[casi] Who is behind Human Rights Watch?

["AS-ILAS" <AS-ILAS@DELETETHISgmx.de>]

Dear all,

With all caveats & submitted to your critical evaluation.

In case you dont see the (many) links, please go to the article URL:
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/HRW.html


Best

Andreas

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http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/HRW.html

Who is behind Human Rights Watch?

The backgrounds of the Board members at Human Rights Watch (HRW),
Europe-Central Asia section, with an indication of HRW funding sources. HRW
is founded on the idea that the values of the United States are universal,
and that the US must impose them on the rest of the world. Its 'holy war' in
support of American values is a mirror image of the anti-American crusade,
which struck the United States in September 2001. HRW influenced an
increasingly expansionist US foreign policy at the height of its influence,
during the wars in ex-Yugoslavia. But the mood has changed: the
neoconservatives who now influence policy, think the 'self-evident
superiority' of the United States is sufficient legitimation for its wars.


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No US citizen, and no US organisation, has any right to impose US values on
Europe. No concentration camps or mass graves can justify that imposition.
But Human Rights Watch finds it self-evident, that the United States may
legitimately restructure any society, where a mass grave is found. That is a
dangerous belief for a superpower: European colonialism shows how easily a
'civilising mission' produces its own atrocities. Sooner or later, more
people will die in crusades to prevent a new Holocaust, than died in the
Holocaust itself.
For a century there has been a strong interventionist belief in the United
States -- although it competes with widespread isolationism. In recent years
attitudes hardened: human-rights interventionism became a consensus among
the 'foreign policy elite' even before September 11. Human Rights Watch
itself is part of that elite, which includes government departments,
foundations, NGO's and academics. It is certainly not an association of
'concerned private citizens'. HRW board members include present and past
government employees, and overlapping directorates link it to the major
foreign policy lobbies in the US. Cynically summarised, Human Rights Watch
arose as a joint venture of George Soros and the State Department.

Probably for years to come, 'September 11' will guarantee an interventionist
mood among the foreign policy elite as a whole, not just the highly visible
neoconservatives, and not only with respect to Iraq. Paradoxically, it might
yet lead to an isolationist mood among the general public in the USA. After
the initial war of retaliation in Afghanistan, and a short Iraq war,
Americans might want to retreat inside a Fortress America. In any case, the
public response to the September 11 attacks, illustrates the almost absolute
identification of Americans with their own value system, and their inability
to accept that any ethical criticism can be valid. Without any embarrassment
(or public criticism), President Bush declared, that a war between good and
evil was in progress. Ironically, that mirrors the language of the Islamic
fundamentalists. It implies a Crusader mentality, rather than the usual
pseudo-neutrality of liberal-democratic political philosophy. Obviously a
society which believes in its own absolute goodness, and the absolute and
universal nature of its own values, is a fertile ground for interventionism.

HRW itself is an almost exclusively US-American organisation. Its version of
human rights is the Anglo-American tradition. It too is 'mono-ethical' -
recognising no legitimate ethical values outside its own. Attitudes to
redistribution of wealth illustrate the limited nature of human rights
ethics. In the Anglo-American human-rights tradition, seizure and
redistribution of the property of the rich is unethical. The human-rights
tradition recognises no inherent value in equality itself, and does not
recognise many other ethical values. The human-rights tradition is not, and
can never be, a substitute for a general morality.

I do not believe that ethical values are culturally specific. However, it is
true that one ethical tradition has become associated with the United
States. It has been absorbed in the national culture, it is symbolised by
the flag, and it is capable of generating intense national emotion. That
tradition has emphasis on rights, especially the universal rights set out in
the American Declaration of Independence and its Constitution. In a sense
the US was 'pre-programmed' as an interventionist power: universal human
rights, by their nature, tend to justify military intervention to protect
them. It is the neoconservative expansionists, rather than the
isolationists, who are closer to the spirit of the American Constitution.
Their global-conquest mentality is the logical consequence of the
universalist and inherently interventionist values in that Constitution.
Sooner or later they too will return to 'human rights violations' as a
legitimation for their proposed wars.


