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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 9. 1ts May 1973

World Vision Indo-China Appeal ~ a Fraud

page 12

World Vision Indo-China Appeal ~ a Fraud

World Vision header

Giving to World Vision drawing

Acme Advertising Agency drawing

Delivering donations cartoon

Now the Peace Agreement has been signed in Vietnam the aid vultures are moving in. As usual Christian soldiers are marching to the fore, some guided by honest motives, others by political malevolence.

Of course the people of Vietnam want the aid, in fact they have asked for it, just like the "invitations" to Australia and New Zealand to enter the war. "The only safeguard for South Vietnam lies in religion and Jesus Christ", according to Dr An, Minister of Social Welfare in the Thieu government. Not that all types of Christians are welcome in Saigon—many are in Thieu's prisons (U.S. Congressional Record, House of Representatives, June 17th, 1969).

Foremost among the Christian "aid" agencies descending on Vietnam is World Vision, which recently leafletted every household in New Zealand, appealing for donations. World Vision which sprang up in 1950 with reconstruction aid programmes in South Korea, works mainly through churches and invariably works in support of U.S. supported regimes.

The major aim of their present appeal is to help build a "modern training hospital" on 12 acres of land given by the Cambodian Government" in Phnom Penh. The project director is Mr J.A. Calder who has generously offered his services to the project. The only benefit he gets is that the firm he is manager of, South Pacific Construction, is building the hospital.

In Vietnam, World Vision is working exclusively with the Thieu regime, focussing mainly on the "resettlement" schemes for refugees. During the war at least one million people have been bombed out of the countryside into the major cities where they fall under Thieu's control. Naturally enough Thieu is reluctant to let the refugees return to their homes, which are mostly in areas controlled by the Provisional Revolutionary Government. Thieu's attempt to keep the refugees in the Cities is a flagrant breach of Article 11 of the Peace Agreement which provides for freedom of residence and freedom of movement for all citizens.

The "resettlement scheme" is a variant of the old strategic hamlet policy. World Vision has promised full support for the programme which will involve building thousands of small hamlets in areas securely under the control of Thieu's forces.

Dr An wants each hamlet to house 3,000—4,000 people in prefabricated concrete slab homes, each measuring roughly 24 × 12 × 11 feet. These "homes", which will be little bigger than prison cells, will each have half a hectare of land attached to them. Self-sufficiency, which is said to be the major aim of the project, is impossible under such conditions.

As well as providing a means for Thieu to keep people near the cities the "hamlets" offer a great chance for Christian activity. Each hamlet will be provided with a Christian Church, although most of the refugees are Buddhists. Interviewed by the 'New Zealand Methodist' recently Mr Calder of World Vision, and South Pacific Construction, said he didn't "forsee any problems in building Christian churches for Buddhist refugees. He sees it as a great opportunity for Christianity".

Although World Vision succeeded in conning a number of prominent church leaders and politicians into supporting its programmes, including the Prime Minister, it has had little financial success so far. Apparently the aim of its recent appeal was to raise $150,000, a quarter of which was to be spent on administration and publicity. So far it has raised only $30,000, i.e. not enough money to spend on its publicity.

World Vision is a particularly insidious form of modern imperialism. It aims not only at bolstering up the American puppet regimes in Indochina, but also at forcing a largely foreign religion on the people.

It is unlikely that the real representatives of the Indochinese people will fall for schemes such as that proposed by World Vision. When he talked to Salient last month Wilfred Burchett said that the D.R.V. and the P.R.G. were "absolutely adamant that they are not going to fritter away their independence which they have defended with such difficulty over all these years by failing for the machinations of international aid organisations". The Vietnamese, he said, had studied carefully what has happened in many other Third World countries, which gained their independence politically only to lose it economically.