DECATUR, ILLINOIS – An investigation into U’SAgain clothes boxes by the Herald & Review reveals how the company is ‘misleading’ citizens. The newspaper points out that U’SAgain is a for-profit business owned by a Belize-based firm – Fairbank, Cooper, & Lyle Ltd. And both are part ‘of a massive international conglomerate with roots in Denmark, called Tvind, or Teachers Group.’
OUR DOSSIER ON THE TEACHERS GROUP
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Third in a series of articles about UFF Norway. Other articles.
From Vårt Land
Tuesday 26th October 2010
By Bjørn Olav Nordahl and Turid Sylte
Høyre (The Conservative Party of Norway) and KrF (The Norwegian Christian Democratic Party) are demanding that development minister Erik Solheim explains the aid allocation of 15 million Norwegian kroner to UFF in Angola.
Yesterday, Hans Olav Syversen (KrF) sent several questions to development minister Erik Solheim regarding U-landshjelp fra Folk til Folk (UFF). This means that Solheim has up to six working days to reply to his questions in parliament.
Syversen is demanding an answer to why the Norwegian embassy in Luanda has given 15 million kroner to a UFF project in the province of Bié in Angola, as reported by Vårt Land yesterday. Norad has consistently turned down all applications from UFF Norway for money to similar projects.
The best word to describe this allocation of money, is ‘baffling’, said Syversen, parliamentary deputy and member of the Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs.
Høyre: Outrageous.
Petter Gitmark, Høyre’s spokesperson on foreign aid, described the grant from the embassy as ”absolutely outrageous”. He said Norad had characterised UFF as a less than serious organisation, ”first and foremost a channel for money”, ”without popular support”, and that ”serious questions can be asked regarding the organisation’s sustainability.”
He stressed that this was a harsh verdict from Norad.
Gitmark emphasised the fact that Norad are Norway’s leading experts on foreign aid, and that only political decisions range above Norad’s judgement calls. Gitmark said that this was something the embassies should consider.
“There may be differences between UFF Norway and UFF Angola, but I still think this matter should have been presented to Norad,” said Gitmark.
As far as Gitmark is concerned, this matter is another example showing that allocations (of money) from Norwegian embassies abroad must be subject to closer scrutiny. He stressed that 15 million kroner is a lot of money.
“This is the responsibility of Erik Solheim. He has to sort this out, and I will expect him to do so. To begin with, he should start gathering information,” Gitmark said.
Must be careful
Syversen added that all the unrest that has followed Tvind and UFF made it particularly necessary to be careful and to have a well thought-out set of standards.
He reiterated that the problems related to UFF and Tvind are not new problems, and that the embassy cannot hide behind lack of information. The projects in Angola do not receive any support from the Danish Agency for Development Cooperation, Danida.
“I assume the Danes feel that there is little support going to the real work here,” Syversen said.
Frp’s spokesperson on foreign aid, Peter N. Myhre, said the allocation of 15 million krone to UFF’s sister organisation in Angola seemed untidy.
“It seems to me that the one hand does not know what the other one is doing”, he told Vårt Land.
Disagreeing.
The assistant Director of Norad’s Civil Sociaty Department, Gunvor Skancke, said he appreciated that this allocation can seem confusing.
“You will need to speak to the embassy to find out why we are not on the same page here. We have done thourough evaluations, and have consistently turned down any applications”, Skancke told Vårt Land.
“Our experience with ADPP Angola has been a very positive one. We are satisfied that the organisation has delivered on the projects they were given support for”, said Alida Endresen, minister councellor at the Norwegian embassy in Angola.
“THE EVALUATION IS WORTHLESS”
Peter Gitmark (Norwegian Conservative Party) said it was poor judgment to hire Eva Marion Johannessen to do the mid-term evaluation of the Angolan project that received 15 million kroner in aid.
Bad judgment.
As Vårt Land reported yesterday, Johannessen had spoken out against critics of UFF in a newspaper article. When she sent her report to Norad, she said that she had “again seen evidence that ADPP (UFF’s sister organization in Angola) does act!”
“It is extremely poor judgment to use people with these types of connections. This report is worthless”, Gitmark said. He called on development minister Erik Solheim to see this side of the ADPP Angola support as well.
“It sounds like there is a conflict of interest here. There are clear guidelines in the Administrative Law. It states, amongst other things that, “should there be other reasons why your impartiality can be called into question, an assessment into ones impartiality should be performed.” The Foreign Office and the Embassies should practice this as well”, said Peter N. Myhre.
Hans Olav Syversen (Christian Democrat) was also critical: “I do not find it reassuring that someone so involved with UFF is given the job of vouching for said organization to the government. A reference you have written yourself is, shall I say, less than valuable”.
Do you have any information about Humana or the Teachers Group? Please tell us.
Last updated: 16th November 2010
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Second in a series of articles about UFF Norway and the Teachers Group. Other articles.
From Vårt Land
Monday 25th October 2010
By Bjørn Olav Nordahl and Turid Sylte
■ UFF’s affiliate organisation in Angola has been allocated over $4.3 million in aid in recent years. ■ In Norway, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) has consistently rejected UFF’s applications. ■ Currently, no one can explain why UFF in Angola has sent portions of development funds on to Switzerland, as is common practice in the organisation.
FIRST AND FOREMOST A MONEY CHANNEL
20th July 2005: The Norwegian ambassador in Angola Arild Oyen lifts the pen and signs the contract. The official’s signature ensures ADPP-Angola $2.6 million in aid over the next four years. The money will be used for a teacher’s training school in the province of Bié. ADPP in Angola is the equivalent to UFF in Norway, and ADPP is a member of the umbrella organization FAIHPP in Switzerland, just like its Norwegian counterpart UFF. The money allocated in Angola comes directly from the Norwegian Embassy in Luanda. The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) is not involved.
Differing viewpoints.
“You’ll have to talk to the Embassy in Luanda about this project,” says Jan-Petter Holtedahl, senior adviser
with Norad’s Department of Civil Society.
Holtedahl is one of those who know UFF-Norway best, as he has processed a number of applications from the Norwegian aid organization. Norad has denied every UFF-Norway application seeking support for its
development projects. Vårt Land has reviewed all available documents over the last ten years in which
UFF has asked for Norwegian aid funds. Time after time, Norad turned UFF down, most recently last year. Meanwhile, UFF affiliate ADPP-Angola received over $2.6 million in Norwegian aid for a project which on paper precisely resembles that which Norad had rejected in Norway, namely a teacher training school project.
“The only thing I can say is that UFF has received a thorough and proper review from Norad. We stand behind the decisions we have passed,” said Holtedahl. He declined to speculate about why UFF is treated differently at home than abroad.
“They stated in the application that UFF is primarily a monetary channel (…) One can question whether the
organization has the necessary administrative capacity to carry out a project, and what it contributes of value. There are also serious questions about this project’s sustainability, costs, etc.”
Such is the wording of the refusal letter Norad sent UFF on 19 December 2007. UFF had applied for nearly $1.3 million for another teacher training project in Guinea Bissau. This project is confusingly similar to what the Norwegian Embassy in Luanda is supporting with $2.6 million in the province of Bié in Angola. But then UFF in Norway gets a thumbs down from Holtedahl at Norad.
Holtedahl points out that the UFF lacks popular support in Norway, and that UFF is unable to provide a significant contribution to the projects other than money, which would come from Norad.
“Lacks justification”
“It should be added that UFF’s claims of popular support in Norway are very poorly reasoned. The claim that the organization’s clothing collections and two second-hand shops give half of Norway’s population the opportunity to help improve the lives of poor people in the South lacks justification,” writes Holtedahl. He concludes: “Such statements create the impression of a lack of seriousness, and in turn weakens the application’s credibility.”
Focused.
The rejection from Norad was appealed by the UFF, but the decision was not overturned. Vårt Land has examined all the available project applications by UFF in Norad’s database. The Guinea-Bissau application is only one of several that have been rejected by Norad in recent years. The only money that Norad has given to UFF is $8,500 in support of an art exhibition including art from Africa.
“At UFF, we focus on improving our people’s foundation and adding value to projects, which are the arguments Norad has used in its final rejection of said application and more recent applications,” states Rosa Fried, a spokesperson for UFF Norway.
Big Oil money.
The Norwegian Embassy in Luanda is not the only one who has supported UFF’s affiliate in Angola. The Norwegian oil company Statoil has since 1999 provided approximately $1.7 million to ADPP in Angola. As recently as this year, ADPP received $130,000 from Statoil, which has Angola as one of its focus areas abroad. As a result, Norwegian aid money/development funds amounting to at least $4.3 million has found its way to an organization that is closely related to the Tvind movement in Denmark. Several Tvind leaders are wanted by Danish police, charged with tax fraud and embezzlement.
Both UFF-Norway and ADPP-Angola are thus members of the umbrella organisation FAIHPP. FAIHPP is located in Switzerland and is registered in the Mercantile Register of Geneva. One of the requirements of FAIHPP membership is that organisations pay 6.5 percent of collected funds as a membership fee.
For example, UFF-Norway paid $121,000 to FAIHPP in fees during 2009. But so far, nobody at the Norwegian Embassy in Angola can confirm whether parts of the Norwegian development funds have been heading the same way.
“Regarding the 6.5 percent to the Humana Movement, I can not remember it ever being discussed with ADPP while the application was being reviewed. Neither do I see anything in the documentation to indicate this,” said Alida Endresen, Councilor of the Norwegian Embassy in Luanda.
Unresolved
“So you can not confirm whether parts of the $2.6 million ended up in Switzerland?”
“I have been in contact with Rikke Viholm, who is the leader of ADPP in Angola. She said that the payment of 6.5 percent to the Humana Movement is not automatic. Payments to the Humana-Movement should be in accordance with the benefits the Humana Movement provides to specific projects.”
“Both before and during the Angola project there were police raids, arrests and court trials involving Tvind, in addition to strong criticism from defectors. Can you elaborate on how the embassy could allocate over $2.6 million to ADPP, which has strong ties to Tvind?”
“As far as I know ADPP-Angola has not been reported or investigated for anything, financial defaults or otherwise. Nor has the Humana-Movement been convicted of anything, as far as I am aware. I see no reason to enter into a polemic about the Humana Movement, I abide to the existing rules that govern the management of the Embassy aid funds.”
Statoil’s head of information Bard Glad Jakobsen says of its humanitarian commitment in Angola: “We conduct regular visits to the projects and provide feedback after the visits. The contracts contain anti-corruption clauses and provisions ensuring that the projects operate in accordance with applicable legislation, international rules and well within the group’s own ethical requirements.”
Do you have any information about Humana or the Teachers Group? Please tell us.
Posted: 4th November 2010
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First in a series of articles in Vårt Land about UFF Norway and the Teachers Group. Other articles.
From Vårt Land
Saturday 23rd October 2010
By Bjørn Olav Nordahl and Turid Sylte
DRESS CODE
UFF collected used clothing worth more than 30 million Norwegian kroner [$5m] last year. Only ten [$1.7m] of these millions were earmarked for development assistance. They were then sent to Switzerland. Is it possible to crack the UFF dress code?
The white Mercedes van has passed Oppdal on the E6 road to Trondheim. The road is slippery and it’s dark. The date is 14th February this year and approaching midnight. Inside the car are two students at Den Reisende Høgskole (DRH, The Travelling Folk High School) at Hornsjø near Lillehammer. The driver is 29-year-old Valentina Danailova from Bulgaria. She has driven herself hard all the last week, spent most of her time on the road, behind the wheel of the 15 year old van. With her is Milan Konkol, a 20 year old Czech man. The vehicle they are in is a white Mercedes Sprinter with green number plates. It has significant corrosion, the load is not secured and the car has bad rear brakes.
On the E6 coming south from Trondheim is a Volvo truck, travelling at 73 kilometres per hour. One hundred and sixty metres before the 60-zone south of Ulsberg in Rennebu the driver slows to 65 kilometres per hour. Then he brakes suddenly. But it’s no use.
At 22.30 the police get a call from the man who drove the truck. He says the white van came over into his lane. The passenger side of the van hit the front of the truck. It is serious for Milan Konkol. He is declared dead the same evening. The driver, Valentina Danailova, is flown to the St. Olav Hospital in Trondheim by air ambulance. She is seriously injured, but is out of the hospital a few months later. The damaged van is towed away for technical investigation. It turns out it is full of used clothing. On the white bonnet is the logo “Humana People to People.” The sticker is almost unscathed.
Premium Municipalities
Seven months later, on 23rd September, 2010, 20 mayors, deputy mayors and leaders of municipal waste management companies are in a white tent at the Jernbanetorget (Rail Market) in Oslo. They are invited by UFF (U-landshjelp fra Folk til Folk) to a prize-giving on Humana People-to-People day. Humana is UFF’s sister organisation. Twenty eight municipalities are nominated for four prizes. UFF will give awards to the municipalities that collect the most clothing.