Why are human rights linked to interventionism?
Any modern society which wants to engage in a war of conquest would need an
ideology of justification. If nation state is clearly the victim of an
unprovoked attack by another state, then it can appeal to the idea of
national self-defence. However, such unprovoked attacks are rare, and
self-defence is inherently implausible for super-powers at war with small
countries. A super-power can get involved in hostilities all over the
planet, usually preceded by a complex chain of events. From its point of
view, an ideology is needed to justify these wars, preferably all of them.
Such an ideology should ideally meet some criteria. First, it should not be
a simple appeal to self-interest. Simply stating "We own the world!" or "We
are the master race, submit to us!" is not good propaganda. An appeal to
higher values is preferable.

Second, these higher values should be universal. This is why Islamism would
probably fail as an interventionist ideology: it is specific to Islam. A
geopolitical claim to intervene in support of Islamic values can be answered
simply by saying: "We are not Muslims here". The doctrine of universal human
rights is, by definition, universal and cross-cultural.

Third, the ideology should appeal to the population of the super-power. In
the United States, for historical reasons, rights doctrines have become part
of its national culture. It would be pointless for a US President to justify
a war by appealing to Islam, or royal legitimacy, because very few Americans
hold these beliefs. Most Americans believe in rights theories: very few know
that these theories are disputed.

Fourth, if possible, the ideology should appeal to the 'enemy' population.
It should ideally be part of their values. This is very difficult, but the
doctrine of human rights has itself succeeded in acquiring cross-cultural
legitimacy. This does not mean it is inherently right, but simply that no
non-western cultures have an answer to the doctrine. The government of
China, for instance, fully accepts the concept of human rights, and claims
to uphold them. So when it is accused of human rights violations, it can do
nothing but deny. It will be perpetually on the defensive. Even if the US
bombs Beijing in support of human rights, the Chinese regime would be
incapable of simply saying "Human rights are wrong". This effect could be
seen as the Holy Grail of war propaganda: if the enemy leadership is
incapable of presenting an alternative value system, it will ultimately
collapse. If the US was a devoutly Islamic country, what response would it
offer to an invasion of Islamist purists? If they came to destroy Las Vegas
for being "un-Islamic" what could the US Government do? They could offer
pathetic denials, no more - after all Las Vegas is clearly not Islamic.
Pathetic denials are all the Chinese government can offer to international
public opinion, when facing claims of human rights violations.

Human rights are not the only possible option, for a general ideology of
intervention. The 'civilising mission' which justified 19-th century
colonisation is another example.The point is that human rights can serve a
geopolitical purpose, which is unrelated to their moral content. It is not
possible to show that 'human rights' exist, and most moral philosophers
would not even try. It might not be a very important issue in ethics
anyway - but it is important in politics and geopolitics. And that's what
Human Rights Watch is about - not about ethics.

For more on human rights as ideology, see Why human rights are wrong.





If the United States was inhabited by pacifist relativists, then probably it
would not go to war so often. However, most US-Americans believe in the
universality and superiority of their ethical tradition. Interventionist
human-rights organisations are, like the neoconservative warmongers, a
logical result. Human Rights Watch is not formally an 'association for the
promotion of the American Way of Life' - but it tends to behave like one.

Human Rights Watch operates a number of discriminatory exclusions, to
maintain its character.

Firstly, it is linguistically racist. Although it publishes material in
foreign languages to promote its views, the organisation itself is
English-only.

Secondly, the organisation discriminates on grounds of nationality.
Non-Americans are systematically excluded at board level. (One 1974 Indian
immigrant was recently appointed, but presumably she is long since an
American citizen). HRW recruits its employees only in the United States, in
English. US readers of this site may be unfamiliar with multilingual
cross-border employment, but it does exist in Europe. HRW has the option of
going multilingual in this way - it would even facilitate its work - but it
remains organisationally Anglophone.

Third, the organisation discriminates on grounds of social class. Again, the
list makes clear that board members are recruited from the upper class, and
upper-middle class. Although I traced almost all the board members
professions, there are none from middle-income occupations - let alone any
poor illegal immigrants, or Somali peasants.
Human Rights Watch can therefore claim no ethical superiority. It is itself
involved in practices it condemns elsewhere, such as discrimination in
employment, and exclusion from social structures. It can also claim no
neutrality. An organisation which will not allow a Serb or Somali to be a
board member, can give no neutral assessment of a Serbian or Somali state.
It would probably be impossible for an all-American, English-only elite
organisation, to be anything else but paternalistic and arrogant.



