[altroots] Disaster used as political payoff

My VistaPrint Electronic Business CardDisaster used as political payoff

New York Daily News
September 6, 2005 

<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/343712p-293471c.html>

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has done it
again.

Already under fire for its woeful response to Hurricane
Katrina, the federal disaster agency appears to have
turned hurricane relief donations into a political
payoff - until it was challenged.

All last week, FEMA bureaucrats gave prominent placement
on the agency's Web site to Operation Blessing, the
Virginia-based charity run by controversial right-wing
evangelist and Christian Coalition founder Pat
Robertson.

For anyone wishing to donate only cash, the agency's
site listed the names and phone numbers of three groups:
the Red Cross, Operation Blessing and America's Second
Harvest, a national coalition of food banks.

That first list was followed by a second, longer list of
several dozen religious and nonsectarian charities. This
second list was for anyone who wanted to give either
cash or noncash gifts.

Just as in an ordinary election, however, top ballot
position makes it far more likely you'll get noticed and
chosen.

The same FEMA list was then disseminated by state and
local governments throughout the country. Both Gov.
Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg, for example, placed the same
top three FEMA charities on their Hurricane Katrina
press releases and Web sites last week.

Those familiar with Robertson and his charity were
flabbergasted.

Operation Blessing, with a budget of $190 million, is an
integral part of the Robertson empire. Not only is he
the chairman of the board, his wife is listed on its
latest financial report as its vice president, and one
of his sons is on the board of directors.

Back in 1994, during the infamous Rwandan genocide,
Robertson used his 700 Club's daily cable operation to
appeal to the American public for donations to fly
humanitarian supplies into Zaire to save the Rwandan
refugees.

The planes purchased by Operation Blessing did a lot
more than ferry relief supplies.

An investigation conducted by the Virginia attorney
general's office concluded in 1999 that the planes were
mostly used to transport mining equipment for a diamond
operation run by a for-profit company called African
Development Corp.

And who do you think was the principal executive and
sole shareholder of the mining company?

You guessed it, Pat Robertson himself.

Robertson had landed the mining concession from his
longtime friend Mobutu Sese Seko, then the dictator of
Zaire.

Investigators concluded that Operation Blessing
"willfully induced contributions from the public through
the use of misleading statements ..."

After the investigation began, Robertson placated state
regulators by personally reimbursing his own charity
$400,000 and by agreeing to tighten its bookkeeping
methods.

Separating Operation Blessing from Robertson's many
politically oriented endeavors is not that easy,
however.

The biggest single U.S. recipient of the charity's
largess, according to its latest financial report, was
Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. It received
$885,000 in the fiscal year ended March 2004.

Robertson uses that Christian network for some markedly
unchristian purposes.

A few years back, he repeatedly defended Charles Taylor,
the former brutal dictator of Liberia who is under
indictment by a UN tribunal for war crimes.

As with Mobutu in the Congo, Robertson had a personal
stake in the matter: He had millions invested in a
Liberian gold mine, thanks to Taylor, according to press
reports.

Recently, Robertson called for the assassination of
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Those who know
Robertson's record raised such an uproar that on Sunday
FEMA suddenly rearranged its entire Web site for
hurricane donations.

Gone was Operation Blessing's name and choice location.
Replacing it was an alphabetical list of nearly 50
national relief organizations.

At FEMA, they take a while to get things right.

Originally published on September 6, 2005
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Myth Maker/Word Wizard
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How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in 
power?  Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics in the 20th century.  
Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear, 1952

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