UFF has a cooperation agreement with 170 of Norway’s 430 municipalities. They are important partners because they allow UFF to put their bright green containers on the municipality’s recycling points and inform residents about the scheme. Municipalities cooperate with UFF in the belief that they contribute to aid in the Third World.
At the end of the tent is a Danish man, Jesper Pedersen, for many years the manager of UFF Norway. With coffee cup in hand and big posters in background, he says their values are “solidary humanism” and the idea is “to gather used clothing and shoes for the benefit of people in the south.” Posters around the tent declare slogans such as “Re-use creates development” and “Re-use of clothes makes sense.”
Before the award ceremony and lunch at 2 o’clock, the locals tour the UFF store “Underground”, in Main Street, a stone’s throw away. Mayor in Hareid Municipality, Hans Gisle Holstad, praises UFF and says he is impressed by the work they perform. “It’s great that the clothes we do not want, you can get someone to benefit who needs it in other countries,” he says. Others are not so sure, but they turn up because they have been promised a prize. “I did not know there was a competition, before we had this invitation,” said Christel Meyer, vice-mayor of Hamar. The deputy mayor of Ski has been told in advance that the municipality will win first prize. “We are also nominated for the top ten in Europe,” she says.
Comeback containers.
Just over 17 years ago it was a different tune, at least in Oslo. On 14th May 1993 the City Council decided to terminate all agreements with UFF for collection containers on municipal ground. It happened after many years of critical discussion of the Tvind movement and their work, that UFF has ties to, and Den Reisende Høgskole (the Travelling Folk High School) at Hornsjø. Defectors started the National Association against Tvind, and in January 1993 delivered a report to the City of Oslo. This led the City government to stop cooperation with UFF. We shall return to Tvind, a movement which has received a storm of criticism. But for now let’s just say that the Oslo municipality and UFF have found each other again.
In 2009 the municipality of Oslo divided places for clothing containers on their ground equally between UFF and Fretex, so that the two competitors have 61 containers each. But it is not only in Oslo that UFF is booming. The organisation now has 1,400 containers placed in Norway. More to come. “We’ll probably be able to double the number,” smiles Jesper Pedersen, with a strong Danish accent. “Now it’s awesome. Many municipalities are supporting us,” says his wife, Rosa Marielle Fried. She is a spokesperson for UFF Norway and smiles inside the worn, blue anorak from the 70′s she is wearing.
In the county of Vestfold UFF has taken over all the public locations for clothing containers in the nine municipalities that cooperate on waste through a company called Vesar. The reason is that according to Vesar, UFF does not ask for payment to collect the clothes, while Fretex [Salvation Army second hand in Norway] charges 300,000 kroner for the job. It emerged that Vesar then went out with a price request in spring 2009. There were 26 Fretex containers in the municipality of which UFF had 13. Now UFF has all 39, with the possibility of more.
Facing the audience in the tent, the UFF CEO emphasises that UFF is working continuously to get the most help for developing countries out of the organised clothing collection. He talks about low cost and routines. While Jesper Pedersen and Rosa Marielle Fried are addressing the municipalities, two tall, tanned men are standing in the background. Gert Olsen is the director of the Den Reisende Høgskole (The Travelling High School). Øyvind Wiström is a teacher at Vestfold University College. Both have been in UFF Norway since the late 70′s, and the now-graying gentlemen have had countless positions in the system. Wiström observes the press with a watchful eye.
“You always twist things. Now you must stop putting everything together. No, there is no connection to Tvind. These are different businesses. When will you get that point?” Wiström turns away. “No, no picture,” he says.
Tough landing in transit
She does not know that the police are waiting for her. Marlene Gunst is sitting on the flight from Mexico City to London. The fair-haired Danish woman with the light freckled face and eyes often hidden behind sunglasses, can for the time being enjoy the in-flight service, before swooping down to one of the world’s busiest airports. But at Heathrow the long-time financial manager in the Tvind system is stopped in transit control. Danish police have received tips from colleagues in Mexico about flight numbers and times. They know that Gunst will be in transit in London. The Danes contact English authorities. British police wave the Danish woman aside. She must wait, for a fax from Denmark. Marlene Gunst is clearly feeling uncomfortable. She has served in management for the worldwide Tvind network of schools and aid organizations, an environment that is also inextricably linked to Norway.
On 26th December 2009 the Danish newspapers go crazy, “Tvind leader arrested in London” and “The hunt is on!” Why so much fuss about a 50 year old Danish woman? And is there a connection to Norway? Let us go back a little in what has been a rather long story. First stop is in Grindsted, Denmark.
Tvind peaks
The small, sleepy Danish town has a dairy and potato sorting center, and a bakery in Vestergade. On the last Wednesday of April, 2001, the rural idyll is broken. At nine o’clock in the morning, a long line of marked and unmarked police cars blaze in. Fifty police officers have been asked to take part in the operation. Investigators have secured court orders to seize bank deposits, hard drives and documents. The force strikes at eight different addresses, white cars shuttle to and fro all day. When evening comes, the police have confiscated 70 computers and several cubic meters of documents, one person has been arrested and a warrant issued for another. This is not about drugs or alcohol smuggling. Instead it is about tax evasion, embezzlement and abuse of power in the school cooperation Tvind. The raid in Denmark is so far the culmination in a seven-year battle to get to the bottom of the Tvind system’s shady finances. After the 2001 police action, Tvind becomes a running story in the Danish media. Danish police will later serve charges against eight key people in a worldwide network, which has from the first been ruled by Mogens Amdi Petersen.
The short version is this: in 1965 Petersen is ousted from his job [as a teacher] at a primary school in Odense [Denmark] because of his long hair and complaints about his behaviour. After starting Denmark’s first hippie collective, he sets out on a long journey around the world. Home again, he has the idea of starting an alternative school system, one where students share the suffering of the world’s poor through direct experience: a “travelling college”. Amdi Petersen’s vision is revolutionary – to those close to him he declares that the civil society must be fought against, by using the bourgeois society – by robbing society’s money. Amdi Petersen’s charisma, persuasive appearance and new pedagogic ideas have an impact in Denmark; with the help of state grants, the ‘Travelling Schools’ and Tvind grow rapidly. It revolutionises the Danish school system. In 1975, Amdi and his colleagues buy a farm called Tvind, which means stream or ‘twofold’. Later Amdi Petersen establishes the Teachers Group. In the 1990s there are about 300 Teachers Group members. Most of these are in different positions around the world, in companies or organizations affiliated to Tvind. And they support Amdi Petersen’s thoughts and ideas by joining a community where they commit to follow three Cs: Common money, Common time and Common distribution.
The Teachers Group is the key
The spark that drove the Danish police to investigate Tvind was a Danish TV2 documentary broadcast in September 2000. In it, defectors from the Teachers Group described their experiences. The Teachers Group also has Norwegian members, and one of them was Carl Petter Nilsen. He was head of the clothes collection and sorting business in London. After 15 years, he resigned in 1996, but stayed in contact with the organisation until 2003.
“What irritated me more than anything, was the secrecy, the feeling that there was something they wouldn’t tell you,” Nilsson says when he meets Vårt Land over a cup of coffee and cookies.
In 2001, [the Danish newspaper] Jyllands-Posten revealed that Amdi Petersen was living in a luxury apartment on Fisher Island off Miami. It had been purchased for around 35 million kroner [$6m].
“I felt in a way betrayed then. I had worked hard and done my best,” Nilsen says. Like others in the Teachers Group he had to sign that he would follow the three Cs. “It means the community has control over your money and decides what to do,” said Nilsen. He calculates he contributed somewhere between three and four million kroner [$510,000-$680,000] to the Group’s common fund.
‘Cash Laundering Machine’
Dane Hans la Cour had already defected from the Teachers Group in 1990 and was one of the most important police witnesses. He died of illness last year. In the Danish TV2 documentary of 2000 he described the Tvind system as a “cash laundering machine”.
An important part of this was the Tvind Humanitarian Fund. It was founded in 1982 under the name “Fund for general purposes, etc.” There was no longer any use in putting money into a common ‘yellow bucket’ as the Teachers Group did in the beginning. In 1987 [the Danish] parliament passed a law tightening [charity] tax exemption so that it applied only to funds defined as having “a humanitarian purpose, promotion of research or the protection of the environment”. At a meeting shortly afterwards, the leader Mogens Amdi Petersen, came up with one of his “revelations,” Hans la Cour told the TV programme. The Teachers Group would close down the old fund and start a new one. It would be called “The Fund for Humanitarian Purposes, Promotion of Research and the Protection of the Environment” – an exact copy of the wording in the text.
“We lay down and laughed, the proposal was so good,” la Cour said.
Money from the fund would go to various projects. One of them was ‘Global Research’, in which la Cour was involved. However, according to la Cour, this was pure camouflage and a tax dodge. None of the projects were real. La Cour and some employees travelled in a ship and met local people in poor countries. They wrote down names and wrote an application for money from the fund on behalf of those they met. After that the “applicants” heard nothing.
La Cour also explained to police that several posts in the annual accounts were only cloaks of secrecy. TV equipment was listed as a cost, but had already been bought by the Teacher Group – it was not a real expense. Rent for the ship was just money that went from the Teacher Group back to the Teachers Group, he explained.
The Danish journalist and author Frede Farmand drove the journalistic investigation behind the TV2 documentary. He stresses that Tvind and UFF is about “corporate emptying,” and that the key to understanding the economic system is the Teachers Group.
“If you have UFF and Humana involved in a country, you can be sure that the people appointed to run both sides, both donor and recipient, are Teachers Group members,” Farmand said.
Farmand said that since the Teachers Group constantly closes companies and start new ones, and operates a large number of companies around the world, no one has a complete overview of how much really goes to foreign aid. His estimate is that the share is two to three percent.
‘The church, perhaps?’
On Tuesday of last week, Tomas Tuoma (25) is in the House of Second Hand in Pilestredet in Oslo, trying on a 1970s-style brown velvet jacket. The store is a second-hand clothes shop run by UFF. But when we ask Tomas if he knows who is behind the store, he replies: “It’s not the church, then? It usually is.”
Journalist Frede Farmand thinks it is vital that the public, who believe they are giving clothes to a good cause, get to know what they actually are supporting. Additionally, UFF and Humana in several countries receive aid money from the state. But Farmand considers the worst thing is the way people in the movement are treated.
“There is a large amount of abuse of people in this system, it grossly manipulates people and exploits them economically. It is scandalous.”
He stresses: “You can be sure that the way UFF operates in one country, they also do in other countries. This is an economic system.”
Dane Steen Thomsen defected from the movement in 1998. In a report to the Danish Ministry of Education, he said there was no easy way for someone who had been a member for a while to get out of the Teachers Group. Everybody has to sign documents and papers – even if they don’t know what’s in them. Several times he himself signed blank sheets of paper. The Group’s justification was that he would not have to worry about “stupid things” like houses and property. But when he decided to leave, he began to get scared. What papers did Tvind have that they could now use against him?
But it’s not just Dane Steen Thomsen who has their signature on important documents. There are some interesting tracks in Norway, too.
The decision is Lillehammer
In 1978, Den Reisende Høgskole (The Travelling High School) first saw the light of day. Actually, the name was originally Den Reisende Folkehøgskole (The Travelling Folk High School), but the name had to be changed. In 1983, the the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund (Lånekassen) and the [education?] ministry refused to approve the school as a ‘folk school’ [independent college eligible for government support] and ruled that the students would have to finance the school themselves. That same year the founders bought the Hornsjø Mountain Hotel and another school, near Lillehammer. Since then, both Ulandshjelp fra Folk til Folk (UFF) and Den Reisende Høgskole (The Travelling High School) have entered the Norwegian consciousness, with their collections of clothing and money. The school, whose students wander the streets selling postcards with pictures of children who need development assistance. UFF in the form of containers that accept used clothing. But what really hides behind postcards and containers?
Vårt Land has found the incorporation documents from the time the first branches of Tvind arrived in Norway. In addition, the newspaper has gone through a number of public documents relating to one particular institution: Stiftelsen Felleseie (The Foundation for the Common Good). It is in practice, the same people involved in this foundation who are behind the Travellers College at Hornsjø. The foundation also owns the premises where the school is located. The 30-year-old documents show particularly one thing. The Tvind finance manager, Marlene Gunst, is not just a remote figure in Mexico or at Heathrow, she has close ties to Norway.
On 30th December 1987, new laws for the Foundation were jointly adopted at an extraordinary general meeting. One of the signatories to the protocol was Marlene Gunst. The other signatures belong to people that over the years have walked back and forth between the trinity that constitutes the Norwegian branches of Tvind: UFF, Den Reisende Høgskole (the Travelling High School), and Stiftelsen Felleseie. But the Tvind financial manager who was eventually to become so notorious pops up not only in Lillehammer in 1987. Almost ten years later, on 13th March 1996, a mortgage bond with a nominal value of NOK 3,750,000 is registered with a magistrate in South Gudbrandsdal. Lender: ”The Selvejede Institution Fælleseje” in Ulfsborg in Denmark, the Danish headquarters of the Tvind movement. The borrower: “Stiftelsen Felleseie i Norge” – the common foundation in Norway. The person who signs on behalf of the borrower is Marlene Gunst, who also sits on the board of the Norwegian Foundation. On both sides, that is. She signs along with Øyvind Wiström, one of the driving forces behind the creation of UFF Norway and later principal of Den Reisende Høyskole (The Travelling High School). Yes, precisely, one of the two tanned men hovering in the background of Jernbanetorget in Oslo during the action day in September. UFF’s management in Norway has, like Wiström, over many years tried to deny that there is a link between the UFF, Den Reisende Høyskole college and the much-discussed Tvind system investigated by police.