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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Europe Committee, formerly 'Helsinki Steering Committee' or 'Helsinki
Watch'.
This is the Europe section of the Board of HRW, which is split into sections
approximately by continent. The section was established in 1978: in the late
1970's human rights became the main issue in Cold War propaganda. The Soviet
Union had made concessions at the Helsinki summit (1975), allowing human
rights monitoring. Western governments encouraged 'private' organisations to
use this concession - as a means of pressuring the Soviet Union. Human
Rights Watch began as a Cold War propaganda instrument.
The committee is now called the Europe and Central Asia Division. It is
still affiliated with the International Helsinki Federation for Human
Rights, which co-ordinates the "Helsinki committees". The first version of
this web page was compiled several years ago, and the committee's membership
has changed, as noted below. For the exact current composition of the HRW
Board and its subdivisions, check the web page HRW Board of Directors &
Advisory Committees.

Jonathan Fanton

No longer Chair of the Committee - promoted to Chair of the HRW Board. An
academic and foundation man. Former Vice President of the University of
Chicago, in 1982 appointed as President of the New School for Social
Research, now the New School University. He is active in building US
academic contacts with eastern Europe, directed at the new pro-western
elites, see the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies (TCDS) page.
Peter Osnos, now Chair
George Soros' publisher. He is Chief Executive of Public Affairs publishers.
Alice H. Henkin, Vice Chair
Director of the Justice and Society Program at the Aspen Institute, an elite
think-tank.
Note their report Honoring Human Rights: From Peace to Justice proposing
United Nations mission strategies later used in Kosovo.

Morton Abramowitz
A link to the US Foreign Policy establishment, one of several at HRW.
Abramowitz was U.S. Ambassador to Turkey (1989-91) and Assistant Secretary
of State for Intelligence and Research (1985-89), among other posts: see his
personal details at the Council on Foreign Relations, CFR, where he is a
Fellow. The CFR is the heart of interventionist US policy since 1921 (and
hated by the isolationist right).
He directed the CFR Balkan Economic Task Force, which published a report on
"Reconstructing the Balkans".

Barbara Finberg
A donor of HRW, see the list below. A retired vice president with the
Carnegie Corporation of New York, who donated $1 million to Stanford
University.
Felice Gaer
Human rights specialist at the American Jewish Committee and chair of the
Steering Committee for the 50th anniversary of the UN Human Rights
Declaration, see this biography:
"Ms.Gaer is Director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of
Human Rights. Author, speaker, and activist, she is a member of the Council
on Foreign Relations, the Board of Directors of the Andrei Sakharov
Foundation, a member of the International Human Rights Council at the Carter
Center, ...Vice President of the International League for Human Rights."
According to this JTA report, Gaer praised Madeleine Albright for her
"outstanding human rights record".
Felice Gaer was also a non-governmental member of the United States
delegation to a United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva,
where (according to the Voice of America) she denounced Sudan, saying the
the U.S. "cannot accept those who invoke Islam or other religions as
justification for atrocious human rights abuses." However, more interesting
is this speech at the Geneva meeting, where she suggested the UN should no
longer investigate prison rapes in the US: "we would urge the Special
Rapporteurs to focus their attention on countries where the situation is the
most dire and the abuses the most severe."

Michael Gellert
Vice Chairman of the Board at Fanton's New School for Social Research.
Investment manager and Trustee of the Carnegie Institute.
Gellert is a director of Premier Parks Inc., owner of the Six Flags and
Walibi theme park chains. Also a director of:
High Speed Access Corp.,
Devon Energy Corporation,
Humana Inc..


Paul Goble
Director of Communications and political commentator at Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, the Cold War propaganda transmitters that survived the
end of the Cold War. From their website
"Free Europe, Inc., was established in 1949 as non-profit, private
corporations to broadcast news and current affairs programs to Eastern
European countries behind the Iron Curtain. The Radio Liberty Committee,
Inc., was created two years later along the same lines to broadcast to the
nations inside the Soviet Union. Both were funded principally by the U.S.
Congress, through the Central Intelligence Agency, but they also received
some private donations as well. The two corporations were merged into a
single RFE/RL, Inc. in 1975."

It is still funded by the US Government, through Congressional
appropriation.

