law and neither does World Vision, but we are interested in people." Reiterating a statement made earlier that there is a pluralism in approaches to aid, he said that "to say there is only one right approach to aid is to be very naive."

No CIA Connection

Asked to comment on accusations n made during the Vietnam war that World Vision was connected with the CIA, Mr Renner replied that "there is not one single piece of substantiated evidence to support those accusations". He said his organisation did receive aid from the United States government during the war provided it supplied information in return "We were not so naive not to realise that it wasn't intelligence gathering, but we were working among dying children and we needed the money. It's all very well to sit here in a comfortable room and talk about government aid but you weren't there, I was, with children dying in my arms We needed money, for food, for drugs and other supplies," he said.

Up until this point, though occasionally hard pressed, Mr Renner had been able either to field the questions or skilfully evade them, but he was truly put on the spot when someone quoted from a World Vision publication sent out to New Zealand schools which more or less condoned the Indonesian government in putting down the East Timor rebellion. In defence, he said that that opinion was not necessarily his own, at which David Cuthbert leapt into the fray.

"Whenever you're pressed, Geolf, you make a nice run for cover and draw a distinction between your personal opinion and what the policy of World Vision is. Why don't you nail your Christian beliefs to a masthead. Are your principle so flexible that you are prepared to waive them so you can stay on there (in Indonesia)? Why don't you make a stand and say that the slaughter of a sixth of the country's population is wrong?" he asked.

"You can't hang an organisation on one statement in a book," Mr Renner offered weakly.

"But it's not just one thing," continued Mr Cuthbert. "That publication bears your imprint. On the question of Timor it says it was an internal rebellion that's been fairly and genuinely repressed by the government That's amazing! That's like saying in Nazi German "there's two sides to this question'." Mr Renner fell silent, and when the motion was put later in the alter noon it was passed.

Mark Wilson.