Vart Land has obtained documents that show the links between the various institutions. The same people keep coming back as signatories, managers and board members. And money sloshes around the system. This flow of money is worth attention.
Old dream
Back on the Jernbarnetorget in Oslo, Øyvind Wiström is still angry that a link is being made between Tvind, Den Reisende Høgskole and UFF Norway. And he does not like to talk about Marlene Gunst. “You journalists lie about everything, you always get it wrong,” he says again.
“What about Marlene Gunst?”
“Marlene Gunst?”
“Yes, Marlene Gunst. We know that she has been absolutely central to the business in Lillehammer?”
“Hmm. OK. She is certainly a friend of ours.”
“Can we take a picture of you?”
“Absolutely not, I’m here as a private person. This is something I do in my spare time.”
In front of Wiström, people are hurrying homewards in the sharp afternoon sun. Many of them take a copy of the brochure offered by students from Den Reisende Høgskole in Hornsjø. The brochure describes the work of UFF. It shows pictures of happy children receiving assistance and education. In China, Guinea Bissau, India. On the back of the brochure is printed a large logo: Innsamlingskontrollen. [An official body that regulates charities in Norway.] UFF presents a number of figures. It says that Innsamlingskontrollen, an industry body for NGOs, has calculated UFF’s achievement rating as 99.5 percent. UFF also publicises [the rule] that every charity approved by Innsamlingskontrollen must give at least 65 percent of funds raised directly to the intended [charitable] purpose.
Let’s take a look at the numbers. Is it possible to send 99.5 percent of [charitable] funds raised directly to development projects without some loss along the way?
Two faces
The accounts UFF Norway has submitted to Innsamlingskontrollen indicate that the organisation allocated 12.2 million kroner [$2m] to development aid in 2009. At the same time the organisation’s extremely low overheads are listed as only half a million kroner [$85,000] in the accounts. In other words, very good.
But other accounts show a quite different picture. We will now make a small attempt to follow the flow of money in the UFF system. It is a demanding exercise.
UFF is actually split in two, Foreningen UFF Norge (Association UFF Norway) and Foreningen UFF Butikkene i Norge (Association UFF Shops in Norway). The organizational form Foreningen (“association”) means UFF has limited financial liability and only has a limited obligation to submit accounts and is not required to be as transparent. Accounts for 2009 show UFF Shops had revenues of 30.5 million kronen. The main revenues stem from collection and sales of used clothing. But when we look at spending [by UFF Shops], the picture is completely different from that in the other association, UFF Norway. Expenditure by UFF Shops shows that the association spent almost 18 million krone to acquire 30.5 million krone. That means that 59 percent of the revenue disappears on the road to becoming development assistance. When the UFF Shops drew up its accounts, it sent nearly 12 million krone to the other association, UFF Norway, as a gift. And since it is UFF Norway that reports to Innsamlingskontrollen, the result looks excellent. This association has almost no expenses.
2009 is not a special year. Accounts for UFF Shops for the past five years show the same picture. In 2008, revenue: 24.7 million, spending: 15.1 million. In other words, only 39 per cent of funds raised went to foreign aid. In 2007, the figure was 37 per cent, in 2006 it was as low as 35 percent and in 2005 scraped the bottom with only 30 percent.
Representative?
The question is whether the audience at the Jernbanetorget in Oslo are given a true picture of the economy in the UFF system, when students from Den Reisende Høgskole hand out the brochure stamped with the Innsamlingskontrollen logo. An achievement of 99.5 per cent looks like an excellent figure.
Let’s examine the numbers a bit more. For what is really the basis of that calculation of 99.5 percent? Revenue collected from the clothes, perhaps? Sorry. UFF’s largest source of income, clothes, has nothing to do with the sums at all. Instead, the funds it collects come in the form of hard cash. It is not a large sum, only a small drop in the UFF accounts. In 2009 UFF collected 256,236 krone from donation tins and from sponsors. And as UFF sends all this money directly to foreign aid, it is not so difficult to calculate the numbers quite accurately – in this case, it leads to an ‘achievement’ of nearly 100 per cent. But for the sake of clarity: 256,000 million krone accounted for just 0.85 percent of UFF sales in the shops in last year.
Many small streams
The money in UFF shops go two ways. One way is the budget inaccurately called “expenses”. The second stream is the 11.8 million krone [$2m] that in 2009 were transferred from stores to UFF Norway. Let us take the first stream to begin with.
When the two East European students at Den Reisende Høgskole (DRH) embarked on their ill-fated journey in the rusty, 15-year-old van in February this year, it was because of a signed business agreement between the DRH college and UFF Shops. This agreement means that students at Hornsjø are responsible for emptying all the UFF containers from the lake and north, a total of 450 containers. Although it is described as voluntary, in reality Valentina Danilova and Milan Konkol were working for UFF Shops. Accordingly, in 2009 UFF Shops paid 5.7 million krone [$975,000] to the Hornsjø school for the collections. But the money leaking out from UFF does not stop there. As we said, Den Reisende Høgskole is located in premises owned by the Stiftelsen Felleseie. So the college must pay rent. Every month DRH pays 120,000 krone [$20,000] to the Stiftelsen Felleseie, where Marlene Gunst has held a central position. In addition, teachers at Den Reisende Høgskole are members of the Teachers Group. The school’s chairman Gert Olsen refuses to say how much salary they pay into a common account every month.
The accounts for Felleseie show that they have maintained a balance of roughly zero for the past five years, while outgoings for the same period have stood at around five million kroner.
Let us turn back to the other cash flow, the nearly 12 million kroner that in 2009 went from the Association UFF Shops to the Association UFF Norway. In many applications that UFF has sent to Norad [The official Norwegian state foreign aid association] it makes it explicit that UFF Norway is a member of an umbrella organisation called The Federation for Associations Connected To The International Humana People To People Movement (FAIHPP). To belong, UFF Norway pays a membership fee of 6.5 percent of collected funds. FAIHPP is located in Switzerland and is registered in trade register in Geneva. UFFs spokesperson, Rosa Fried, confirms that in 2009 UFF Norway paid nearly 695,000 kroner [$119,000] in membership fees to FAIHPP. This organization has 36 member associations around the world.
“Through FAIHPP we have access to a wide range of services, advice and guidance on development and implementation of new and existing projects, “says Fried.
But it’s not just the membership fee that goes directly to Switzerland. In 2009 UFF Norway transferred most project funding to Geneva. In all, about 10.7 million kroner [$1.8m].
“When the member organizations in Europe often support the same projects, there are advantages in transferring the project funds collected from Europe through FAIHPP”, says Fried.
She argues that an auditor in Switzerland confirms that the annual funds are transferred in accordance with instructions from UFF Norway.
The big defeat
After the police raid on Grindsted and the disclosure of Mogens Amdi Petersen’s 35 million kroner [$6m] apartment in Miami in 2001, the Tvind story began to move fast. In January 2002 the Tvind leader was stopped by police during a stopover in Los Angeles. Amdi, as he is called in the Teachers Group, was in custody in the USA until he was extradited to Denmark in the autumn of 2002. In November 2002, Amdi and seven others in the Tvind inner circle were put on trial [in Denmark] – including Marlene Gunst, the lady with close ties to activities in Lillehammer.
Vårt Land has gone through the police report and court documents in connection with the Tvind case Denmark. The documents paint a picture of an ingenious system of company structures and bank accounts in large parts of the world, for example, in Miami, Malaysia, Tahiti, Jersey, Paris and Switzerland. Police believe the accused were guilty of embezzlement of 56 million kroner and tax fraud of 52 million kroner. They called for prison terms of between two and five years. Among those obliged to appear in court was Marlene Gunst. She was described as finance manager of the Tvind system. Police believed she should get three years. The main defendant, Mogens Amdi Petersen should receive a prison term of five years, police said.
Four years and 170 hearings after the opening of the trial, the first verdict was announced by the City Court in Ringkøbing. On 31st August 2006 Sten Byrne, who was a kind of finance director for the group up to December 1992, was sentenced to a one year suspended sentence. He was thus a free man after the verdict. The City Court did not agree with the prosecution’s claim that the eight jointly built a cover operation to claim tax refunds from the Danish authorities, and then spent the money as they wished. Sten Byrner admitted transferring 35 million kroner [$6m] from the “Fund for Humanitarian Purposes, Promotion of Research and the Protection of the Environment” as “payments for la uxury apartment on Fisher Island, a transfer contrary to the Statute of the Fund.” The court chose to believe that it was Byrner alone who acted without the permission of the Teachers Group, not that they all understood together that the money for the apartment would be taken from the Fund.
The verdict was a huge defeat for the police. The prosecution appealed, but before it could be served on the defendants, all except for Poul Jørgensen fled the country. Jørgensen had been Group spokesperson for several years and had taken over responsibility for finances following the ‘injustice’ against Sten Byrner. Jørgensen would now have to appear at a higher court.
Empty projects
So the court decided to press charges against Jørgensen himself, and postpone the cases against the seven others until they came back to Denmark. On 20th January 2009, Jørgensen was sentenced for aggravated tax fraud and embezzlement of money from Tvinds humanitarian fund, or contributing to this. The Vestre Landsret court drew the opposite conclusion from the City Court:
“Vestre Landsret rejects the explanation, that the disposition of funds on unfair terms purpose was a ‘special arrangement’ on Sten Byrner’s side, which took place without the knowledge of others in the Teachers Group.”
Vestre Landsret court emphasised that that what led to Jørgensens conviction, was the fact that he was part of a system made by the group. This would probably also have great weight in the cases against the other seven. The court noted that a group of people in the Teachers Group shared ‘a common understanding’ that they channelled funds from the Fund for projects which in reality were empty shells. So money was not used for the correct [charitable] purpose, and thus the Fund had no right to tax exemption.
One of the projects the police were interested in involved the Norwegian-registered company One World Channel, of which UFF’s Norway’s founder, Øyvind Wiström, was the general manager. On paper, the project applied for nine million Danish kroner [$1.5m] from the Tvind Fund. Wiström gave an explanation to police in the case. He said he did not create the budgets, the research hypotheses or the project applications, although the application bore his name. Vestre Landsret court pointed out that the Tvind inner circle deliberately created a system that was difficult to penetrate for Danish authorities partly because the money went through a trust in France, and by the widespread use of companies outside the Danish government’s sphere of influence.
Sten Byrner, Marlene Gunst, Amdi and the others are still wanted by the police. Danish authorities have been searching for them since 2006 in order to make them appear in front of a higher court. Only in one case, have the police got a glimpse of Tvind’s central leadership. It was when Marlene Gunst was stopped in London. And the clearly shaken chief finance officer had to sit at Heathrow and wait for the fax from Danish prosecutors to arrive and be read aloud. It said she had to attend the Court of Appeal in the country. After the indictment was served, the Tvind chief financial officer was eventually allowed leave London. No one has seen her since. But District Attorney Kirsten Dyrmark contacted Danish newspapers and told them the hunt for the other defendants would now be intensified.
“We are in contact with Mexican authorities, “she said.
Yes, what is this about Mexico ?
Desert Palace
The American journalist Michael Waterman remembers his grandfather. He is planning fishing trips along the coast of Mexico, just south of the border with California. He thinks of camping, shimmering sunsets in the desert. Waterman goes back to San Juan de Las Pulgas. He takes his wife, children and fishing rods in a SUV and shows them what a great place it was in his childhood kingdom.
“Sorry. You have no right to enter.”
The guard is polite but firm. The road down to the coast is completely closed. In the background, Waterman and his family can glimpse a huge complex of buildings reaching to the Mexican horizon. It is spring 2005.
“But we are just passing through, we won’t stop.”
Waterman manages to persuade the warden to let him take a drive through the area. But when they try to find the old house of family friend senor Morales, his jaw drops again. The house has disappeared, replaced by a luxury villa. Waterman peers through the window. The rooms are filled with top-of-the-range computers.
“Buenos Noches!”
Waterman’s friendly greeting is not reciprocated. Instead he gets an unequivocal message from a voice with a clear Danish accent: “Get out”.
Waterman tells the San Diego Reader newspaper of how in September 2009 he returned to Las Pulgas. This time he took a trip up to the main gate. Surveillance cameras and an electric gate. Mexican guards with binoculars and suspicious glances. He tries to talk to the guard, offers him a beer, is friendly. So the gatekeeper makes a call on his mobile phone. The message is simple.
“Get rid of the snoop!”
