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Gunboat Diplomacy:
US pressure Europe to ensure religious
privileges for multinationals
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Bruno Fouchereau
From Le Monde
Diplomatique, May 2001
Current conflicts in various European countries, involving "cult" multinationals, are basically a matter of human rights. The right, for example, to join an organization, but also the right to leave it freely, without suffering threats, blackmail or the destruction of one's family life. Or the right to the same treatment as other workers, whether on the job or after retiring.
However there are also larger issues involved. This article by the determined French investigative journalist Bruno Fouchereau reminds us that there is a lot more at stake: the future of the European imagination, the very social and ideal models of the coming future.
How strategic this sector is can be seen from the fact that in 1999-2000, the president of the Us Commission on International Religious Freedom was Elliott Abrams. Sentenced to one year in gaol for the Iran-Contras scandal, Abrams has also been accused of involvement in massacres in Guatemala and El Salvador in Reagan's days. He has often accused the Israeli Likud of being too moderate towards the native Palestinians. He is currently one of the key figures in shaping US policy towards the crucial area of the Near East.
I found this translation ready made through a search engine. A special thanks to Michael Eisenscher who posted this translation on misc.activism.progressive and to Barry Smerin who actually did the translation.
Miguel Martínez
The Swiss conductor Michel Tabachnik was charged with criminal conspiracy
in connection with the Order of the Solar Temple this April in France: 71
of its members had died in four so-called collective suicides from 1994 to
1997. The case focused attention on groups which claim to be religious
sects, but are instead engaged in money-making activities. France is now
ushering in legislation that will allow the courts to dissolve such
movements. The US administration is, however, trying to ensure their
impunity on grounds of religious freedom and supports various cults which
peddle forms of new-right and neo-conservative ideology in the name of
anti-communism..
Religious cults used be regarded merely as a social phenomenon but in the
last decade they have become a major security problem. The world was shaken
by the Solar Temple massacres in 1994 and 1995, the Aum Shinri Kyo gas
attack in the Tokyo subway in March 1995 and the Heaven's Gate mass suicide
in Los Angeles four years later. France, Germany, Belgium and Spain, have
all strengthened legislation in response to parliamentary reports on the
dangers of cults that coerce and manipulate their followers.
Official organisations have been set up throughout Europe to monitor the
spread of cults. In 1996 France passed legislation to protect the
psychologically vulnerable, and the Jospin government established an
Interministerial Mission to Combat Sects, headed by Alain Vivien. [On 31
May France's national assembly deputies almost unanimously endorsed a bill
allowing courts to order the immediate dissolution of any movement regarded
as a cult whose members are found guilty of such existing offences as
fraud, abuse of confidence, the illegal practise of medicine or wrongful
advertising. The bill must now by approved by the senate.] In Germany, the
main struggle has been with the Church of Scientology: after a police
investigation in 1997 the Federal government warned the public of its
dangers and the state of Bavaria banned Scientologists from the civil
service
.
Militant of the Scientology"Sea Org" in high uniform
This picture has been masked - to see why read here. Here you can see the
contract by which Sea Org members bind themselves to serve the organization for "one billion years".
With Europe hardening its position, observers expected a counter-attack
from international cults, some of which have assets of several hundred
million francs in France alone. The attack came from the United States
(1): On 27 January 1997 Washington officially condemned German measures against
Scientology. A few days later the State Department's Bureau for Democracy,
Human Rights and Labour (BDHRL)
(2), published its country reports on human
rights practices for 1996: Germany came under fierce attack, joining China
on the list of states violating religious freedom.
The BDHRL report came just at the right time to support the Scientologists'
campaign against Germany, which consisted of demonstrations, ads in the
international press and a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights.
The State Department issued a communiqu to calm things down, explaining
that although it was critical of Germany, it did not endorse the
Scientology campaign. That was the least the German authorities were
entitled to expect.
then established the US Commission on International Religious Freedom
(Uscirf), which has a representative in every US embassy, and the Office of
International Religious Freedom within the State Department itself. The
office is headed by an ambassador-at-large, assisted by five State
Department staff. The first ambassador was Robert A Seiple, a former marine
who is fond of repeating that "human rights are universal because they are
granted by God"
(3)». ). In an interview given to a Florida newspaper, he
explained how his faith sustained him during 300 combat missions as a
marines officer in the Vietnam war
News (4).
Laser-guided 907-kilo bomb launched on Iraq in December 1998,
with Happy Ramadan wishes from sailor Chad Rickenberg
But Seiple was not chosen for his qualities as a soldier-monk. For 11 years
he headed the ultra-conservative World Vision Inc, the world's largest
evangelical organisation. World Vision subsidises thousands of projects in
both hemispheres, and millions of people throughout Latin America and Asia
are affiliated to it
(5). The first Annual Report on International
Religious Freedom, released by the BDHRL in September 1998
(6), accused
France, Germany, Austria and Belgium of violating religious freedom. The
1995 report of the French parliamentary committee of inquiry was portrayed
as blind persecution and the French deputies were accused of practising
religious segregation by drawing up a list of innocent associations,
persecuted not for illegal activities but for their religious beliefs.