Bill Green
Is no longer on the committee. Former Republican member of Congress, a
trustee of the New School for Social Research (where Fanton is President),
with many other public and business posts: see the biography at the American
Assembly, an academic/political think-tank.
Mark von Hagen
New on the Committee. Director of the Harriman Institute - an International
Relations institute of Columbia University in New York. A Soviet and
post-Soviet specialist, with a long list of publications, see his profile at
the institute website.

Stanley Hoffman
A pro-interventionist theorist (of course that means US intervention, not a
Taliban invasion of the US). Professor at Harvard, see his biography. Note
that his colleagues include Daniel Goldhagen, who openly advocated
occupation of Serbia, to impose a US-style democracy: see A New Serbia.
Robert James
Also on the Board of Human Rights in China, another Soros-funded
organisation.
Kati Marton
New on the Committee. President of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
However this 'protection' did not extend to journalists killed by NATO
bombing of the Belgrade TV studios: she declined to condemn it. This may,
perhaps, have something to do with not embarrassing her husband: Richard C.
Holbrooke, former Special Envoy to Yugoslavia, and US Ambassador to the
United Nations. For an idea of the social world behind Human Rights Watch,
and a glimpse of of how US foreign policy is made, see this article about
their cocktail parties...
Dick Holbrooke, who's been U.N. ambassador since August, has a different
idea of what sort of people the suite should be filled with. Tonight, he's
hosting a dinner for General Wesley Clark, the granite-faced, soft-spoken
nato chief, who is leaving his post in April. .... Dressed in a formal
pin-striped suit, crisp white shirt, and red tie, Holbrooke still manages to
look comfortably rumpled -- his unruly hair is the secret to this effect --
as he banters his way around the room. Introducing Clark to billionaire
financier George Soros and Canadian press lord Conrad Black, Holbrooke
teasingly calls the general, whose formal title is supreme Allied commander
for Europe, "The Supreme,"...
Holbrooke's wife, the author Kati Marton, is equally adept at the art of the
cocktail party. Dressed in an elegant white pantsuit, she ushers guests into
the dining room, where four tables are set for a meal of crab cakes and
sautéed duck. Marton and Holbrooke, who have been giving twice-a-week
diplomatic dinners, have a carefully choreographed act. "I give the opening
toast, which is unorthodox in the U.N. village," she explains. "Richard and
I are making the point we're doing this together."
Ambassador A-List, from the January 3, 2000 issue of New York Magazine.

As 'journalist protector', Kati Marton lobbied for the Soros-funded B92
radio in Belgrade, which played a central role in the opposition under
Milosevic, at least until his last year in power. The campaign for B92 is
illustrative of the symbiotic relationship of interventionist lobbies and
interventionist governments. Marton was lobbying to protect an 'independent'
radio station which was already part-funded by the US government (National
Endowment for Democracy). Partly as a result, it got even more western
funding.

Immediately after the station was banned, Ivor Roberts, the British
ambassador, showed his support by visiting its offices on the fifth floor of
a run-down socialist-style building in downtown Belgrade. Carl Bildt, then
the international High Representative in charge of the civilian side of the
Dayton peace agreement in Bosnia, the US State Department, and Kati Marton
of the Committee to Protect Journalists also made protests on behalf of the
station.

Internet technology and international pressure proved to be effective
weapons against Milosevic. After two days he withdrew his edict forbidding
B-92 to broadcast. It seems likely that he was convinced that lifting the
ban would win Western praise and deflect international attention from his
electoral fraud. Immediately afterward, B-92 was able - through funds
provided equally by the BBC, the British Foreign Office, USAID, the European
Union, and George Soros's Open Society Foundation-to gain access to a
satellite that linked twenty-eight independent local radio stations,
covering 70 percent of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which is now made
up of Serbia and Montenegro.
1997 article from the New York Review of Books

A detail: Kati Marton was also a member of the Honorary Committee of the
Civil Society Vision Award Dinner - Tribute to Madeleine K. Albright by the
American Friends of the Czech Republic. No, I don't invent these committees.
In fact, they are part of a tradition of immigrant politics in the United
States, where exile communities lobby for the 'liberation' of their
homeland, by US intervention. George Soros himself is the personification of
this style of politics. In this case, the 'liberation' of former
Czechoslovakia has been achieved, so it is a form of victory celebration.


