Cambodia

The most serious charge of external control comes from the Rev. John Nakajima. General Secretary of the Japan Council of Churches, who visited Cambodia earlier this year. During his stay he talked with World Vision employees, including World Vision's Director in Phonm Pehn, the Rev, Carl Harris. Harris did not reveal his budget but told Nakajima that "we give more service to the US government than we get from it." When asked to explain, Harris said, "For instance, the giving of information. We often go to places where government officials cannot go. We provide them with necessary in formation."

The Rev. Carl Harris responded to Nakajima's allegations with the following statement:

Before we began the conversations, I made certain there were no reporters in the group, and I asked that any statement I made be non-attributable.

It is obvious to me that the Rev. John Nakijima, besides not honouring my desire for non-attribution, distorted what I said at the time.

One point I made was the fact that the sort of information we gave the American embassy was economic in nature, as opposed to political or military. This point is emphasised in my letter to the regional editor of the Far East Economic Review.

The second distortion is contained in Nakajima's misquote in which he has me saying that "we often go to places where Government workers cannot go", What I said was CRS Care A World Vision have a combined force of approximately 65 expatriates working throughout Cambodia. The American Embassy has about 5 persons devoting time to refugee work. The Volags are therefore able because of numerical superiority, to cover more area geographically. " Nakajima took this to mean that the Volgas had some sort of special accessibility which was not my point at all."

From a statement prepared and issued by World Vision.

Again, readers must judge for themselves.

Mr Shane Tar is a New Zealander, who was in Cambodia shortly before the recent change of government. In a recent interview with Bill Saunders on Radio New Zealand's Evening Report he expressed doubt that "World Vision is truly the humanitarian organisation that it claims to be." In the same programme, his wife. Chua Minh, said that her experience as a translator, had enabled her to see the bribery and corruption at work within the Cambodian Branch of World Vision. The children sponsored by World Vision, she said "are mainly the children of the Colonel or the Major, or the high person in my country who is able to bribe." Many refugees, she said, "didn't have enough money to bribe the people working in World Vision" to be registered as refugees.

In the same interview however, Mr Renner disputed this claim saying, "that to my knowledge, and having been there twice, the very large majority of the children were refugee children. Our commitment was only to the refugee children. As far as I'm concerned anything that happened to other children was beyond our knowledge, and we have pretty close control on this."

Shane Tar raised the question of CIA involvement in the World Vision Organisation. Mr Tarr said that he was told by a cadre who worked for the World Vision Organisation, that Carl Harris, director of World Vision in Phnom Pehn, was a member of the CIA.

"At the time I could not prove that" said Tar, "but I do know that this Carl Harris was prior to his appointment with World Vision in Phom Pehn as an intelligence officer with the US Marines in South Vietnam. So perhaps the connection between the CIA and World Vision is not too tenuous."

Tar went on to explain that his efforts to obtain further evidence of the link had been abortive. "I found that in any avenue I tried to explore, the doors were closed very quickly."

Again Mr Renner disagreed with this view. He said, "I cannot imagine at all where he (Mr Tar] got that information from because there was no substance whatever to that. We have no connection with the CIA, we have no business with the CIA we're not the least bit interested or support their programme anywhere in the world. In fact, our Director in Cambodia would hardly be called an extension of American Foreign policy beacuse he was very opposed to American involvement in Cambodia and Vietnam.... prior to his work in World Vision he was with the US agency for International Development in Vietnam and Nigeria. I can't imagine where he (Mr Tar] got the information from.

- People will have to decide for them= selves which of the two views is correct. Mr Tar's view is quite clear In his view, although some of World Vision's personnel are sincere Christians, he doubted whether World Vision is a truly humanitarian organisation. He did not believe that World Vision is a neutral organisation and stressed that New Zealanders should not support aid organisations that "fail to act in the interests of the people in the country they operate in."