Waterman has found the Teachers Group’s new headquarters in Mexico.
Going to Mexico
Why has the Teachers Group settled in Mexico? Why has it built a palace costing ten million dollars, with swimming pool, squash court, cupolas, pergolas and the cathedral-like lines? Everything has been created on the drawing board by the famous architect Jan Utzon, who has also added apartment complexes, marble seats and terraces overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
“Denmark has no extradition treaty with Mexico,” said Tvind expert Frede Farmand laconically.
“It is a kind of conference center. In many ways you can call it the Teachers Group’s new home,” said Gert Olsen, general manager at Den Reisende Høgskole in Norway.
Mexico is certainly a long way from Hornsjø and the 40-50 students each year who come to Norway to go to the school that Olsen manages. This year, none of the students are Norwegian students, but DRH recruits many in Eastern Europe. The school is an opportunity for them to get away from poor conditions in their homeland. Many students are surprised at what they find:
“At DRH we all lived under slave-like conditions, and there were unreasonable deadlines for raising money for accommodation and school fees,”said Greek Ethan Tiliakos. He is one of those who got into trouble with the school administration because of the critical questions he asked about what he describes as a destructive and unhealthy culture. Finally he decided to leave school. His criticism is supported in a Norad report which evaluates the business: “The school operates on simple ‘carrot and stick’ principles. This makes it hard work most of the day.”
When students sign the application papers for DRH, they undertake to commit to raising 73,000 euros in six months to finance the school operation. In practice this means many long trips in the school vans.
“The school is run privately, without government support. Employees, like participants, are informed that the school is run this way and that all contribute to the voluntary work. There is no pressure, but it is based on voluntary efforts. The conditions Tiliakos describes are unknown to me,” says DRH general manager Gert Olsen.
Ethan Tiliakos was informal leader of the team that Valentina and Milan belonged to, with responsibility for emptying the UFF containers.
“Valentina was clearly overworked and tired, and I wanted her to avoid driving a few days. But we had to do our weekly emptying, and she was the only one available,” said Tiliakos.
“Unknown to me,” reiterates Olsen.
Brothers in arms
Olsen is standing in the autumn sun, together with his old friend and “brother in arms” Øyvind Wistrõm. Watching the students at DRH running around. Wiström had already joined Tvind by the middle of the 70s, but is tight-lipped when it comes to the controversial movement.
“Am I part of this Tvind movement? Yes and no. I do this as a private person.”
“How do you see the lawsuits in Denmark?”
“I regard it as exaggerated. You can dig into many organisations and find a lot of crap.”
“And your relationship with Mogens Amdi Petersen?”
“I knew him in his time. An extremely talented and charismatic leader who had some ideas that I agree with entirely.”
“What about the claims that were filed against him during the trial?”
“I’m not interested in old stuff.”
Gert Olsen is also not very interested. In talking. Especially not about the Teacher Group, where he himself is a member.
“The Teachers Group is something private. What we do with our money is also a private matter.”
“Is it long since you saw Mogens Amdi Petersen?”
“I have not seen him since before the trial.”
“How does it feel that he was found in a luxury apartment in Florida, paid for with Tvind money?”
“I do not think I should comment on it. There’s a limit.”
“It must be strange to see that, in practice, someone can break so sharply with his professed ideals?”
“That we will leave for another day.”
“What about the luxury complex in Mexico?”
“It’s not as expensive as it looks.”
“But it costs a lot to build a complex with so many beautiful buildings and an Olympic-size swimming pool?”
“Is it Olympic-size? I didn’t think it was that big, I have swum in it myself.”
OUR ACCOUNTS ARE REPRESENTATIVE, SAYS UFF
UFFs spokesperson in Norway, Rosa Fried, believes UFFs numbers and financial statements show a representative picture of the business in Norway.
“To what extent do the accounts for the UFF Norway show a representative picture of the economy in the UFF as a whole?”
“UFF Norway’s financial statements show a representative picture of the association’s work. The UFF Shop association accounts show a representative picture of the association’s work.”
“Accounts for the UFF Shops for 2009 show an income of 30.5 million kroner. At the same time 19.8 million kroner disappeared in expenses. What do you say to that?”
“To use the word ‘disappear’ meaning ‘vanish’ in this context, highlights the journalist’s standpoint, that’s all. The ‘disappearing’ is not 19.8 million in expenses, but 19.8 million kroner has been used to secure an income of 30.5 million.”
‘Not relevant’
“In your own brochure you provide an actual per cent for 2009 of 99.5 percent. To what extent is this a correct picture of the overall situation in the UFF when we look at the accounts as a whole?
“As previously stated by Innsamlingskontrollen, you should not use ratios to compare the organisations, but compare the activity of the organisation from year to year. Innsamlingskontrollen comes up with guidelines for how to treat the collection and sale of garments, so a calculation of percentage purpose for the UFF Shops association in Norway does not have particular relevance.”
“How many of the employees of the UFF Norway / UFF Shops are members of the Teachers Group and how much of their income to pay these in there?”
“I guess this question has slipped in by mistake. We can, of course, as the employer, not give any information about our employees’ private affairs.”
“What kind of relationship do you and Jesper Pedersen have with Mogens Amdi Petersen?”
“I can not see that this question is relevant to UFF and what the organization does, when that person is neither employed by or has any position in UFF Norway or the UFF Shops association in Norway. This is confirmed by the auditor.”
Gert Olsen, managing director of Den Reisende Høgskole is puzzled by the criticism being directed at the school by former pupils. He is unaware that Valentina Danailova was exhausted when she was driving and there was a car accident on Rennebu.
“We are not aware that she was overworked and tired. Nor that any responsible former participant has said anything about this before or after the accident here at school. The car involved in the accident car was EU approved and it has never been stated that the accident was due to the car’s condition. No comment.”
“What about criticism that the school has a destructive environment?”
“I do not recognise these criticisms and comments. On the contrary, participants in the school enjoy a high degree of cooperation and support to each other. It is in the program’s nature.”
Øyvind Wiström, founder of UFF Norway and former President of DRH, does not want to elaborate on his role in th Tvinde system or the company One World Channel. When Vårt Land calls, he does remember being questioned by police.
“I have made a statement to police?”
“Yes, according to the documents we have, you have made a statement to the police in Denmark on this company in the Tvind system.”
“Oh yes, that stuff, yes. That’s a closed chapter. I do not want to comment on that, except to say you can stick to what appears in the police interrogation,” Oyvind Wiström told Vårt Land.
Fact box: Den Reisende Høyskole
Den Reisende Folkehøyskole (“The Travelling Folk High School) was established In 1978 at Hankø outside Fredrikstad, with Day Hareide as principal. He left the school a year later. The school moved to Halden and Øyvind Wiström took over as principal.
The school was a Norwegian edition of Den Rejsende Høgskole (“The Travelling College”) started in Denmark by Mogens Amdi Petersen in 1970. Students were to study the social conditions in developing countries and in Norway. An important part was a several-month bus trip to countries in the Third World. Later this was replaced with “solidarity work” in development projects.
After having been given [government] financial support for a trial period, the Kirkeog Ministry of Education ruled in 1983 that the school should not be approved as a ‘folk’ college [ie receive state funding]. The school name was changed to Den Reisende Høyskole. In 1983 Øyvind Wiström established the foundation Stiftelsen Felleseie jointly as a buyer of Hornsjø Lodge outside Lillehammer and the school moved there. The school today rents its premises from the Stiftelsen Felleseie foundation.
Last year the school had a turnover of 9.3 million kronen. In 2009 Stiftelsen Felleseie had a turnover of 5.6 million. Humana People to People is the school’s partner organisation.
Fact box: UFF Norway
What is now called U-Landshjelp Fra Folk Til Folk I Norge (Development Aid from People to People Norway) was founded in Norway on 6th November 1979 as an association. On its website UFF Norway says: “The association is working on secular humanitarian grounds. The organisation wants to fight poverty and distress in the world and to support development which people themselves can help to drive forward.”
The first UFF Shop in Norway opened in 1980 selling used clothing.
UFF Norway is a member of the international Humana People to People movement. This has 35 member organizations and operates in 42 countries, according to the annual report for 2009. The report says the Humana People to People has more than 8,300 employees and their work helps 11.5 million people. Planet Aid in the United States, UFF Denmark, Biståndsföreningen HUMANA Sweden and Planet Aid UK Ltd in the UK are some of the other members.
The UFF Shops Association in Norway had a turnover of 30.5 million kroner in 2009. The association UFF Norway receives grants from the UFF Shops association. It had a turnover in 2009 of 12.3 million kroner.
Journalist cooperation
Vårt Land’s work on this article was in cooperation with British journalist Michael Durham. He has investigated the business affairs of Humana People to People, the Teachers Group and the Tvind movement since 1999. Together with Danish journalists, he runs the Tvind Alert web site. Tvind Alert has a large network of people in many countries with experience of the Tvind system. Durham has collected large amounts of written information and has cooperated with journalists in many different countries. Michael Durham has worked for the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times and Observer and went freelance in 1999. He is interested in working on abuse of aid in general and is building a network under the umbrella Aid Alert.
Do you have any information about Humana or the Teachers Group? Please tell us.
Last updated: 1st November 2010
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From New Era, Namibia, 25th Oct 2010
by Helvy Shaanika
25 October 2010
OSHAKATI – Alleged rivalry between a cult-like association and a workers’ union has left a number of former employees of Development Aid from People to People (DAPP) project bitter.
Conflict erupted after a number of Namibians employed by DAPP joined the Namibia Food and Allied Workers Union (NAFAU) last year. The employees allegedly joined NAFAU while they were also members of a cult-like organisation only known as TG.
Although DAPP Country Director Kristen Moeller Jensen, a Danish national, refused to say what TG stands for, expelled members say they were told that TG stands for Teachers Group. The association is also known as BG, which stands for Big Group. It is allegedly a top-secret organisation that does not allow its members to mention its name and activities outside meetings that take place the last weekend of each month.
“At the end of each meeting, TG leaders collect back all the copies of the agenda and if they realise that one copy is missing, nobody is allowed to leave the room until that copy is found – no information about TG is allowed to leave that room,” said former TG members.
TG is also not registered with any legal authority in Namibia.
According to the employees, some of them fell prey to the organisation when they faced unemployment in 2008 as their contracts with different projects under DAPP were coming to an end.
They learnt about TG, an organisation that recruited members before giving them jobs and senior positions at DAPP. At the time, the majority of TG members were non-Namibians.
Former members further allege that TG has members who live in houses that are paid for with DAPP donors’ funds at Oshakati, Rundu, Katima Mulilo, Otjiwarongo and Windhoek. According to them, family members and friends of these people are not allowed to enter these premises.
The bitter employees claim they lost their jobs and were expelled from the TG because of their affiliation to NAFAU.
“They said being a member of both TG and NAFAU is the same as being a member of Swapo and RDP. They said NAFAU and government are in contradiction with TG, thus we cannot be members of both associations,” said Beatus Shimweetheleni who lost his job at DAPP.
Those expelled further accuse TG chiefs, who are also DAPP top officials, of using DAPP funds during TG meetings. TG national meetings that are attended by members from all over Namibia are held at DAPP houses and are allegedly funded by DAPP donors’ funds.
“The attendance registers that we signed indicated that they were taken during DAPP management meetings while in reality, they were for TG national meetings. As a result, such meetings are funded by the donors through DAPP,” said Shimweetheleni.
Axed members could, however not divulge much about the content of the meetings.
“Sometimes you are in these meetings but you don’t really understand what the people are talking about. All I know is that they do not believe in God. They believe in Big Bang and they gave us some books to read about TG history and principles,” said Hilya Iiyambo, who also lost her job at DAPP.
Iiyambo said TG prospective members are asked to complete forms where they are required to indicate how they would spend their salaries.
Iiyambo alleged that TG members are expected to live according to the principles of “common economy, common distribution and common time”.
She added that all the TG members are also members of DAPP leadership, hence the use of DAPP funds for TG activities.
“Only a few people at DAPP leadership level were not members of the TG,” said another member.
According to those expelled from TG, joining the organisation and accepting unknown conditions was the only way to get a job as their contracts with DAPP had ended. All Namibians that joined TG were assigned senior positions at DAPP and paid a salary of N$2 500. The “common salary scale” is believed to be part of TG’s principle of “common economy” as qualifications and job description did not matter.
When approached for comment, DAPP Country Director Kristen Moeller Jensen said TG was a private “thing” that had nothing to do with the DAPP.
“TG is all about a group of people who came together to do something good for the people. It is the same as someone who is employed somewhere but he or she is also involved in the activities of the Catholic or Lutheran Church,” said Jensen.
When asked if TG was a religious organisation, Jensen said TG was only a group of people who believe in certain principles, but not a religion.
She denied that some of the DAPP employees that are also members of TG lost their jobs after they joined NAFAU, describing the allegations as nonsense. According to Jensen, members voluntarily joined TG. She added that they could also affiliate to trade unions of their choice as part of their constitutional right.