Prema Mathai-Davis
The token non-westerner, an Indian immigrant. She is, however, also CEO of
the YWCA (Young Womens Christian Association), which is as American as can
be.
Jack Matlock
Is no longer on the committee. US Ambassador to the Soviet Union during its
collapse, 1987-1991. Author of Autopsy On An Empire: The American
Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Random House,
1995).
Member of the large Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council. The Atlantic
Council is more than a pro-NATO fan club: it supports an expansionist US
foreign policy in general. Note their recent paper (in pdf format) Beyond
Kosovo, a redesign of the Balkans within the framework of the proposed
Stability Pact.

The Atlantic Council list of sponsors is a delight for corporate-conspiracy
theorists. Yes, it is all paid for by the Rockefeller foundation, the Soros
foundation, the Nuclear Energy Institute, Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, Exxon,
British Nuclear Fuels, the US Army and the European Union.

Conspiracy theorists will also be delighted to see that Matlock attended the
1996 Bilderberg Conference.


Herbert Okun
Career diplomat, former Special Advisor on Yugoslavia to Secretary of State
Cyrus Vance, Deputy Co-Chairman of the International Conference on the
former Yugoslavia. Member of the Board of the Lawyers Alliance for World
Security (LAWS) and its affiliate the Committee for National Security (CNS)
which gives this biography:
Ambassador Herbert Okun is the U.S. member and Vice-President of the
International Narcotics Control Board, and Visiting Lecturer on
International Law at Yale Law School. Previously, he was the Deputy Chairman
on the U.S. delegation at the SALT II negotiations and led the U.S.
delegation in the trilateral U.S.-U.K.-USSR Talks on the CTBT. From 1991 to
1993 Ambassador Okun was Special Advisor on Yugoslavia to Secretary of State
Cyrus Vance, Personal Envoy of the U.N. Secretary General, and Deputy
Co-Chairman of the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia. He
also served as Deputy Permanent Representative of the United States to the
UN from 1985 to 1989 serving on the General Assembly, the Disarmament
Committee and the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Amb. Okun was
also U.S. Ambassador to the former German Democratic Republic.

He was from 1990-97 Executive Director of the Financial Services Volunteer
Corps, "a non-profit organization providing voluntary assistance to help
establish free-market financial systems in former communist countries", see
his biography at International Security Studies at Yale University, where he
is also a board member. This Corps is a de facto agency of USAID, see how it
is listed country-by-country in their report. Although it is not relevant to
Human Rights Watch, this curriculum vitae gives a good impression of the
kind of international elite created by such programs.

Okun is also a member emeritus of the board of the European Institute in
Washington, an Atlanticist lobby. It organises the European-American Policy
Forum, the European-American Congressional Forum, and the Transatlantic
Joint Security Policies Project. Okun is a special advisor to the Carnegie
Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict funded by the Carnegie Corporation.
(It links pro-western international elite figures advocating a formal
structure for control of states by the "international community").

Okun was a member of a Task Force (including Bianca Jagger and George Soros)
on war criminals: see their report . Although it also demands "UN Sanctions
Against States Harboring Indicted War Criminals" it is unlikely that the
Task Force members meant the man quoted at the start of their report,
President Clinton.

A curiosity: this human rights supporter is accused of an attempt to destroy
the right to free speech, in his post at the International Narcotics Control
Board: see A Duty to Censor: U.N. Officials Want to Crack Down on Drug War
Protesters in the libertarian Reason Magazine.


Jane Olson
A member of the Executive Committee of HRW Southern California, and until
2000 its co-chair, see this biography. One of the few who are simply human
rights activists, although her views are clearly 100% acceptable to the US
Government. She was appointed a member of the U.S. delegation to the 1991
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in Moscow. The
biography vaguely notes that she "...served on many delegations to the
former USSR and Yugoslavia".
Again note, that US citizens consider it normal to travel to Europe, to
decide on Europe's 'Security and Cooperation'. However, there is absolutely
no equivalent "Conference on North American Security and Cooperation", where
Europeans arrive, to tell Americans what to do.

Olson is also a member of the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, one
of many small globalist groups, advocating peace and some vague form of
world government. So long as they just sell sunflower seeds at $2.50 a
packet they are harmless, but as a HRW Board member Olson also lobbies for
US military intervention - a less innocent way to achieve 'peace'.