On 22 March 1999 French policy was fiercely criticised at a seminar held in
Vienna by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (Odhir)
(7),under the auspices of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE). US diplomats and congressmen repeated and expanded on the
State Department's accusations, and a diplomatic incident was only narrowly
avoided. The scene was repeated in Washington at a hearing of the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, where three witnesses
had dreadful tales to tell: France was reverting to the practices of the
Vichy regime, the prime minister had been indoctrinated by anti-religious
movements, believers had been exposed to public opprobrium and were losing
their jobs, and children were being removed from their parents' custody.
The commissioners' official report, released in June 1999, waxed eloquent
about the danger to fundamental freedoms in Europe
(8). It accused the
French government of using its tax department as the armed branch of a
latter-day Inquisition.
In response, the interministerial mission and the French foreign ministry
explained that investigations into the structure and financial flows of the
Scientology organisation had shown it to be a commercial organisation
generating enormous profits. In these circumstances the fines and penalties
were fully justified. They also explained that the Assembly's report had
been drawn up with the help of legal experts, academics, specialised police
officers and associations officially recognised as being of public benefit.
Although the 180 organisations named in the report claimed to be religious,
close examination had revealed their totalitarian nature and the coercive
methods they used on their followers. The vast majority had already been
sentenced by the courts.
The French authorities also tried to correct some misconceptions. They
pointed out, for example, that France was accused of refusing to recognise
certain minority groups as religions, whereas the 1905 act on the
separation of church and state prevented it from granting official
recognition to any religion.
But dialogue proved fruitless. The report published on 9 September 1999
contained an even more vehement attack on the European countries. On 8
December foreign minister Hubert Védrine protested to Madeleine Albright:
"Your administration's unwarranted criticism of French government action at
a time of ongoing dialogue between our senior officials has cast a deep
shadow over the discussions".
.
This put an end to diplomatic exchanges on the subject - and they have yet
to resume. The State Department's latest report, released on 2 March 2001,
acknowledges the positive aspects of the 1901 and 1905 acts and corrects a
number of errors, though without admitting it. However, it still remains
highly accusatory.
Neither American history nor the US constitution fully explain the
country's stubborn support for the groups in question. The Office of
International Religious Freedom is a subordinate body of the BDHRL, which
is itself attached to the State Department; the Commission for Religious
Freedom was set up in Washington by members of Congress; and Uscirf reports
directly to the White House. Its executive director, Steven T McFarland,
says his commission is mainly intended to act as a watch dog: its job is to
ensure that the other commissions are working along the right lines.
Elsewhere, a commission set up to monitor the work of other commissions
monitoring religious freedom would probably be described as a relic of the
Soviet apparatus.
McFarland admits he has not read the French National Assembly's report. He
can neither read nor speak French, he explains. Nor has he read the reports
of the interministerial mission, the communiqus issued by the French
foreign ministry, or the information notes published by the French embassy
in Washington. In fact, none of the officials of the American commissions I
was able to contact had read any of these documents in the original or in
translation. McFarland shrugs this off. For him, the information he
receives from US intelligence agencies and the US embassy in Paris, as well
as academics and NGOs complaining of intolerance by the French government,
is sufficiently reliable. When shown copies of telexes from the US embassy
in Madrid
((9), proving the BDHRL had intervened to stall a Spanish
magistrate's investigation of Scientology, McFarland declined to comment.
.
Obviously the members of the intelligence services who brief the US
commissions cannot be identified. But the US embassy recommends on its website the lawyer Kay Gaejens, a well-known member of Scientology. When the French National Assembly
held a colloquium on psychological manipulation, the US embassy, though not
invited, sent two of its staff, accompanied by a French Scientology official.
The testimony gathered by these commissions is also open to question. The
man appointed by the OCSE to chair the meeting in Vienna in March 1999 was
none other than Massimo Introvigne, an Italian self-styled sociologist and
founder of the Centre for the Study of New Religions (Cesnur). Cesnur is a
Catholic fundamentalist organisation with close links to the Brazilian
neo-fascist cult Tradition Family Property. Introvigne is a frequent
contributor to Scientology publications and testified in favour of the cult
in Lyons in the case brought against its leaders by investigating
magistrate Georges Fenech.