She also denied allegations that TG meetings are held at DAPP donors’ expense, adding that the use of DAPP houses during TG meetings is paid for by TG and that members that live in DAPP houses pay rent.
Jensen further denied that TG membership was a prerequisite for some of the positions at DAPP.
Last week, a group of former DAPP employees staged a demonstration and handed a petition to DAPP at Outapi. In their petition, they demanded the removal of Jensen from the DAPP. They also demanded clarity about TG at DAPP, among other issues.
Portuguese newspaper “Correio da Manha” published an article on Marco Semiao and DRH on March 12, 2008.
Newspaper says the info was given by e-mail.
O português Marco Semião, que se encontra a trabalhar na Noruega a desempenhar funções para as quais não foi contratado, regressa nos próximos dias. O jovem viajou para Hornsjo em Fevereiro para estagiar como voluntário nos projectos da organização não governamental Den Reisende Hogskole (DRH) Norway em África, mas acabou por trabalhar 12 horas diárias num hotel a limpar quartos e a lavar pratos.
Enganado pela organização, fez denúncia ao CM. “Os coordenadores do projecto souberam da minha denúncia e compraram um bilhete de avião Oslo-Londres-Porto, querem ver-se livres de mim”, relatou Marco por email.
O português promete apresentar provas da ilegalidade das actividades da DRH. Segundo afirma, a organização utiliza os voluntários que recruta em Portugal como mão-de-obra gratuita.
A Plataforma Portuguesa das Organizações Não Governamentais de Cooperação para o Desenvolvimento (ONGD) confirma a existência de processos judiciais contra a DRH. “Os problemas ligados a esta organização são muito conhecidos em Portugal, declarou Sophie Robin, directora da Plataforma.
Translation:
Portuguese citizen Marco Semiao who is doing in Norway work he was not supposed to do (according to contract) will be back soon. The youngster travelled to Hornsjo in February as a volunteer for NGO Den Reisende Hogskole (DRH) Norway in Africa, but at the end he was working 12 hours a day in a hotel – cleaning rooms and washing plates. He was misleaded by the NGOP and denounced it to Correio da Manha. “The masters of the project knew about my complaint and bought me a ticket Oslo-London-Porto, they want to get rid of me”, told Marco by e-mail.
The Portuguese promesses to present proofs of DRH illegal activities. According to him the NGo uses volunteers recruited in Portugal as free workers.
The Portuguese Platform for NGOD (NGO’s for cooperation and develop.) confirms the existence of judiciary cases against DRH. “Problems concerning this NGO are well known in Portugal”, said Sophie Robin, director of the Platform.
Szef zamieszkał w raju
Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland, 06.03.2002
Magdalena Grzebałkowska (m.grzebalkowska@wp.pl)
We got letter:” Organization TVIND under the mask of help To Africa earns on wolontariuszach huge moneys. Forces their to begging on streets. Does washing of brains”. Submited oneself as wolontar. Went to Denmark. Report Magdaleny Grzebałkowskiej
I feel how idiot. Fifty of steams of eyes looks intently in me, I look on card with text. Rene, high scrag with guitar, gives sign to my trzyosobowej group. Begins to play melody” Yellow submarine” Beatlesów. We sing song, which of five minutes ago {this} oneself we arranged. Is in her about afrykańska calamity AIDS and about this, that we, of brave wolontar organization Humana People this People, we will fight her.
- In villas him and knock he the door! – I falsify together with Britisher Carrie and With Brazilian Rodrigo.
Room applauds us. Following group goes out on centre of room. Araya from Austria sits down on krześle and imitates latrine. so that was not doubt, holds over head card with inscription” latrine”. Paul from Scotland of translators us, that in Africa we will build latrines, because this prevents to spreading oneself of malaria.
Mood is sublime , such harcersko-humanitarny. In end we came here from all world to little village deep inside Of Denmark, to become wolontar
And only I look about one suspiciously. Probably by nearest two days we will be recruited to sects zwanej TVIND.
Induce even Adam and Ewa
Letter to drafting was short:” Organization TVIND under the mask of help To Africa earns on wolontariuszach huge moneys. Forces their to begging on streets. Does washing of brains. By governments Of France and Of Belgium is recognized officially for sect. In your newspaper every week publishes recruitment, in series > Adam and Ewa < encourages young people to trip".
Met oneself with author of letter. Tomek I spent in Denmark of five } months, before got to know how one stands, where hit own mark. Left from there in December last year. Hands me floppy disk with paper, which drove, delivers documents, which imitated him to begin, pretends to be internetowy address of organization Tvindalert, which fights from TVIND( www. tvindalert. org. uk).
TVIND uses of many names. Two most popular this Humana People this People and PHEW.
Manner activities of organization is seemingly straight and at the beginning does not wake of nobody's suspicions. During so-called. infoweekendów recruits oneself wolontar from all world. You , whiches will resolve to do to sign contract from TVIND, come in half of year to Denmark, Of Norway, Of England, Republics Midday Africas or USA, where are schools of organization. To candidates speaks oneself, that in the course of six months will learn, how {as} to be wolontariuszami. In road of learning , by two weeks in every month, schoolboys have to to earn moneys( is called this fundraising). after half of year leave on own cost to Africas, Of Asia or midday Americas .
- Learning in these schools this fiction - speaks Tomek, which knowledge originates from own experiences and from pages internet Tvindalert. - Counts only earning of moneys. Anyway for TVIND moneys from wolontariuszy this only fraction of incomes counted on millions of dollars. Earn on sale used clothing, get grant-in-aids from governments different states.
After two hours of conversation I make up own mind, that oneself I will go to Denmark on infoweekend. I send maila under address given in advertisement and I check, whether in Poland somebody can confirm revelations Tomka.
To Dominican Republic something heard, department more
Varsovian Centre Wolontariatu has at own disposal with base given on theme organizacj and humane from all world.
- Humana People this People? We have such on leaves - I hear by phone. - Help To Africa in cylinders with AIDS and with hunger.
- And whether you know something about this, that this sect?
- First I hear! I want to reserve, that we only have addresses of organization, we do not check, whether and how act .
In dominikańskim Centre Of information about Sects in Cracow also do not know TVIND and Humana People this People. To Dominican friars in Warsaw applied once man with information about them.
- I spoke from him by phone - speaks worker Centre Krzysztof Jarecki. - Told, that was in Africa, there hungered, heavily worked and was surrendered psychomanipulacjom. But more did not phone .
I turn {I pay back} to department of public order MSWIA with question, whether line knows something on theme Humana People People.
I get answer:" In report Of council {meeting} National French Republics from 1995 year sacrificed to sects( report Guyarda) organization this became numbered to movements about sect character( Humana France TVIND). Also in Helgian report Of room Of representatives from 1997 year appeared information, that is this {then} sect about international character descending from Denmark, possessing one's own branch also in Belgium( Humana)".
And however! I sit down yet before television set and I look in Polsacie section of series" Adam and Ewa". Two of young people of translators {explains} just to somebody, that leave to Africas to help to people. Only earlier will perform half-yearly price in Denmark. Name Humana nor TVIND does not pasture {falls}. However no other humane organization on world does not instruct {educates} wolontariuszy in schools in Denmark.
I ring to Mark {brand} Krajca, of scenarist of series, and I ask, why decided to send heroes to Africas from Humaną.
- This {then} was chance - of translators {explains}. - My daughter hit own mark in internecie on page {side} Humany, wanted of aisles et there to go, but proved, that it is necessary to spend half of year in Denmark, and gave up. And I used this {then} in screenplay. This {then} all.
Stand {stand up} on head and conquer this cash box
Comes to me first mail from TVIND. I am to acquaint with page {side} internetową Humana People this {then} People( www. humana. org) and to fill form. I write in him {it}, that I am unemployed graduate Of university Gdańskiego, which likes work {composition} with children and dreams about trip to Africas. Advertisement {announcement} in newspaper spoke about wolontariacie in China. I add, that Distant {far-away} East gives me oneself attractive.
Following letter comes of next day. Written to speak Polish.
"(...) I ask, write me, how {as} looks your financial situation, ie. how much {how much} you are in a position to intend of funds on this programme. Unfortunately is not he cheap, but is not from second pages {side} such ways {dear}... Write, I ask, how {as} this {then} you see. You must have of looks {mines}. 1000 of lots., to begin instruction. You know, are different possibilities of conquering of moneys. Generally this {then}, what you want to make, is of something of inconceivable, something splendid and I think, that if very you will want, this {then} you are in a position these moneys to organize... Sponsoring, concert, imprezka, one can turn {pay back} to different kind of firms with request for grant-in-aid, family, friends, opportunity to display own talent is and will surrender. I greet, Maciek".
A little I worry. Tomek during meetings told me, that to people, whiches did not have chances to pay for instruction, Humana gives possibility of earning in road so-called. netupu. Came wolontariusze are sent largely to sorting plant {of} used clothing in Sweden, which belong {take part} to TVIND. Employed are also in second handach or work on order on builds {constructions} or in gardens. Why Maciek nothing writes about netupie? Can {perhaps} assumes, that I am journalist?
Tomek calms me: - People from behind European Union worked on in black, because Humana People this {then} People does not settle permission on work {composition}. Swedish police chose s ię of organization to skins {leather}, because do not propose you {these} already netupu.
On all event I ask Maćka for possibility of work {composition} before instruction.
Copies {cribs}:" Unpleasantly me, oneself you must these moneys to organize and if goes about China, this {then} is this {then} not a little, because till 2500 of lots. + flight to China + pocket - {pocket-money} for oneself and additionally does not have possibility of offering you {these} scholarship, because their {them} simply does not have. so that you would follow a course of instruction in Danish schools be {be} in England, you need of looks {mines}. 1000 of lots. + pocket - {pocket-money}. Stand {stand up} on head and conquer this cash box".
I decide a little to be fussy choosy:" Just this {then} surely I fall off. From where I would take so much cash boxes? Surely loan from bank? But bank will not give unemployed even of grosz {penny}. And sponsoring? Surely you joke. In Poland not one can find of moneys even on dying children. This {then} who would give on wolontariuszkę?".
Maciek worries {dead}:" Very me unpleasantly, that moneys stand up on way to realization of dreams. Regarding sponsoringu, this {then} I know, that depends from determination, see, what does Owsiak... Write me exactly, which one sum you are in a position to organize. Fight!". At last I send letter, that I will lend moneys from familiar and that I intend to come on infoweekend. My correspondent is glad {gladdens} with me {me}:" This {then} super!!! This {then} is suitable putting {attitude}!".
Tomek does not have illusions: - Maciek this {then} one from people, whiches are responsible too {for} first contact {socket} with willing, so-called. instructor He is glad from your arrival, because getting behind you 50 of dollars. So much carries out rate too {for} recruiting one persons. If you will sign on place contract, he getting 125 of dollars.
Guru disappears on island
I know already time -limit infoweekendu - 1 of February about hour 14. 00 I have to stand on central station in Copenhagen under McDonaldem. From there will begin me and of other people somebody from TVIND. I should to begin from oneself {oneself} sleeping-bag, good humour and 1900 of crowns - 200 on payment of weekend, 1700 - payment on account {foretaste} on school, when I would resolve to do to enter. Costs journey at to Copenhagens I pay oneself. Yes {so} sound instructions Maćka.
I wait on time -limit of trip and I seek of information about TVIND. I assemble it {them} from Danish newspapers, from internetu, from interlocutors.
Organization began modestly.
In 1968 year group five {five} Danes decides to travel after world. Get to bus and go to India. Poverty, which there see, yes {so} takes over their {them}, that create Travelling High School. Want to transport with buses {of} young people to India, so that saw, how {as} looks" real world". Have to learn lives and also to help to Third World. Leader of group is then about thirty-year teacher Mogens Amdi Petersen. Long-haired charismatic socialist quickly assembles round oneself tens of persons. too {for} common moneys buy Danish farm in village Tvind( from here name of organization) on Jutland and old hotel in vicinity. with Own powers build first school - buildings. In 1975 year place in Tvind modern windmill, which produces energy. Has this {then} to be protest TVIND against atomic energy.
Members of organization, whiches began to build her, create The Teachers Group( Group Of teachers). To one's own racemes {circle} admit {allow} most checked of members TVIND. Who becomes {remains} with teacher, has to to sign contract, that will be him {it} to end {finish} of life. Continually recruit of new people to organization.
In 1978 year in TVIND is already 800 of persons. Organization is developed {unrolls} - administers a dozen or so with schools for children special cares in Denmark. Money on this {then} allocates line {government}. Teachers are members TVIND, often without required formations {education}. TVIND buys several of yachts and prepares for children from families pathological school under sails. Drive her people from The Teachers Group, many from them does not have nautical patents. In 1983 year one from yachts during gale sinks {tone}, on board is a dozen or so teachers, does not have children. Fact this becomes {remains} concealed before members TVIND.