Barnett Rubin
Academic and Soros-institutes advisor. Director of the "Center for
Preventive Action" at the Council on Foreign Relations.The center is funded
by the US Government through USIP, and by the Carnegie Corporation as part
of their program Preventing Deadly Conflict. "Preventive Action" means
intervention.
He is a member of the centers South Balkans Working Group, and edited a 1996
Council on Foreign Relations study Towards Comprehensive Peace in Southeast
Europe: Conflict Prevention in the South Balkans. Rubin is an Afghanistan
specialist, also on the Board of the Asia division of HRW. He authored and
edited several works on Afghanistan. Rubin apparently had a curious attitude
to the Taliban, he saw them as a bulwark against Islamic radicalism. No
doubt he changed his attitude after 11 September 2001. See this letter to
NPR, entitled Afghanistan Whitewash:
While the Lyden-Rubin conversation made no mention of US support for the
Taliban, they referred several times to US "pressure" on the Taliban to now
respect human rights. This is a total white wash which distorts the
historical record beyond recognition.

Rubin is on the Advisory Board of the Soros Foundation Central Eurasia
Project. He is an advisor of the Forced Migration Project of Soros' Open
Society Institute, and he is also on the Board of the Soros Humanitarian
Fund for Tajikistan. Perhaps most interesting is that the U.S. Institute of
Peace (a de facto government agency) gave him a grant to research "formation
of a new state system in Central Eurasia".
Barnett Rubin articles on Central Asia

This may be repetitive, but note once again that there are absolutely no
Foundations or Institutes in Central Asia, which pay people to design "new
state systems" in North America. For people like Rubin "human rights" mean
simply that the US designs the world. See this article at the Soros Central
Asia site, The Political Economy of War and Peace in Afghanistan, advocating
a de facto colonial government in Afghanistan financed by oil revenues.
(Although they might prefer to forget this now, western foreign policy
circles did consider recognising the Taliban on this basis. In fact a
western-financed government in Afghanistan is even more likely now - but run
by the Taliban's enemies. Presumably their victory will be marked by the
opening of a Soros Foundation office in Kabul).

Rubin is also a member of the US State Department Advisory Committee on
Religious Freedom Abroad. The Final Report of this Committee also sums up
what the United States can do, when it finds religious freedom has been
infringed. The list begins at "friendly, persuasive: open an embassy" and
ends with "act of war".

Rubin was also involved in the 1997 New York meeting, where the United
States attempted to create a unified Yugoslav opposition, with among others
Vuk Draskovic. The effort failed at the time: the opposition never united
until Milosevic fell.


Leon Sigal
NOTE: I can find no website matching this info on "Leon Sigal" to HRW. I
assume it is the same person, although I do not understand why an expert on
Asian issues is on the board for the European division of HRW.
Consultant to the Social Science Research Council, member of the Board of
Advisors at Globalbeat Syndicate, part of the New York University Dept of
Journalism. See their article on Lessons From The War In Kosovo.

>From Globalbeat:
He is a former member of the Editorial Board of The New York Times, where he
wrote frequently on nuclear issues, and is the author of many books and
articles on both international security and media issues.

Sigal authored Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea
(Princeton University Press 1998). He is a Project member of the Committee
on Nuclear Policy.


Malcolm Smith
No online information available.
George Soros
In some ways the 'Osama bin Laden' of the human rights movement - a rich man
using his wealth, to spread his values across the world. From the Public
Affairs site, here is the biography of George Soros, financier of HRW and of
numerous organisations in eastern Europe with pro-American, pro-market
policies.
George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930. In 1947 he emigrated to
England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics. While a
student in London, Mr. Soros became familiar with the work of the
philosopher Karl Popper, who had a profound influence on his thinking and
later on his philanthropic activities. In 1956 he moved to the United
States, where he began to accumulate a large fortune through an
international investment fund he founded and managed.

Mr. Soros currently serves as chairman of Soros Fund Management L.L.C., a
private investment management firm that serves as principal investment
advisor to the Quantum Group of Funds. The Quantum Fund N.V., the oldest and
largest fund within the Quantum Group, is generally recognized as having the
best performance record of any investment fund in the world in its
twenty-nine-year history.

