Robroy wrote:
4/12/2005
Korea Times claims Moon has 1,000 groups (!) that lack transparency
Found here
...NGO Watch, a U.S. based NGO [non-governmental organization] in
itself, has cited more than 160 NGOs for their lack of transparency
and
suspected misallocation of funds, and has dozens more under
investigation.
Of wide historical note in Korea are the Reverend Moon Sun-myung's
pseudo-religious political organizations, most well known of which
are
the Unification Church and the Women's Federation for World Peace
International.
Having been in operation since the 1950s, Moon's non-profit
organizations, which now total 1,000, have been little more than a
front for transferring funds through a transcontinental business
empire
with links to North Korea and Latin American conservative militia
groups.
``In 1975, the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation, one of the
main
Moon-connected non-profits, lost its tax-exempt status when a New
York
State audit found that only 2.1 percent of the $1.2 million raised by
the organization's children's relief fund was spent for designated
purposes,'' reported Harold Paine and Birgit Gratzer in ``Reverend
Moon and the United Nations: A Challenge for the NGO community.''
Many of Moon's estimated 180,000 supporters might be astounded to
learn just where their children's relief donations and others like it
went.
A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document shows that Moon
transferred
a $3 million ``birthday present'' to Kim Jong-il in 1994 as well as
having negotiated a business deal with Kim Il-sung years before for
the
construction of a ``holy land'' at the site of Moon's birthplace
in North Korea. In exchange, the report said Kim Il-Sung was paid
``tens of millions of dollars.''
U.S. Congressional reports have likewise stated that Moon has used
his
NGOs to grasp power in the American political system, which include
attempts at controlling banks, suspected espionage in conjunction
with
the Korean CIA and the purchasing of Congressman, which came to be
known as ``Koreagate.''
Moon currently owns the Washington Times newspaper, a circulative
rightwing daily in the U.S. capital that vehemently attacks the left
with ridiculous claims while bolstering Republican political
candidates, most notably George Bush, Sr.
The paper, meanwhile, runs at a loss of $50-$100 million a year.
Moon himself has been arrested six times: three times in North Korea,
twice in South Korea and once in the U.S. on charges of tax evasion.
Yet every time U.S. investigators have tried to indict Moon's NGOs on
more punitive charges they've been held back: ``When challenged, the
Moon organization has invoked freedom of religion to shield its
financial irregularities from oversight and scrutiny,'' wrote Paine
and Gratzer.
Moon's organizations have come to exemplify the major critique facing
NGOs today: the need for transparency and accountability.
Posted by Moon nemesis, John Gorenfeld
.