Organization creates p rogram of help To Africa - Humana People this {then} People, intends to fight from apartheidem, builds net of points of assemblies {meetings} {of} used clothing, of sorting plant and second handów. Part of clotheses and of moneys from their {them} of sale has to hit own mark to countries {of} Third World. Is this {then} however minute percentage. Most of thing is sold in westerly Europe.
In 1979 year Amdi Petersen disappears. From this times revolve on his theme only guesses. not it is known even, whether lives. Members The Teachers Group are silent on theme Petersena. Affirm {fortress} only, that tore from him {it} all relations, and with organization rule they oneself.
Great surprise do in October 2001 of year journalists Danish newspapers" Jyllands-Posten". Find Amdiego Petersena. Lives how {as} film - star in luxurious worth flat of 6 millions of dollars at Fisher Island Drive 5302 not far Miami. On island Fisher one can fall with only private ferry, to move after her with special card identyfikacyjną. Fisher Island acknowledged is by {through} millionaires and film - stars behind" best place to flats on earth the Earth {the ground}". Amdi admits {allows} to oneself only several of women from top The Teachers Group, lives from Anne Hansen, one's own right hand. TVIND continually stays under his with inspection.
Thirteen of years in TVIND
By {through} internet I link {I refer} contact {socket} from Else Ram part from Denmark. In 1974 year had 50 of years, of adult son, good work {composition}. In newspaper found advertisement {announcement} about recruitment to TVIND. Entered. Imitated her to issue only after 13 years. One's own history described on pages {sides} Tvindalert. I ask, whether I can introduce {represent} her in" Newspaper Wyborczej". Else does not have nothing against ago {this}.
" When began, was us 50 of persons. All we had one aim {target} - to improve world. Quickly proved, that this {then} only fantasies. TVIND depended only on conquest of inspection over men, to of which reached {ran in}. after ascension signed contract, that I sacrifice oneself TVIND to end {finish} of life. From this times about my life I decided group - individualism was badly perceived. not could have nothing of own - moneys, of time nor oneself. Then not had nothing against ago {this}, my aim {target} was return oneself other. Amdi I ordered us all to go to houses and to burn removals {photo}, memoirs, letters {list} - all family - souvenirs. This {then} former {was} part of policy TVIND - not You can have private ży-cia. Today very I regret, that yes {so} made.
We worked very heavily, sometimes after 20 hours daily. Took place, that somebody fainted from overworks. Then one shouted on him {it}, that oneself too little old. These sufferings made up me work {composition} with children special cares. By {through} most {of} my stay in TVIND former bookkeeper {of} such schools with boarding-school. When looked on development of children, former happy {lucky}.
Every other week they drove to houses, and we had to to fill orders. We built new schools, sports- halls, basins. Hated this, because I do not like to work physically. All I administered Amdi. We had to to listen him and to admire. Former moments, when very suffered. My mother I was ill on Alzheimera, wanted to go and to see her - one did not permit me. Never I will forget of moment, when I stood among people, whiches ridiculed my request. When at last went to mothers, already me I did not recognize.
Several of last years drove away in zawodówce TVIND as teacher. But began to have of enough continuous inspection. This {then}, what began oneself as beautiful {beauties} democracy, ended as totalitarianism. of Certain day in 1987 year packed things, got on cycle and left".
I ask Else:" Why yes {so} long there you were, when was yes {so} badly?".
Answers:" At first thought, that really I participate in something excellent and nothing other did not count. After that not had to what to return. Money, which zarabia-łam, I began TVIND. not had absolutely nothing. In 1987 year got State - old age pension and this {then} helped to undertake me decision".
Afrykańska sung, which does not exist
< BR > Navy blue bus jumps up on way. On my shoulder sleeps Araya from Vienna, from second pages {side} sits {is locked up} Carola from Tirol. Car is filled to last places – how {as} sprats in box nest Englishmen, Germany {Germen}, Swedes and one {one} Spanish woman. From back dozes Marta, Pole from Cracow. We go from Copenhagens to Juelsminde, little village on Peninsula Jutlandzkim. There will take place infoweekend. behind windows flash Danish sceneries, flat how {as} board to cutting.
- At us yes {so} look Kaszuby – I explain {I translate} Caroli from mountainous Austrian hamlets.
We get in the dark. Sea groźnie knocks {resounds} somewhere in vicinity. Two powerful, old buildings – pre-war hospital for consumptives – this {then} our houses on nearest three days. We are in Travelling Folk High School belonging {taking part} to TVIND, one from 12 on world( six is in oneself Denmark).
We seek one’s own pokoi, on door are cards with names. I divide peace {room} from Arayą, which slept on my shoulder, Martą from Polands and Arlette from Switzerland.
Circumstances {conditions} are passable. we will sleep in old conjugal beds, which originate from some hotel, in door does not have locks {castles}, bath for all is on corridor. One {one} on tens of persons. I look to her. Interested, when former {was} lately tolls {washed}?
Call in us on first meeting in club room. On this infoweekend came 50 of persons – this {then} very much. Usually succeeds {imitates} to induce about 30. Between us sit {are locked up} instructors TVIND – people, whiches are in school from several of months. Their {them} assignment {exercise} is to recruit us by {through} internet, to care oneself us and to serve with help( Maćka, from which corresponded, does not have. I left to schools TVIND in England). Instructors are best and most obedient students. The rest one sent on fundraising, that is to say obligatory earning on school in road of instruction.
On centre of room go out two most important persons – Anna and Rene. Both Danes, circle {near} pięćdzie- siątki. Rene is high scrag, squints oc zy too {behind} strong glasses, sincere {grins} teeth in smile. Anna this {then} low {short}, short cut blonde in leather – trousers. Also oneself smiles. But eyes stay cool.
Araya inclines {inclines} to me: – Chicken, some how her I do not trust.
Rene is head master in Juelsminde, Anna has under oneself {oneself} school in not distant Tvind. In sect are already since a long time – he was in group, which built windmill in 1975 year, she in years 60. went by bus to India.
Before supper we learn afry- kańskiej sungs. Anna sings something, what sounds yes {so}: – Ti ende pamoci in-tima omo!
Does not record us however of text, so every understands {mind} words otherwise.
- This {then} old afrykańska sung from borderland Of Mozambique and Zimbabwe – of translators {explains} Anna. Came wolontariusze are delighted, came near to Africas.
Tomek spoke me before trip, that afrykańska sung this {then} stood {solid} point {sharp} of programme TVIND.
- Yes {so} really this sung does not exist – explained {translated}. – Invented her on needs infoweekendów. Confirmed this {then} people, whiches returned from Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
Dearest {most expensive} travel in history of world
- Ti ende pamoci intima omo! – somebody roars {screams} over my ear. Is seventh morning {in the morning}, Saturday. I open eyes. Anna wakes school afrykańską sung. Today in programme are lectures, prices and individual conversations.
People, whiches here came, are really splendid. Ready to throw comfortable life on thing wolontariatu. do not have green notions about dark page {side} TVIND. Yesterday with evening at hot apple-pie we confided oneself, what we want to do, how {as} already we will become {we will remain} wolontariuszami. Humana offers tens of programmes. One can leave to Africas and to work with children – to teach it {them} in schools, to organize to them free time, to found sports- clubs. One can be member of group TCE( Total Control of the Epidemic), which goes from house home and of translators {explains} to people, whether m is AIDS and how {as} to avoid him. One can also leave on special African farms, where learns {teaches} local, how {as} to till earth the Earth {the ground}, or to inform African women about need of hygiene. Programme in midday America {south} is similar. about China nothing it is known. Left there only two groups – do not give as yet sign of life.
Before trip spoke to Tomka: – And however TVIND does something good. In end {finish} sends wolontariuszy to help {to} Third World.
Explained {translated}: – But before will leave, have to to pay heap {shit} of moneys properly for nothing, because even cost of plane oneself cover. Is this {then} dearest {most expensive} trip to Africas in history of world. In Africa also is differently. I know from account of people, whiches returned, that do not have there insurance {protection}, are behind this {then} subject on dangers, often hungry and exhausted. Nobody their {them} does not control {inspects}, so if do not want, can nothing to do. Better oneself to leave to Africas, and moneys saved on Humana People this {then} People to present to some hospital.
” Because Danish line {government} us does not like”
Lecture first. History Of Africa. Norwegian Stina from The Teachers Group unnaturally oneself smiles. Even when speaks about heavy fate {lot} hungering of children. Of translators {explains} us how {as} to Pre-school children, why Africa is poor continent.
- Was oneself such man Vasco will give Scale – tells. – And he yes {so} flowed and flowed round Africas, and spoke him: do not flow, because earth the Earth {the ground} is flat and you will come down. But to him succeeded!
Stina is delighted. – But after that Africa grew poor. Who knows, to what {why}?
Room is silent. I apply: – Colonialism and trade with slaves?
I get applauses. On will break Stina approaches to me. – You studied history Of Africa? – asks astounded.
I answer equally astounded: – At knows us this {then} every child.
Lecture second. History Humany. Speaks Anna. – Humana People this {then} People came into being in frames TVIND in 1977 year as movement {traffic} against apartheidowi – translators {explains}. – Because we fought him, now our assignment {exercise} is help to people. We act {we work} in 32 countries, we have 155 of projects, in our rows are two millions of people, main abode Humana People this {then} People is Zimbabwe.
Shows on wall removal {photo} {of} gigantic building – crossing of church with office building on background {of} azure blue skies {heavens}. On pages {sides} Tvindalert is information, that dream Amdiego Petersena was erection {construction} yes {so} of great building in Zimbabwe, so that was him apparently {is visible} from Moon.
Anna passes to attack: – Differently oneself speaks about TVIND. Just, how {as} you would call group of people, whiches live together, have common cash box?
From room pasture {fall} shy proposals: – Democracy. Communist system. Community.
Anna is satisfied: – You see. And some call The Teachers Group with sect. What behind nonsense. somebody about this heard?
Hand raises {picks up} Icelander.
Anna sways with head: – This {then} because, that does not like us Danish line {government}. They such opinion about take round us. We were against atomic energy, we built windmill on ecological energy, we drove special schools. Line {government} Danish acknowledged, that badly these schools we drive, and gave us punishment {penalty} 5 of millions of crowns. Began us schools.
Anna mocks from idea, that would be able to be in sect: – Revolve after internecie opinions about me, that I am sterilized Lesbian, what does not have life family -. And after all I live among people from TVIND. They are my family. Just and I have much of dogs!
All we are amused for armpits from idea, that this small blonde would be able to be sekciarką.
- Are some questions? – Anna looks about one after room.
I apply: – And who is leader The Teachers Group?
Clearly does not please her my question. Stops oneself to smile: – Together we rule. All Teachers. We come together once on month in different places and we meditate strategy for TVIND. Stupid journalists invented, that rules with us Amdi Petersen from flat in Miami. Rubbish! we do not have from him {it} of contact {socket} from 1979 year. Maybe already does not live. We have, yes, flat in Miami, but he one should {belongs} to TVIND. We must have at last place, to come together and to think.
Dinner – Pause. I go out from room and I hear conversation {of} two Englishwomen from Manchesteru: – And have to to have this flat in Miami? After all can come together in Juelsminde. So much here places.
After return to Polands I check informations Anny on theme of relations TVIND with Danish government. Denmark by {through} many years invested great moneys in schools driven by {through} TVIND. Proved however, that of children almost {right} quite in them do not learn, are behind this {then} often used to work {composition}. In 1996 year one began schools of organization and one ordered to turn {to pay back} grant-in-aids – 5 of millions of crowns. Under wardship of organization became {remained} only several of schools – for children from families deeply dysfunkcyjnych, which determine kind of borstals.
With Eleventh evening, still Saturday. I have enough. From seventh morning {in the morning} not had nor of moment for oneself. Incessantly lectures, or washing of dishes, or covering of tables. Nobody a moment I was oneself {oneself}. But sea is 20 of metres from building, not had time of goings on beach. Now drooped in arm-chair on corridor. By {through} all day tasted to give Annie or Rene several of questions. Disposed me:” not now, I do not have time, soon dinner”. I wait on conversation, with some from them during of which it is necessary to undertake decision about ascension to TVIND.
- Magda, do not sit {be locked up} yes {so} – attaches me instructor Giuseppe from Italy {Italian}. too two weeks finishes half-yearly instruction and leaves to Mozambique. – Go, we will play.
I do not go. Anna calls in me on conversation.
First in Denmark, after that we will throw
I sit down at table. Anna is not nice. Without smile will give first question: – You brought moneys?
I am surprised: – Which one moneys?
Anna: – On school, 1700 of crowns.
I: – not. Anyway I do not know yet, whether I want to to accede you.
Anna: – You have time to Sunday with evening.
I: – This {then} difficult decision, give me more of time.
Anna: – OK. To future Friday.
I: – All day wanted you for something to ask. Now I can?
Anna oneself agrees. I ask her, whether during half-yearly stay in school I will have visa and permission on work {composition}, that is to say fundraising.
Of translators {explains} short: – Polacy can spend in Denmark legally by {through} three months. After that we will throw you to England. Fundraising this {then} largely sale of newspapers on street. On this {then} you do not need permission.