Mr. Soros established his first foundation, the Open Society Fund, in New
York in 1979 and his first Eastern European foundation in Hungary in 1984.
He now funds a network of foundations that operate in thirty-one countries
throughout Central and Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union, as well
as southern Africa, Haiti, Guatemala, Mongolia and the United States. These
foundations are dedicated to building and maintaining the infrastructure and
institutions of an open society. Mr. Soros has also founded other major
institutions, such as the Central European University and the International
Science Foundation. In 1994, the foundations in the network spent a total of
approximately $300 million; in 1995, $350 million; in 1996, $362 million;
and in 1997, $428 million. Giving for 1998 is expected to be maintained at
that level.

In addition to many articles on the political and economic changes in
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Mr. Soros is the author of The
Alchemy of Finance, Opening the Soviet System, Underwriting Democracy, and
Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve.

Mr. Soros has received honorary doctoral degrees from the New School for
Social Research, the University of Oxford, the Budapest University of
Economics, and Yale University. In 1995, the University of Bologna awarded
Mr. Soros its highest honor, the Laurea Honoris Causa, in recognition of his
efforts to promote open societies throughout the world.

Soros Foundations Network

Open Society Institute Staff Directory

Privatization Project

Open Society Institute Budapest


Donald J. Sutherland
Not the actor. Also on the advisory board of the World Policy Institute.
Ruti Teitel
Professor of Constitutional Law at the New York Law School, see his
biography. In the last few years he has specialised in the Constitutions of
eastern European countries, and advised on the new Ukrainian constitution.
William D. Zabel
George Soros legal advisor, on foundation and charity law. A estate and
family financial lawyer for the rich at Schulte, Roth, and Zabel. His
biography lists his involvement with these Soros Foundations: "Newly
Independent States and the Baltic Republics, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and
Central European University and Open Society Fund". See this biographical
article originally from the National Law Journal:
When fate knocks, rich ring for Zabel
He is a trustee of Fanton's New School of Social Research, and member of the
Advisory Board of the World Policy Institute at the New School.

Zabel is a director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. The Lawyers
Committee for Human Rights is one of the partners in the "Apparel Industry
Partnership", a group set up by the Clinton administration and the US
clothing and footwear industries to defuse criticism of conditions in their
factories. The (not particularly radical) US trade union federation refuses
to co-operate with it.

Zabel is also on the Board of Doctors of the World, the USA branch of
Médecins du Monde, founded by Bernard Kouchner in 1980. Kouchner is now the
UN Representative ( the "governor") in Kosovo. Despite the name, Médecins du
Monde is a purely western organisation, see the affiliate list.


Warren Zimmermann
US Ambassador to Yugoslavia during its break-up, author of Origins of
Catastrophe: Yugoslavia and Its Destroyers. A Cold-War career diplomat, long
active in US human rights campaigns against eastern Europe. See this site
for an extreme pro-Bosniac assessment of his book by Branka Magas, alleging
he appeased Milosevic: "In the event, by pursuing Yugoslavia's unity rather
than supporting Slovenia and Croatia in their demands for either the
country's confederal transformation or its peaceful dissolution, the United
States helped ensure its violent break-up". (I think it is logically
consistent with US values and interests, that the US supported one policy
around 1990 and another in Kosovo. The real problem is that so many people
in Europe expect the US to design their states and write their
Constitutions. It is because of this attitude, that people like Zimmermann,
and organisations like HRW, can flourish) Zimmermann is now a professor of
Diplomacy at Columbia University. If you think the "amoral diplomat" is a
stereotype, look at his Contemporary Diplomacy course. This is his
assignment for the young future diplomats:
Imagine that you are a member of Secretary Albright's Policy Planning Staff.
She has asked you to write a strategy paper for one of the following
diplomatic challenges:

--Dealing with NATO expansion and with the countries affected;

--Crafting a more energetic and assertive US approach to the Israeli-PLO
deadlock;

--Raising the American profile in sub-Saharan Africa;

--Developing a US initiative to improve relations with Cuba;

--Forging an American approach to Central Asia and its energy wealth;

--Making better use of the UN and other multilateral organizations like
OSCE;

--Weighing the relative priorities between pursuing human rights

and keeping open lucrative economic opportunities;

--Increasing interest in, and support for, US foreign policy among the
American people.

