[A-List] Imperialism and the NGOs: Transparency International

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Private Eye

No. 1064, 4-17 October 2002

NGO Areas

The annual report of Transparency International, the Berlin-based
non-governmental organisation (NGO) which calls itself "the coalition
against corruption", is full of heartening stories about conquering bribery
in Senegal, Argentina, Serbia, Bulgaria and Sierra Leone.

It also tells how GRECO -- the Council of Europe Group of States Against
Corruption -- has been welcomed in the US and together they have reviewed
corruption everywhere from Cyprus to Sweden. The NGO insists a firm stand is
being taken against bribery by the Organisation of American States, the
modern US equivalent of Britain's old Colonial Office, and the Free Trade
Area of the Americas, a body which is as independent of the US government as
Siamese twins are independent.

What is transparent in Transparency International's report, though, is the
complete lack of reference to corruption at the heart of capitalism itself.
No tales of murky deals uncovered at Halliburton. No whiff from Enron or
Arthur Andersen. Nothing from the World Bank. Not a word about Jack Welch,
the giant of General Electric, seen in the US as the world's greatest
businessman but whose immensely profitable hornswoggling has just been
revealed by his former wife.

The small print does offer a tentative explanation though. Donations to
Transparency International are acknowledged from Enron and Arthur Andersen;
and the board of directors includes Frank Vogl, former PR man for the World
Bank; an unknown German who served it for 30 years; and Fritz F. Heimann
from  -- where else? -- General Electric.

-----

Actually Private Eye could have gone much further with its analysis of the
great and the good making up TI. Its international advisory board gives a
flavour of what to expect:

 Abdulatif Y. Al-Hamad
Kuwait
Director General/Chairman of the Board of Directors Arab Fund for Economic
and Social Development

 John Brademas
USA
President Emeritus of New York University, Chairman of the National
Endowment for Democracy

 Jimmy Carter
USA
Former President

 Johan Galtung
Norway
Peace Researcher, Alternative Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

 Néstor Humberto Martinez Neira
Colombia
Former Minister of Justice

 John Noonan
USA
Judge of the US Federal Court of Appeals

Olusegun Obasanjo
President of Nigeria

 Wiktor Osiatynski
Poland
Open Society Institute

Jean-Claude Paye
France
Former Secretary General of the OECD, Special Adviser to the Government

John Prescott
Australia
Former CEO of BHP

and so on.
See http://www.transparency.org/about_ti/adv-council.html