Counts {visages}, how much {how much} I should have of moneys on” account” after half-yearly instruction: – You must pay too eight months of instruction. First half of year you will spend in one from our schools, after return from Africa you will return to us on two months. You must this {then} pay. 2500 of crowns too {for} every month, that is to say 20 tysięcy too eight months, after 300 crowns pocket – {pocket-money} too {for} every month and 5500 of crowns for plane to Africas. Just and these 1700 of crowns too {for} recruiting – knocks with finger in calculator – Together 29 600 of Danish crowns( beyond {over} 14 thousand. zloty).
And Anna did not remember {mentioned} after all about moneys from fundraisingu. Norm for every this {then} 4500 of crowns monthly. That is to say, that school will earn on me 27, 5 thousand. zloty! Anna hid also, that for abandonment of school in half of year it is necessary to pay punishment {penalty} 7000 of crowns.
Anna asks: – Which one programme interests you?
I: – Care over children in Mozambique.
Brings me on earth the Earth {the ground}: – This {then} impossible. You can take participation in Total Control of Epidemic. I go out on corridor. Part of people is already after conversations. Some from them( about 60 of slingshots.) signed contracts from TVIND. Also my room-mate, Arlette from Switzerland. Has 20 of years and before collection of studies would want to live {to survive} something interested. Becomes excited oneself: – Wonderfully, I will save world!
Congratulate her instructors. Arlette for month will return here with large knapsack, to begin instruction.
In angle {corner} stands several Germen. Speak excited: – Cook is German, also in TVIND. Warned us friendly, not to believe in all, what us here speak. for what goes?!
Marta from Polands also is sceplical. did not agree from once on signature of contract: – does not please me oneself, that want to throw us after three months from country to country. Such combining from beginning {origin} badly about them testifies.
Krzysztof from under Poznan stands under wall: – Something here, chicken, with sect stinks. Well, that tomorrow end {finish}.
Tomek at the beginning of stay in TVIND was convinced, that school will settle him visa temporary. after three months asked, why yet her does not have.
Heard from Rene: – Line {government} Danish us does not like and does not want to give visas to schoolboys TVIND. But do not worry, yet never nobody their {them} did not check.
Tomek remembers {mentions}: – I wrote letter with question to Danish departments of education, whether are some problems with obtainment of visa for schoolboys TVIND. Proved, that does not have, because are this {then} legal schools. I asked so, to what {why} their {them} us do not give. Answer surprised me:” Because nobody about it steps out”. I assume, that TVIND does not want, so that line {government} knew, how much wolontariuszy follows a course of instruction {instructs} in rows of organization.
Girl from Finland sleeps under bridge
About this, what waits newly accepted wolontariuszy, I know from Tomka and from letters to Tvindalert.
- On beginning {origin} all appeared finished up like clockwork – remembers {mentions} Tomek, which was in school in Juelsminde. – Two weeks we sat {we were locked up} before kom-puterami and we learnt different things. Mater iał to learnings {science} was funny, eg commonplaces on theme AIDS extended from internetu.
Every student has to theoretically to assemble in the course of six months 500 of points for learning {science}. Allots it {them} teacher of group after credit {of} definite assignments {exercises}.
- On beginning {origin} we tried, but after that teacher stopped to check us – speaks Tomek. – Anyway we did not have time on learning {science}. Counted work {composition}, every day housework of building and of region. not slowly {one may} was nothing to do. How {as} caught you on seat in the course of day, always found some work {composition}. At last was yes {so}, that to Africas went also people, to which one numbered {one credited} at most 50 of points for learning {science}.
Most important former {one was} fundraising. At first was to perform by {through} two weeks in month. After that grew to everyday work {composition}. Tomek by {through} half of year was driver school – busa. Five of hours daily spent behind wheel, transporting of Danish children to distant schools.
- Managements these of agencies paid TVIND too {for} my work {composition}. – I never these of moneys did not see on eyes. I was however exception. Fundraising this {then} first of all work {composition} on street. A dozen or so of hours daily it is necessary to sell newspapers or to go from house home and to offer roses, behind which people offer offerings. Wolontariusze give back moneys {to} one’s own teachers.
Have to to develop norm 4 thousand. of crowns monthly.
Tomek convinced, assembling moneys, that TVIND has bad opinion in Denmark; very with difficulty on streets Of Copenhagen and other of greater cities to induce somebody on offering. Because on period fundraisingu wolontariuszy sends oneself most often to Sweden.
- Spend the night in flat TVIND in Stockholm. There live also workers of sorting plant of clothing, whiches earn on school( netup inaccessible for Poles) – tells Tomek. – Very little cubicles, in of which has to to go a dozen or so of persons. I spoke with girl from Finland, which all past holidays spent the night in parks or under mosta me Of Stockholm. was not for her places, and very depended her on trip to Africas. Feed very palely, because have to kupo-wać eating {food} from moneys, which will assemble on street. And to them more will give on oneself, this less becomes {remains} to them for TVIND.
Hundred of crowns to noons {south}
Sunday is last day {of} our stay. Breakfast before departure. At every table sits down somebody from TVIND. To last moment convince these, whiches did not sign contracts {appoint}, that this {then} error. Fox from USA returned just from Angola: – There is splendidly – is enthusiastic. – And one can lose flesh. I in half of year cast down 18 of kilogrammes.
Marta from Cracow thought over at night matter. Is inclined to enter to TVIND. – I want to go to China – of translators {explains}. – First I will be in school in States, after that in Asia. Far from these madmen here.
I am in nervous shock: – Marta! Nothing it is known about Chinese groups, do not give sign of life. Think over this {then}.
Answers: – Because I return to Polands. But surely after that I will resolve to do. Yes {so} I dream about China.
Krzysztofa from under Poznan surrounded with care Kirstje from The Teachers Group Had to to come at night, because yesterday her not saw. Convinces him, that I made error, not signing contracts. Boy turns {screws off} with necessity of return home: – There this {then} I will think over – promises.
Kirstje insists: – You can here return already for week. Money are not important, we will lend you {these}. Only come. You can?
Does not leave from him {it} on step, until door busu.
Several of hours before departure of ferry from Copenhagen to Świnoujścia I walk about with main street of capital – Strogetem. On square before town hall several of persons attaches of passer-bies. Hold armfuls of newspapers. I stop. Alice, Britisher, quickly of translators : – I am from Humana People this People, how woman will buy from me newspaper, I will go to Africas to help other. Please to buy…
I give of five crowns and asks m: – With difficulty is to ask of people for moneys?
Smiles: – On beginning } was me shame. But I stand here from December. Became accustomed. Only to parents nothing spoke.
- How much already today you assembled?
- Only of hundred crowns – worries . – But I have yet several of hours before oneself , only twelfth.
I become , Araya goes
Already in Poland I write maila to Maćka:” Worship. Former in Juelsminde, was very with pleasure. I would be inclined to enter to schools but, but… found page {side} Tvindalert!!! for what goes? you are from sects? there write truth? Answer, I ask, because I do not want to waste one’s own lives for some Amdi Petersena, I only wanted to help to people”. Copies {cribs}:” Hey, and what you think about this, what you saw, which one people, how {as} this {then} looks etc Tvindalert this {then} are lies. Can {perhaps} not all, because who does not take risks, this does not win, and The Teachers Group likes to take risks and not always this {then} succeeds. And you do not work for Amdi Petersena. Money, which you pay on programme, are on school, ticket to Africas, insurance {protection}, food, transportation, sleeping, and not for him {it}”.
I am in contact from Arayą from Vienna. Has 23 years, finished exclusive college for children of diplomatists. Acts in Austrian Greenpeace and Austrian Red Cross. Dreams about wolontariacie in midday America – her father is black diplomatist from Venezuela, mother native Austrian. When we left from Juelsminde, said her, of who I am, told about activities TVIND, gave address Tvindalert.
Week later I write to her maila with question, what hear. I get answer:” I enter. behind half of year I will be in midday America {south}”.
Partial summary:
in Lisboa, young people interested in taking part of a volunteer project was claimed; Ricardo Tomé, a
Portuguese boy, kept contact with Humana but finally said “no”. However,
another guy, Joâo Albergaria, travelled in April 1996 to Norway, paying
before 2500 euros to learn in the school… months later, he realised
something was “wrong”: they had to fundraise 6000 euros for six months, the
brainwashing was always present and there was a “war” between teachers and
volunteers there.
Joâo also says “time, work and money” was common for volunteers in this
organisation, that is, no private property, no freedom. In contrast,
Teachers earned 4200 euros in a month for “nothing”. He finally wrote a
letter to Danish government, explaining this situation: Humana is a cult.
Nowadays, he is working in a project[...]
On the other hand, the article says Humana has different names in Africa.
One of them is ADPP. Some people like Carlos Morgado and Rikhe Vikholm have
found things in common between ADPP and the Army Forces in Angola, for
example[...]
It also says Tvindalert was founded by a Danish writer called Bent
Johannesen in 1992 [...]
Finally, the ONG Oxfam International says they are avoiding any contact with
ADPP but, on the contrary, ADPP says they are working together[...] who
tells the truth?????
>Investigação
>VÃO DE CORAÇÃO ABERTO
>E ACABAM DE BOLSA VAZIA
>
>
> A boa vontade dos que se oferecem para incorporar um projecto
>humanitário amortece com as condições chocantes que reveste a acção da
>HUMANA, sobretudo em África, onde se crismou como ADPP – Ajuda de
>Desenvolvimento do Povo para o Povo
>
>
>
>No final do ano 2000, a atenção de um jovem português, desejoso não só de
>uma oportunidade de emprego mas também de dedicar o seu tempo a uma
>organização internacional, foi captada por um apelativo anúncio afixado no
>Instituto Português da Juventude, em Lisboa – “HUMANA – Procuram-se
>voluntários para trabalhar em projectos humanitários de desenvolvimento”.
>
>Ricardo Tomé tomou a iniciativa de contactar a dita organização. Foi então
>informado que para participar neste projecto de voluntariado teria que
>pagar 2500 coroas dinamarquesas, (350 euros) por cada mês de frequência,
>nas escolas da HUMANA.
>Foi-lhe dito, inclusivamente, que a “HUMANA People to People” desenvolvia,
>naquele momento, mais de 150 projectos em África e mobilizando mais de
>300.000 pessoas supervisionadas por cerca de 3.000 instrutores,
>devidamente, credenciados.
>Ricardo, face às elevadas quantias exigidas, acabou por não abraçar a
>causa.
>Mas há quem tenha aderido e pago uma factura elevada. João Albergaria,
>engenheiro zootécnico, é um caso exemplar.
>Após ter obtido o contacto da organização, através de um anúncio semelhante
>aos que semanalmente são publicados no Expresso (“Volunteers needed for
>Zambia and China”), João partiu, em Abril de 1996, motivado pelo espírito
>de missão para a escola “Den Reisende Hogskole”, da UFF (outra das
>designações da HUMANA), na Noruega.
>
>A formação “humanitária” pela qual tinha pago mais de 2.500 euros não
>correspondia de todo ao espírito anunciado.
>
>”Parti de coração aberto, sem defesas. Tinha a sensação de estar a abraçar
>uma causa justa e digna” mas, passado alguns meses, percebeu que “algo
>estava mal”.
>
>Uma das regras da organização, contratualizada, logo à chegada à escola, é
>a obrigatoriedade de os alunos recolherem durante os seis meses de duração
>do curso, cerca de 6.000 euros através da venda de postais.
>”A venda de postais e a lavagem cerebral para futura assimilação no
>Teacher´s Group são os principais objectivos do dito curso de preparação”,
>relembrou o engenheiro.
>João revelou, por outro lado, a existência de uma situação de “guerra
>permanente” entre formadores e formandos – “guerra” que incluía “insultos
>pessoais, pressão sobre os alunos através de reuniões intermináveis,
>lavagem cerebral e tentativa de aniquilação da auto-confiança de cada um”.
>
>Exemplo desta situação foram “dois casos de pessoas que perderam, no
>decorrer dos seis meses, toda a autoconfiança, sentindo-se incapazes e
>desistindo de ir para África à última da hora”.
>
>A recolha de roupa processa-se “em toda a Europa em contentores colocados
>estrategicamente. Camiões alugados pela organização transportam-nas para
>armazéns onde é feita a triagem da mesma, de acordo com o tipo de peças e
>sua qualidade”, revelou João, que trabalhou em armazéns na Finlândia e
>Noruega.
>
>Uma vez chegado à Zâmbia, o jovem português apercebeu-se que os ditos
>”investimentos nos recursos humanos da organização eram os voluntários,
>subordinados ao princípio do “tempo, trabalho e dinheiro em comum”.
>
>Em contraste com esta “franciscana” realidade, a representante da HUMANA
>auferia um salário mensal de 4.200 euros. Durante o meio ano em que esteve,
>na Zâmbia, João considera que “não aprendeu nada dada a grosseira falta de
>preparação dos professores”.
