How NGOs threaten sovereignty of State

The Select Committee of Parliament for Investigation of the Operations of NGOs and their impact urged the President Mahinda Rajapaksa to appoint a Task Force immediately to prevent NGO interference into State policies and the country's national security.

by Shanika SRIYANANDA

The Chairman of the Committee and JVP MP Vijitha Herath, who made startling observations about activities of some of the leading INGOs and NGOs, said that some of them are supporting the LTTE directly and indirectly, but the prevailing laws do not have enough teeth to bring them to book.

He told the 'Sunday Observer' that some of these NGOs are threat to the sovereignty of the country and most of them lack transparency and accountability for the money they are spending here as they have overstepped their designated humanitarian and development tasks.

Following are the excerpts of the interview:

Q: What are the significant observations made by the Committee?

A: The Parliamentary Select Committee was appointed to look into the operations of the INGOs and NGOs and the transparency of their activities and to make necessary recommendations to regularise their activities. There are over 3,000 NGOs, including INGOs registered at the national level and there are some other organisations registered at Pradeshiya level. As there are no proper bodies to monitor these NGOs, the quantum of money brought by them to Sri Lanka and the amount that they have spent for projects are not monitored. The development activities of their projects are not properly evaluated.

There are lot of organisations which carry out development and humanitarian activities without registering themselves under the NGO Secretariat functioning under the Social Services Ministry. One major reason is that registration of NGOs is not compulsory according to the existing laws.

Q: Apart from the absence of a strong single authority to monitor these NGOs, what are the other loopholes identified by the Committee?

A: Most of these NGOs operate in contravention of the law and the State policies. They function according to their own agendas and have minimum transparency in auditing. They do not have a clear knowledge about the Act on NGOs and they do not prepare the accounts and audit reports in compliance with the accepted standards of Sri Lanka. The other main shortcoming is that there is no mechanism to regulate these organisations and are controlled by their mother countries.

Q: After the tsunami disaster the NGOs mushroomed in the country. It is said that some of them have indirectly tried to interfere in the State affairs. Is there any truth in this?

A: Yes. With the tsunami disaster lots of foreign NGOs entered into rehabilitation and relief work. It is true that some of these NGOs have strategically tried to approach various fields including defence and education. The international interference into internal affairs of the country has increased immensely. The NGOs that step into interfere into State policies are those engaged in conflict resolution and conflict studies.

Though it is not directly evident, they have got together to achieve their objectives by publishing books, magazines, and publishing articles in local and foreign papers reflecting their intention.

What the Committee has found was that most of the NGOs active in conflict resolution and peace building have acted in a manner threatening the territorial integrity of the country and in the process of driving the fundamental attitude that 'public sector institutions are inefficient'. The best example was how the German based Burghof Foundation engaged in conflict studies and conflict resolution had become involved in the internal State policies. The Foundation had directed its entire attention on disseminating and promoting federal structures and branded those who are supporting unitary system as extremists. We have doubts about the credibility of Dr. Norbert Rophers who was in Sri Lanka for six years with the Foundation.

However, according to the observations of the Committee, the Foundation had exceeded the powers mandated by the government.

Q: Some of the leading INGOs and NGOs have been accused of helping the LTTE. How many of them have been found helping the LTTE?

A: Yes, there are claims but we cannot exactly say in which way these INGOs and NGOs have assisted the LTTE. What is evident is that half of these organisations in the North and East have helped the LTTE in some manner. The relationship between the LTTE and the Burghof Foundation is quite evident.

The Foundation has sent a LTTE delegation to Europe on a study tour. We have a serious question over the permission granted to Eric Solheim and Dr. Rophers to issue permission to send terrorists on a study trip on federalism to Europe.

This so-called Dr. Rophers has accepted that he had direct links with Balasingham in London and Pulidevan in Kilinochchi. They also had links with the high officials of the Sri Lanka Army to access sensitive military points. This had posed a direct threat to the national security.

There are other NGOs found to be propagating federalism. National Peace Council is such an organisation which had also participated in a protest in Geneva together with the LTTE.

The Ministry of Defence has reports to show how the Medical Sans Frontiers (M.S.F.) of France and MSF Spain which is not registered, Medicine du Monde France and Doctors of the World USA have threatened the national security and the State policies.

Q: How do you think that some of the NGOs which had close links with some of the terrorists organisations gained entry into the country?

