It is however in Word Vision's operations in Indochina that its political opinions can he seen most clearly. The following items indicate to us, that (willingly or not) World Vision has become embroiled with one side of the recent war, and that it has neither the ability nor the desire to conduct any aid or development programmes that would reach all the people of Indochina.

South Vietnam

Yvonne Preston wrote in an Australian newspaper earlier this year:

"Organisations like World Vision have particular problems, being less apolitical than other agencies despite their pro-testations, and known for their fundamental Christian fervent anti-Communist stand.

World Vision is the only agency in Vietnam that worries on behalf of its sponsored children and their families about the reaction of the Vietcong to letters from the West that might be discovered in their possession.

'We would be hoping for a miracle to be able to carry on, but because we've been using US aid money and had American personnel in our programmes, that does cause Us some concern. We're afraid for our sponsored children."

This is not an isolated instance of concern. World Vision's Visiongram of 11 April, 1975 (signed in New Zealand by Mr Renner) said:

"We who are working in South Vietnam are numbed and shocked as during the last few weeks we have seen the Republic of Vietnam literally fall around us. This is the latest word from one of our Australian staff in Vietnam, Sister Joan Potter, medical supervisor of the New Life Baby Home in Saigon.

She reports World Vision is engaged in its most massive relief efforts ever! Hundreds of thousands of refugees are walking long distances to freedom, the old and frail, the disabled and children are walking for three days, often without water. Many are dying on the road."

Joan further says, "in hospitals, patients have been left behind with no-one to care for them or to provide food. They slowly await death." She also reports stories of unbelievable torture.

The Challenge Weekly (April 5, 1975) carried a further report written by Sister Potter. She made the following points:

World Vision nutrition centres... are now behind enemy lines.... stories of unbelievable torture of people unable to escape are reaching us in Saigon, told to us by people who were fortunate enough to reach safety. People are not being shot but various means of torture are being used so that the unfortunate victims will have slow and painful deaths.

........topics for prayer: Vietnamese Christians now behind enemy lines with no hope for escape."

The emphasis is ours.

Mr Russell Marshall MP, criticised World Vision earlier this year for its involvement with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Although the situation has since changed dramatically, the link between the two organisations page 9 must be examined by this investigation.

Seventy-five per cent of World Visions operation in Cambodia was funded by USAID. In South Vietnam the figure was not so high. Most (but not all) agencies operating in South Vietnam. Cambodia and Laos received some assistance from USAID.

Since foreign (especially American) involvement was a fundamental cause of the war, acceptance of these funds tends to indicate a political view held by the agencies that condones this intervention.

Some World Vision Aid programmes have made this stance very clear. The Indochina Chronicle (Oct/Nov, 1975) reports that yellow bowls of noodles were distributed to children bearing this inscription in Vietnamese: "World Vision Relief Organisation - US Food for Peace Programme - Jesus said I am the Way the Light and the Truth." (An inscription that also clearly links Christianity and the American Government)

Although many will regard this link with USAID as a sign of politcal bias, others will be unconcerned as long as acceptance of this finance does not place World Vision under any external control. From our dicussions with World Vision administrators, it is clear that the Organisation itself holds the latter attitude.

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."

North Vietnam

An article in the New Citizen (15.5.75) when the forces of the former Thieu government were in retreat, quotes the Rev. Don Scott, Director of World Vision's Saigon Office as saying that while he offered encouragement to his Vietnamese colleagues, he really saw no hope, not even through his faith, which led him to believe that "God could stop the Communist advance". This suggests that World Vision is politically very close to the former governments of South Vietnam, and the governments of South Korea and the Phillipines and maintains a rigidly anti-Communist ideology.

And yet, these are not the reasons that World Vision Officers provide, when asked why the operation does not operate in North Vietnam.

Mr Geoff Renner, World Vision Director in New Zealand, has stated that, "we offered help to the North at the time of the Paris agreement and were declined," ((New Citizen, 15.5.75). A pamphlet delivered to all households in March, 1973, contained this message from the late Prime Minister Norman Kirk:

"World Vision of New Zealand has decided to play its part in raising funds for a badly needed hospital in Cambodia and for the care of needy and orphaned children throughout Indochina'..

Given Mr Renner's previous statement, to speak of offering aid "throughout Indochina" seems rather misleading.

In an interview with Terry Bell (Dominion Sunday Times, 18.3.73), Mr Renner claimed that:

"We don't take a political stand. We are prepared to give aid wherever it is needed and whenever we can. The North Vietnamese don't trust us and, as far as I can see, some of the people who have moved into North Vietnam have perhaps been too hasty."

Considering World Vision's unabashedly anti-communist stance it is perhaps not difficult to understand North Vietnam's reluctance to trust the organisation, if Mr Renner is indeed correct.

Rather it is rather difficult to understand how Mr Renner can claim that World Vision does not take a political stand.

World Vision claims to work through indigenous Christian Churches. One must therefore ask why it has not worked through the Protestant or Catholic Churches of North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese churches maintain contact with other agencies, such as the World Council of Churches.

There are probably several reasons why World Vision has not done this. As far as we can establish, one of the basic principles of socialist development of North Vietnam is that all people must share as equally as possible in the economic benefits of the country. Mr Russell Marshall MP, claimed that this was one of the strongest impressions he gained during his trip to North Vietnam. If this impression is correct, it is unlikely that the Vietnamese would accept individual sponsorship that favours certain individuals at the expense of others. World Vision may claim that individual sponsorship is 'apolitical' but we suggest that this only seems possible to us, because favouring certain individuals is a major part of our western way of life. We fail to recognise the philosophical concepts and beliefs that underlie each favouritism.

Therefore it is likely that any World Vision aid to North Vietnam would have to aim at benefitting everyone equally. One would assume that World Vision would have no objection: yet they have not found a suitable means of providing aid to North Vietnam Other agencies, such as the World Council of Churches, seem to have no difficulty in that country.

Laos

In a letter to sponsors (May, 1975) Mr Renner says:

"We have been forced to close our child sponsorship programme (in Laos) due to civilian and government unrest. Also Pathet Lao members have intruded into our World Vision Office in reaction against our Thai Director, Sakda Phaphoum.'

The New Citizen for June 26th contained a report of an interview between the Minister of Religious Affairs of the New Government in Laos and Mr Sam Isaac of Asian Christian Service (The World Council of Churches agency).

In the discussion the Minister was critical of some of the missionary groups in Laos who had let themselves be used as agents of the American CIA. He claimed that "the activities of World Vision, an American-based aid operation had antagonised the people so much there were popular demonstrations and the decision had been made at Cabinet level to have them expelled from the country."

During our discuusion we received a page 10 letter from a New Zealander presently in Laos, who told us:

"Since I arrived here World Vision has been paralysed by a strike the ins and outs of which I cannot follow although it sounds like inter-tribal warfare. The posters outside their office look rather like a case of hanging one's dirty linen in public. Even though I cannot read them, the pictures are telling enough." This seems to support the official

Government view of the situation. Other Christian and secular agencies have continued to work in South Vietnam and Laos since the fall of the Thieu government and the fall of the Lao government, whereas World Vision aid has been discontinued. We suggest that World Vision's inability to continue to work in Indochina is a direct result of the political stance taken by that organisation during the war years. That stance makes them no longer acceptable to the new governments.