French lawyer Alain Garay, a defence counsel for Jehovah's Witnesses who
fights their tax battles, was also invited to Vienna and Washington. He too
is a frequent contributor to Scientology publications. Another key figure
is Willy Fautr, chairman of a Belgian organisation called Human Rights
Without Frontiers (The name does not mean it is recognised by the
International Federation of Human Rights Leagues). For many years Fautr
was a correspondent for News Network International, a large American
evangelical, anti-abortionist and fiercely anti-communist press and
lobbying group. He is also a member of the International Helsinki
Federation for Human Rights (IHF), whose reports have been abundantly
quoted by the American commissions. The IHF's Greek correspondent has
contributed to Scientology publications and its Moscow delegation has
published a book jointly with the Church of Scientology
.
Finally, among the major witnesses who came forward to testify to the
violations of religious freedom orchestrated by the French government was
pastor Louis DeMeo of the Nimes Theological Institute (NTI). The NTI is
part of the Greater Grace evangelical movement, which is based in Baltimore
(US). Greater Grace has over 3,000 missions in Latin America, as well as
several hundred in Africa and eastern Europe. The NTI is used to train
people for work in eastern Europe. Greater Grace, whose methods have been
strongly criticised even in the US, is a fellow traveller of Scientology.
Stacy Brooks is president of the Lisa McPherson Trust (10)), the main
American organisation set up to help victims of Scientology. She was
herself a Scientologist for 15 years. She was also secretary to David
Miscavige, Ron Hubbard's successor and current Scientology guru. Brooks
clearly recalls Reverend George Robertson, who runs Greater Grace with a
rod of iron: "He's in close touch with the leaders of Scientology. When the
Scientologists are loath to intervene on certain matters that might damage
their image, they get Robertson to do it. He's their main mouthpiece in the
evangelical movement." The Cult Awareness Network was once the main support
organisation for victims of religious cults. It was founded in the 1970s.
Greater Grace and the Church of Scientology set out together to bankrupt it
by lawsuits. Then they bought up its logo and license agreement in the
federal bankruptcy court (11).
Links between Scientology and
Moon
There is another reason for the influence of Scientology and its followers
in the US. In October 1993 the all-powerful US Internal Revenue Service
granted the sect full tax exemption as a bona fide religion, after doggedly
refusing to do so for 25 years - a refusal that had been backed by all the
American courts right up to the Supreme Court. The IRS turnabout saved the
Church of Scientology tens of millions of dollars and gave it an
extraordinary public relations tool by opening the doors of the American
administration.
The full story behind the reversal was revealed four years later in the New
York Times (14). Scientology had waged an all-out war on the tax
authorities. At one time the cult and its members had more than 50 lawsuits
pending against the IRS. But it did not stop at lawsuits; it also hired
detectives to dig up the dirt on top IRS officials. One of them told the
New York Times he had worked for Scientology for 18 months from 1990 to
1992. From his Maryland office he had gathered information on officials who
missed meetings, drank too much or had extra-marital relations. On express
instructions from the IRS commissioner, the Church of Scientology was
granted religious status by a special decision that circumvented the usual
procedures.
But annual profits of $300m, infiltration and intimidation techniques, and
recognition by the IRS are not enough for Scientology. It has other methods
of consolidating its influence at the highest levels of the American state.
Stephen A Kent, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta,
Canada, has studied the Washington lobbying strategy of religious groups
and cults in great detail. He has shown how Scientology, like Sun Myung
Moon's Unification Church, mounts major public relations campaigns directed
at members of Congress and the White House. Scientology organisations paid
$725,000 to a public relations firm specialising in political lobbying in
1996 and 1997, plus a further $420,000 in 1998. (12).
Scientologists in the movie business contributed over $70,000 to Hillary
Clinton's Senate election campaign fund. Tom Cruise personally donated
$5,000 to Al Gore's campaign. A group headed by John Travolta organised a
gala dinner to raise funds for the Democrats. The tickets cost $25,000
each. One Scientology lawyer gave $20,000 to the Democrats' election
campaign, while a group of 10 Californian Scientologists including Craig
Jensen, corporate executive officer of Executive Software, donated a total
of $7,400 to the campaign fund of Representative Benjamin A Gilman, chairm
of the House International Relations Committee
(13). This senator, right after being elected, became the chairman of the Commission of religious Freedom
of the OSCE...
The Moon sect, which owns one of the main US dailies, the highly
conservative Washington Times, gave Hillary Clinton space for a weekly
personal column. Countless congressmen are subsidised by Moon, and two US
presidents, Bush senior and Gerald Ford, regularly attended conferences
organised by the Unification Church. Scientologists and Moonies soon came
to an arrangement. Since the mid-1990s they have been conducting joint
campaigns for religious freedom in Europe and the US.
A series of letters between Scientology and Moon leaders published on the
internet revealed that their activities in eastern Europe were jointly
planned and coordinated. The Scientology-Moon coalition, supported formally
or informally by other sects, is similar to the partnership between
Scientology and Greater Grace. It is now receiving support from American
religious fundamentalist groups. The members of the Institute on Religion
and Public Policy
(14), viwarmly recommended by the State Department, include
ultra-conservative congressmen, Moonies and cult guru Sri Chinmoy. This
institute has set up shop a few blocks away from the White House and openly
campaigns for the rights of Scientology, the Moon sect, and other "minority
religions" in Europe.
The Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), which has existed for over
20 years and given birth to tens of thousands of Protestant fundamentalist
missions throughout the world, has been a zealous supporter of Reagan and
Bush (father and son). This ultra-conservative, gay-bashing,
anti-abortionist organisation has now joined the chorus of France's
critics. According to its president, Diane L Knippers, "France is a model
for other European democracies. It is imperative that it abandon its
anti-religious policy and once again guarantee freedom of religion". In her
eagerness to explain, however, she unwittingly reveals the nature of her
concern for the assortment of heterogeneous cults whose freedom she is
defending: "What makes us stand up for religious freedom today is the same
thing that made us fight communism. Human society cannot prosper on a bed
of lies. And atheism and communism only breed lies. Spirituality is the
guarantee of civilisation, because spirituality and faith make people
honest. Without honesty there can be no trade, and without trade there can
be no civilisation."
This campaign for "spirituality" throughout the world (15) is actively linked
with the lobbies seeking to impose American values through globalisation.
As the IRD has made clear on several occasions, globalisation is a mission
inspired by the Bible. This amalgam of mysticism and imperialism is a
concept to which all American fundamentalist and evangelical groups
subscribe. And it is in the forefront of the minds of those who claim to be
defending religious freedom. John R Bolton, for example, a member of
Uscirf, was formerly vice-president of the American Enterprise Institute
for Policy Research, a militant free-market group. He was one of Bush
senior's chief international trade advisors. According to Nina Shea, a
member of the same commission, "our main aim is to establish the new
liberal order throughout the world".
The strategy of global domination, and the machinery for achieving it, were
put in place in the early 1980s by the Reagan administration. The struggle
has now reached its peak with the drive to globalise legislation - an
attempt to put the finishing touches on globalisation of the world market.
But resistance is emerging in many quarters. France, for example, has taken
the lead in the fight against globalisation of education. Here, cults and
media giants have a common enemy in the widespread European ideology of
secularism, of which France is the historical crucible. The onslaught on
France's anti-sect legislation is a direct attack on the secularism of the
French state.
The religious cults have much to gain. If they can penetrate the European
education system and establish schools that are free from all state
control, as in the US, they will expand and consolidate their membership,
since recruitment will become an integral part of the cultural and
psychological development of the individuals under their influence. It
would be an exaggeration to describe the cults' links with the
communications industry as a common front - their actions are not part of a
jointly defined strategy or directed by a unified general staff. Still,
there is a striking overlap of personnel. The links between ABC, CNN, etc.
and the American religious fundamentalist lobbies are no secret, and nor is
their total commitment to the ruling ideology.
Daniel Ichbia, Bill Gates' first biographer, was a Scientologist. And so is
Craig Jensen, one of Gates' closest collaborators. One of the main firms in
the Microsoft empire, Executive Software, officially declares itself
Scientologist. Big Brother is just behind the screen.
(1) This is not surprising, since 90% of sects are of American origin or
based in the US.
(2) The BDHRL, established in 1990, has links with all the US intelligence
agencies. Its official remit is to assess the degree of freedom and
democracy in all countries. It reports to the government and feeds
information to the House of Representatives and the Senate
.
(3) Interview with the author.
(4) The Naples Daily News, 28 January 1999, quoted by Stephen A Kent in
"Consultation on Religious Persecutions as a US Policy Issue", Trinity
College, Hartford, Connecticut.
(5) See World Vision magazine, December 1991, page 14, and the
Interhemispheric Resource Center's file on World Vision at
http://www.pir.org/gw.
(6) IThe Commission's reports are available on the US State Department
website at
http://www.state.gov
(7) Odihr, an office of the OSCE, was first established in 1990 as the
Office for Free Elections under the Charter of Paris to monitor elections
in Europe. In 1994 the Budapest Summit extended its mandate to respect for
the human dimension in democratic institutions and to conflict prevention.
Under the influence of US senators Dennis De Concini and Alphonse d'Amato,
Odihr is particularly concerned with religious freedom issues.
(8) http://www.csce.gov
(9) These documents are accessible at http://parishioner.org/spain.html
(10) For information about this organisation see www.lisatrust.net
(11) See Los Angeles Times, 9 September 1999.
(12) See his writings on Internet http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/cspl
(13) Stephen A Kent, " The French and German versus American Debate over
'New Religions', Scientology, and Human Rights", Marburg Journal of
Religion, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 2001, accessible at
http://www.uni-marburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/mjr.
(14) See their site http://www.religionandpolicy.org
(15) Marburg Journal of
Religion, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 2001.
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