International Crisis Group

According to Jan Oberg:

A visit to Crisis Group's website reveals that 40% of its funds come from governments:

Agence Intergouvernementale de la francophonie, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Holland, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Taiwan, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and the US. Isn't it a bit hard to believe that those who pay the piper would continue to do so, if reports were critical of government policies - Western governments and their conflict "management" in particular?

ICG is also supported by various foundations (covering 43%) - Rockefeller, Ford, MacArthur, US Institute for Peace (established by Ronald Reagan), Carnegie, Sarlo Jewish Community Endowment Fund, Hewlett, etc. and private sector donors (16%).

In short, major mainstream American policy-oriented foundations, none of which are known for spending just a fraction of their millions of dollars on grants that could result in building a knowledge base about, say, peace by peaceful means, non-violence and reconciliation. Neither have they promoted studies of why violent conflict-management and so-called humanitarian interventions - e.g. Kosovo - have failed so miserably since the end of the Cold War - let alone promoted criticism of the only superpower's reckless militarist, unilateralist policies these years.

But let's imagine the ideal world in which, year by year, more and more government funds would come with no strings attached whatsoever. Are non-governmental people leading ICG?

No, they are not. Among its board members we find Gareth Evans President & CEO, Former Foreign Minister of Australia and Lord Patten of Barnes, former European Commissioner for External Relations, Co-Chairman. Two pro-Kosovo-Albanian Americans, Morton Abramowitz, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Stephen Solarz, former U.S. Congressman. And George Soros. Among other names that catch the "independent, non-governmental" eye you find: ambassador Kenneth Adelman (US), Wesley Clark (former NATO-commander who lead the destruction of Yugoslavia in 1999) (US), Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor to the President, Ruth Dreifuss, former President, Switzerland, Leslie H. Gelb, former President of Council on Foreign Relations, U.S.

Among other former-governmentals: Bronislaw Geremek, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Poland, Lena Hjelm-Wall?n, former Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister, Sweden, James C.F. Huang, Deputy Secretary General to the President, Taiwan, Fidel V. Ramos, former President of the Philippines, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, former Secretary General of NATO; former Defence Secretary, UK, Salim A. Salim, former Prime Minister of Tanzania and former Secretary General of the Organisation of African Unity, P?r Stenback, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Finland, Thorvald Stoltenberg, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norway, Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico; Martti Ahtisaari, former President, Finland, George J. Mitchell, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Denmark, and Mark Eyskens, former Prime Minister of Belgium.

In all fairness, there are also some business people, a novelist and a professor. But one can't help being struck by a) the overwhelming presence of (former) politicians and diplomats, b) the virtual absence of people from academia with professional training in field conflict and peace work, and c) the degree of overlap between the governments that support the ICG and the governments these board member once served.

The Washington office of the Crisis Group consists of only Americans who - no exception - have a background in the US government - Peace Corps, State Department, the National Security Council, USAID. In a couple of cases Bachelor and Master degrees are stated.

If Crisis Group was really non-governmental - rather than so clearly near-governmental - it would work with civil society and promote early warning, conflict-prevention and policy-proposals from below, in partnership with local groups in conflict regions. It doesn't even try, it has an exclusivist, elite-policy of change, expressed in this manner in its Annual Report:

"Much of Crisis Group's most successful advocacy is done behind closed doors. Our major advocacy offices, in Brussels, Washington DC and New York [notice the choice among 191 UN members, JO] continued to ensure Crisis Group had the access and influence at the highest levels of the U.S. and European governments, the UN, EU and NATO; our Moscow office improved our access to Russian decision-makers; and our London office continued to strengthen Crisis Group's high profile and influence in the UK. All Crisis Group offices, both advocacy and field, receive a regular flow of senior political and official visitors."

Elsewhere it is stated in these self-flattering terms, "Crisis Group today - with its 110 full-time staff spread across some 25 locations on five continents, working simultaneously on around 50 areas of actual and potential conflict, and with an annual operating budget of nearly $12 million - is universally regarded not only as a serious player in the policy debate on just about every major conflict prevention and resolution issue, but as probably now the world's leading independent, non-government source of information, analysis and advice to governments and international organisations on conflict issues."

Closed doors, close interaction with elites who have all the formal and informal connections to power! What power? Most often the power of governments, such as the US, the UK - but also Australia, Japan and Denmark - that have repeatedly chosen to not do something about conflicts when they could but later chose to aggravate the conflicts by exporting their arms and simplifying images of "good" versus "evil" by bombing and occupying - power who does not even bother to learn the history, philosophy, vocabulary, methods or potentials of non-violence but, instead, increasingly promote violence as an integral part of their worldwide conflict "prevention" - power that is pretty isomorphic with the structure of ICG and its worldwide operation. Source: http://www.spinwatch.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=807

Spinwatch resources

The International Crisis Group: Who Pays the Piper? The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, April 15, 2005 by Jan Oberg, TFF director http://www.spinwatch.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=807