A: As I said earlier there are no proper laws to register these organisations in Sri Lanka. This vacuum has created a huge freedom for those NGOs. The International Alert is one such NGO that operated in Sri Lanka. It is banned for working with the rebels of Sierra Leon as they have promoted separatism through their project activities. The reasons that they have cited for the LTTE to take up arms were the declaration of 'Sinhala' as the official language in 1957, alienating land and creating Sinhala colonies in the North and East. They have also printed a map marking a large areas in the central hills and the South, showing half the country as belonging to Tamils. This map is even larger than the map prepared by the LTTE.

Q: Is it true that these INGOs at some point tried to exert pressure on this Committee?

A: They tried to influence the committee indirectly. Some even tried to exert international pressure. Especially the Burghof Foundation sought international diplomatic intervention by making submissions to discredit and remove the Committee. But any of these organisations have failed to stop us releasing the report highlighting the truth. This is a good lesson for the government for inviting these organisations into the country without a proper examination of their credentials.

Q: Does the Committee summon the TRO which was found to have channelled huge amounts of money to the LTTE to purchase weapons?

A: Yes, we have informed the TRO through their Colombo office, but we had received a fax message from its Kilinochchi office saying that they could not come before the Committee due to the security situation. They have not submitted their annual reports as the documents were taken into CID custody. The ILO, Save the Children, Action Aid International Sri Lanka and the UNICEF are the organisations that provided aid to the TRO. These organisations have direct agreements with the TRO which used most of the fund to strengthen the military capabilities of the LTTE. TRO had received US $ 10 million for post -tsunami activities from the USA in 2006.

Q: You have mentioned about the misuse of money and attempts to brain wash people by certain NGOs. Why did not the Committee summon the high officials of these NGOs?

A: The top officials of the NGOs found to have double standards have been summoned.

We have questioned them and some officials have prepared the project reports for the sake of getting the funds approved. They did not care about the damage caused due to the contents in the reports. They have merely prepared the reports to get the annual allocations for the NGOs.

Q: When you summarise the work of these NGOs do you think that Sri Lanka need them to develop the country?

A: We cannot say that the country does not need the help of these organisations which carry out development and humanitarian projects. We cannot reject the support of the INGOs and NGOs under the present trends.

The need of the hour is to have a strong body to monitor their activities.

We cannot say all these organisations are having double standards. There are those which are genuinely assisting the country in its development process.

But some NGOs with devious motives bring disaster to the country. They have abused the freedom given to them to assist people of this country. Taking this shortcoming as an advantage some external NGOs come to Sri Lanka to get their organisation registered as the laws related to forming NGOs are very lenient. The NGO belonging to the former Prime Minister Indrakumar Gujral was registered in Sri Lanka. We summoned the officials of this NGO which does its humanitarian work in Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan and according to them it is very easy for anyone to register an NGO here in Sri Lanka as they find registration regulations in India to be tough.

Q: The humanitarian assistance is one of the main attractions to form an NGO. Do you think that these INGOs and NGOs helped to solve the humanitarian crisis satisfactorily in the North and the East?

A: We cannot completely deny their support. Some of them are doing an excellent service but those who have links with the LTTE pose a threat. We have found that they have assisted the LTTE throughout their operations in the North and the East. The LTTE has used these NGOs as a cover up and they employed their cadres as NGO workers.

They have used the transport, money and other use as a method to escape from the Security Forces. The LTTE cadres were given NGO identity cards.

The committee has enough and more evidence to show that ZOA Refugee Care Netherlands had direct and indirect links with the LTTE. In 2006 the Committee found out the alleged activities of the ZOA, but due to poor monitoring and legal system ZOA gained entry to do humanitarian work in the Wanni.

There is an urgent need to establish a high powered commission to formulate legal provisions to supervise NGOs.

This commission should comprise of a five member team including a retired Auditor General, retired Supreme Court judge and they should be appointed by the President.

There are significant number of NGOs functioning in the country without registration. So registration of NGOs should be made compulsory.

The commission should be entrusted with monitoring the activities of the NGOs in the country. They should submit their annual reports to the commission.The National NGO Fund will be set up to strengthen the NGOs.

Q: What we have experienced is that the damage caused by these NGOs will just drop after an announcement and they will go scot free. What are your recommendations to punish them?

A: According to the present law a fine of Rs. 250 will be imposed for those violating the provisions of the Act. But we have recommended a system where the NGOs have to submit their progress reports every three months.

If they do not submit the reports in time and are found to be involved in some irregularity, the commission has the powers to blacklist these organisations.

The names of these NGOs will also be made public.According to information, majority of the NGOs have not submitted their progress reports and we have failed to take action as the law is not strong enough to take action against them. We need new laws to blacklist them.