With Barnett Rubin, Zimmermann is a member of the Advisory Board of the
Forced Migration Project at Soros Open Society Institute.

With Felice Gaer, Zimmermann is also on the Board of the quasi-commercial
International Dispute Resolution Associates. (Peacemaking has become big
business, but IDR is also funded by the US Government through the USIP).

He is a Trustee of the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs


Also new on the Committee (from the 2001 list) are:

Fredrica Friedman
Karl Meyer
Joel Motley
Colette Shulman
Adele Sweet
Mark Walton



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HRW Council
The Human Rights Watch 'Council' is primarily a fund-raising group. However,
its members no doubt expect some influence on HRW policy, for their $5 000
minimum donation. The Council describes itself as "...an international
membership organization that seeks to increase awareness of human rights
issues and support for Human Rights Watch."
The interesting thing about the Council is that it shows how much HRW is not
international. It is Anglo-American, to the point of caricature. The Council
is sub-divided onto four 'regional committees'. You might expect a division
by continents (the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia-Pacific). But instead
the 'regions' of the HRW global community are New York, Northern California,
Southern California, and London. There is also a 'Committee At-Large' but it
does not appear to organise any activities.

The Council members are not publicly listed, but its regional limitations
are clear. Although Human Rights Watch claims to act in the name of
universal values, it is an organisation with a narrow social and
geographical base. If HRW Council members were truly concerned about the
welfare of Africans, Tibetans or eastern Europeans, then they would at least
offer them an equal chance to influence the organisation. Instead,
geographical location and the high cost restrict Council Membership to the
US and British upper-middle-class.




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HRW Donors
Taken from an older version of the HRW website, this 1995 list is apparently
the latest available online. HRW is not legally obliged to disclose who
donates money. About half its funds come from foundations, and half from
individual donors.
In its latest financial statement, HRW claims that it "accepts no government
funds, directly or indirectly." However, that is not true with respect to
the 1995 list. The Dutch Novib is a government-funded aid organisation.
Oxfam also gets funds from the British government, and the European Union,
see their annual report. Possibly they are still contributing, but Human
Rights Watch is apparently not prepared to disclose present sources of
funding.


DONORS OF $100,000 OR MORE
Dorothy and Lewis Cullman
The Aaron Diamond Foundation
Irene Diamond
The Ford Foundation
The Lillian Hellman & Dashiell Hammett Fund
Estate of Anne Johnson
The J. M. Kaplan Fund
The Fanny and Leo Koerner Charitable Trust
The John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
The John Merck Fund
The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation
Novib, The Dutch Organization for Development Corporation,
The Overbrook Foundation
Oxfam
Donald Pels
The Ruben and Elisabeth Rausing Trust
The Rockefeller Foundation
Marion and Herbert Sandler, The Sandler Family Supporting Foundation
Susan and George Soros
Shelby White and Leon Levy


DONORS OF $25,000 - $99,999

The Arca Foundation
Helen and Robert Bernstein
Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Bronfman, Jr.
Nikki and David Brown
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Compton Foundation, Inc.
Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Davis
The Dr. Seuss Foundation
Fiona and Stanley Druckenmiller
Jack Edelman
Epstein Philanthropies
Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de L'Homme
Barbara Finberg
General Service Foundation
Abby Gilmore and Arthur Freierman
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund
Katherine Graham, The Washington Post Company
Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation
Hudson News
Independence Foundation
The Isenberg Family Charitable Trust
The Henry M. Jackson Foundation
Robert and Ardis James
Jesuit Refugee Service
Nancy and Jerome Kohlberg
Lyn and Norman Lear
Joshua Mailman
Medico International
Moriah Fund, Inc.
Ruth Mott Fund
Kathleen Peratis and Richard Frank
Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation
Ploughshares Fund
Public Welfare Foundation, Inc.
Anita and Gordon Roddick
Edna and Richard Salomon
Lorraine and Sid Sheinberg
Margaret R. Spanel
Time Warner Inc.
U.S. Jesuit Conference
Warner Brothers, Inc.
Edie and Lew Wasserman
Maureen White and Steven Rattner
Malcolm Wiener and Carolyn Seely Wiener
The Winston Foundation for World Peace




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INDEX


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