>
>Em suma, o ex-voluntário descreve a HUMANA como a “testa de ferro de uma
>seita”.
>João Albergaria escreveu, entretanto, uma “carta-denúncia” às autoridades
>dinamarquesas e deu vários depoimentos, quer em Portugal quer no
>estrangeiro.
>Actualmente, está integrado num projecto humanitário.
>
>A HUMANA adoptou, no continente africano, uma das suas múltiplas
>designações, a de Ajuda de Desenvolvimento de Povo para Povo (ADPP).
>
>Esta associação, segundo a HUMANA, “fornece roupa para financiar diversas
>actividades em países africanos”, nomeadamente, Angola, Guiné-Bissau,
>Moçambique, Zâmbia, Zimbabwe, etc.
>
>Segundo a informação disponibilizada pela organização na Internet, a ADPP
>gere “projectos de ajuda ao desenvolvimento”, com pendor humnitário:
>escolas, programas agrícolas, sanitários e campanhas de prevenção da SIDA.
>A ADPP controla, ainda, empresas altamente produtivas e sofisticadas como
>as plantações de eucalipto e trigo, no Zimbabwe.
>
>Em Angola, o orfanato da ADPP, no Caxito, na província do Huambo tornou-se,
>internacionalmente, famoso quando, em Julho, de 2000, cerca de meia centena
>de crianças foram raptadas por rebeldes pertencentes à UNITA. O assunto
>causou comoção, a nível mundial, embora tenha tido um final, relativamente,
>feliz com o regresso das crianças, sãs e salvas. Ao orfanato da ADPP, no
>Caxito.
>Este incidente foi, curiosamente, omitido da “homepage” da ADPP, em Angola.
>Em declarações à RTP Multimedia, o antigo médico pessoal de Jonas Savimbi e
>representante da Unita, Carlos Morgado, afirmou “a ADPP está intimamente
>ligada às Forças Armadas Angolanas e ao Futungo de Belas (presidência)”.
>Mas as ligações da ADPP ao poder angolano não se esgotam aqui. A
>responsável da organização, em Angola, a dinamarquesa Rikhe Vikholm integra
>o Conselho de Curadores e a Comissão Permanente do Conselho de Curadores da
>Fundação Eduardo dos Santos (FESA). O conhecido membro da UNITA referiu,
>ainda, as ligações existentes entre a ADPP e certas organizações
>consideradas internacionalmente “pouco transparentes ou mesmo mafiosas,
>como por exemplo a multinacional petrolífera Ranger Oil”.
>Por sua vez, o movimento TVIND ALERT, ou Movimento Contra a
>TVIND/Humana/ADPP www.tvindalert.org fundado, em 1992, pelo escritor
>dinamarquês , Bent Johannesen denunciou a teia de relações que liga a ADPP
>ao dinheiro das companhias petrolíferas e as alegadas relações com a
>SONANGOL, a Companhia Nacional de Petróleo.
>A União Europeia deu instruções aos seus Gabinetes, em Moçambique,
>Tanzânia, Zimbabwe e Namíbia para não terem qualquer contacto com a ADPP -
>alegando que os projectos da organização não beneficiavam os autóctones,
>pelo contrário, a roupa vendida a tão baixo preço, dado que é obtida
>gratuitamente e distribuída graças ao trabalho do voluntariado, prejudicava
>o comércio local.
>
>Numa tentativa de credibilizar a sua actuação perante a opinião pública,
>mas acima de tudo, perante as Empresas e os Governos que colaboram com a
>Organização, a ADPP disponibilizou, no seu “site”, uma listagem das
>instituições com as quais mantém parcerias. Estamos, obviamente, a falar de
>apoio logístico e monetário. Um dos parceiros citados é a prestigiada ONG,
>Oxfam International. Contudo, em resposta a um “mail” da RTP Multimedia, a
>Oxfam refere que “os contactos com a ADPP são escassos e evitados”.
The Guardian, Monday, June 9, 2003
By Michael Durham
Ten years ago the Guardian first raised doubts about the Danish organisation behind a chain of used-clothes charity shops. Now Mogens Amdi Petersen, the mysterious, Svengali-like figure behind the organisation is to stand trial in a £15m fraud case.
I am standing in a quiet country lane, looking over a low steel gate and down a drive towards a house entirely masked by dense woods. There is a security camera trained on me. Poking above the trees is the top of an 80ft radio transmitter. Attached to a tree is a notice, in Danish, with a picture of a fierce alsatian dog, and the entire property is ringed by a two-metre electric fence.
This is No 13 Plagborgvej, just outside Grindsted, Denmark. Somewhere in there is a middle-aged man called Mogens Amdi Petersen, alias The Leader. He is known throughout Scandinavia as the supreme leader of a remarkable organisation, a diverse and idealistic charitable movement dedicated to helping the world’s poor – or not, as the case may be. Because nothing is as it seems in this story.
In the security of his compound, Petersen could well be enjoying a game of tennis – inside the fortified estate is a modern luxury villa with a swimming pool and covered tennis court. Petersen is obviously a wealthy man. Or is he? The name on the postbox is that of another individual altogether. And therein lies the mystery of Mogens Amdi Petersen – is he, as he claims, a simple person with modest tastes, an impoverished do-gooder? Or is he one of the world’s most astounding conmen, exploiting and robbing the poor and vulnerable all over the world?
This is the closest I have been to the elusive Petersen – assuming he is at home. He once went missing for 22 years. He is – or isn’t, depending on whom you talk to – the overall leader of Humana People-to-People, one of the strangest and largest international humanitarian non-governmental organisations in the world, also known in Scandinavia as Tvind. The hunt for him started in earnest 10 years ago, in 1993, when the Guardian published a two-page special investigation, headlined Alarm Bells Ring over Education Group. The story told of accounts by British college-leavers who had become involved with a strange, cult-like organisation with its own training academies in Scandinavia, and a network of British used-clothes charity shops whose accounts did not seem to add up.
If only the world had known then what is now small-talk at the Danish police department of serious economic crime. It has emerged that, at about the same time as the Guardian’s articles came out, Petersen and his girlfriend, Kirsten Larsen, were secretly moving into two $6m (£3.6m) luxury apartments in Miami, bought through a nominee company, and taking possession of the world’s biggest glass-fibre ocean-going luxury yacht, the Butterfly McQueen.
While accountants in Britain, Denmark, Norway and Holland scratched their heads over Humana People-to-People’s accounts, Petersen was – or so it is alleged – secretly building up a multinational business, flitting about the world using charitable money creamed off through offshore accounts. Petersen entirely denies this – he was, he says retired. He does not deny the existence of the apartment or yacht, but insists they were never his – but rather put at his disposal by others, who bought them as investments.
Then there are the “cult” allegations. Petersen is supposed to have created an elite society of highly motivated young people, prepared to give up ordinary life and follow The Leader; known as the Teachers Group, it was one of the foundations of his power. Petersen has denied that the Teachers Group exists. None of this has so far cut much ice with the authorities: Petersen, Larsen and six others are now arraigned before a special court in Aarhus, accused of fraud, money laundering and breach of trust, to the value of £15m.
Whatever the eventual verdict, what is now known for certain about Petersen makes for a remarkable tale. The son of a schoolteacher, he emerged from obscurity in Denmark in the late 60s as a kind of hippie guru, a revolutionary firebrand who preached a Maoist-inspired gospel of social renewal. His three tenets were common economy, common time and common distribution, laced with a measure of 60s free love and anti-authoritarianism.
Petersen seems to have gathered around 40 disciples and then set about creating first a school system, then an international relief organisation, and finally the many-tentacled Humana People-to-People NGO, operating under a baffling variety of names and spheres of interest. Used-clothes recycling schemes began in the 70s, more training colleges were opened in the 80s and the organisation expanded dramatically in the US under the name Planet Aid.
Accounts of friends from the early days describe a driven, charismatic working-class hero, almost worshipped by his followers, very attractive to women, but also running an organisation based on fear. The Teachers Group – about 600 comrades with a tight, secretive inner circle – was formed in the 70s. But Petersen became increasingly paranoid, claiming to be a target for the secret services and CIA, and one day in 1979, he disappeared.
What happened next is a matter of dispute. According to Petersen and Larsen, they severed all links with the organisation and retired to live as private citizens abroad. The police, however, contend that for the next 22 years, the pair were secretly running the show, chairing meetings, directing staff and making investment decisions, all the time laundering charity money to build a multinational empire and buy themselves expensive properties, such as the Miami apartments, and beachside villas in the Caymans.
Petersen and Larsen remained firmly out of public view until last year, even though they reportedly attended business meetings in Miami and Grinsted and went on world cruises. Those who knew of the money transfers and purchases insist they were made legitimately by the Teachers Group and not by Petersen. But two important individuals did eventually come forward to tell their side of the story. Steen Thomsen, a Danish schoolmaster who ran a Tvind school in Britain until 1998, denounced Petersen as a fraud the same year and sent a report to the Danish authorities, claiming Petersen was running a cult, not a charity, from which he was personally benefiting. At the same time another former high-ranking member of the Teachers Group, Hans la Cour, wrote a book in which he described 18 years “inside” Tvind, during which time he alleged he was asked to run non-existent “environmental projects”, and then launder the proceeds. While La Cour was bobbing about the south Atlantic on a ship called the Marco Polo inventing plausible “surveys”, the money was used to buy a $9m fruit farm in the Brazilian rainforest from Shell. La Cour is likely to be a key prosecution witness.
Two years ago Danish police, tax officials and the security services raided seven Tvind addresses, including 13 Plagborgvej, and removed computers, from which they eventually extracted about three million pages of encrypted documents – enough, they say, to build a case. An international arrest warrant was issued for Petersen, and in February 2002 he and Larsen were arrested in transit at Los Angeles International Airport. He has since been extradited to Denmark.
Petersen, for his part, denies everything. Many people, however, have been trying to break the wall of silence, including Frede Farmand, who studied 10,000 pages of confidential Tvind documents for his book about Petersen, The Master from Tvind. He compares Petersen to a millenarian cult leader akin to a religious messiah, and among the claims made in his book – and backed up by documents – is that Petersen’s last project was to sail away in the Butterfly McQueen with hand-picked members of the Teachers Group to a sun-kissed retirement in the island of Fiji, at a specially constructed jungle paradise.
Why does all this matter? The financial peccadilloes of a middle-aged man in a small Danish town hardly seem to have much bearing on the average Briton. But if Petersen is indeed found to have been the mastermind behind the hundreds of Tvind companies and charities all over the world, what of the operations under his control here?
At least two used-clothes charitable companies – although they often try to distance themselves – can be specifically linked to Tvind, so that every time a spring-cleaning housewife drops a donation of her old woollies into the collecting box, it is really a donation to the Teachers Group. One, a company called Planet Aid, is run by a Danish woman, Birgit Soe. Her husband, Torben, runs a similar company called Green World – according to staff, Torben Soe often spoke with admiration of the tall, bespectacled Dane, his inspirational leader, Petersen. On investigation two years ago, not one of the “environmental projects” Green World claimed to support proved to have an independent existence outside the Teachers Group.
Tvind also continues to advertise regularly and widely for “volunteers” in British newspapers. And what of the “training college” in East Yorkshire, where young people regularly sign up for development studies (and often depart in haste soon afterwards, complaining they have been asked to beg on the streets)? Tvind again. The question is, were all these part of Petersen’s master plan? And should we take their assurances that they are “nothing to do with Amdi Petersen” so lightly?
But perhaps most disturbing of all is the ease with which international “good causes” can spirit money from one country to another without proper restraint – as Petersen is alleged to have done to feather his own nest. Five years ago, Petersen’s main UK charity, Humana UK, was closed down on charity commission advice because of financial irregularities. No such sanction is available to any of the existing Tvind companies, according to the Department of Trade and Industry and the charity commission, because the money is supposed to be applied to good causes abroad. It is time this loophole was closed – fast
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,973358,00.html
Dagens Nyheter, Sweden, 25 May 2003
In spite of bankruptcy and scandals, the controversial clothes collection organisation UFF in Sweden starts again.
On 20 January this year, UFF in Sweden stopped to pay. But the organisation which went bankrupt was UFF in Stockholm which stood surety for collecting and handling of clothes in whole Sweden and ran second hand shops.
The organisation which exists now is UFF in Sweden, which earlier administrated assistance matters, writes Sydsvenska Dagbladet.
With money from other associations which are connected to the so called Tvind movement, which UFF is a part of, the organisation was able to buy about one thousand old UFF-containers from the assets of the bancruptcy. It
also took over seven lorries.
Now UFF starts again with the main office in Stockholm, a regional office in Ängelholm and shops in Stockholm, Linköping, Helsingborg and Malmö.
30 of 148 employees can keep their work.
Simultaneously with the new start in Sweden, this week the court case against the leader of the Tvind movement, Mgens Amdi Petersen, will start again. Petersen was on the “wanted” list of the Danish police for 23 years until he was arrested on 16 february 2002 in USA.
This court case will be Denmark’s hitherto most comprehensive one.
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