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The Humanitarian Foundation

Humanitære Fond

1987 - 2001

Founded in 1987 by two TG members: Tove Birkøe, (later manager of Floresta Atlantica Ltda, one of the companies that owned Fazenda jatoba in Brazil) and Rikke Viholm (currently ADPP representative in Angola)

"The Foundation for the Support of Humanitarian Purposes, the Promotion of Research and the Protection of the Natural Environment"

Founded 1987, put into administration 2001. This is the 'charitable' fund at the centre of current Danish police charges of tax evasion and fraud. See the Danish police summary of evidence against Mogens Amdi Petersen.

Humanitarian Fund 'projects' in the Caribbean, Haiti, Malaysia, Borneo and Brazil have all been the subject of enquiries and allegations. A key Tvind financial body, the Humanitarian Fund was set up in the mid-80s in response to the Danish government's anti-Tvind laws, which were hurting the organisation financially. Officially, the purpose of the foundation was to support scientific research, the environment and humanitarian causes. It was financed by tax deductible contributions from members of the TG. By early this year some 75million Danish kroner (Dkr) - approximately £6m - had passed through the foundation.

However, in an investigative documentary aired early in 2001, Danish TV claimed many of the claims of 'environmental; projects' were false. It accused Tvind of using this fund to launder at least $7m. On April 25th Danish police raided eight Tvind addresses, including schools, apparently looking for evidence of fraud and tax evasion. Four leaders of the Tvind movement (Amdi Petersen, Poul Joergensen, Bodil Ross Soerenson and Eva Vestergaard) have since been charged with preliminary charges of fraud and it seems likely that full charges will follow next year.

Since preliminary charges ("sigtelse" - grounds for police investigation) were made, all the existing board members have been removed by the authorities and the Humanitarian Foundation is no longer run by Tvind.

Newspaper report

"It's all about profit" Ekstra Bladet, Denmark, 14th May 1995

Henning Bjornlund, a former Tvind treasurer described as "the brains behind the many financial speculations of the empire", spoke unguardedly to Ekstra Bladet reporter Kurt Simonsen back in 1995. He described Tvind finances in great detail and told how the Humanitarian Foundation was started as a way of reducing tax. He said it was 'all about money'. Bjornlund has left Tvind and is now an academic concerned with water economics at a university in Australia.

Extract:

Bjornlund: "Well, weve always exploited the legal system to the limit. During the earliest years we let the teaching staff deduct eighty per cent of the salaries from their tax. It was never paid out the them anyway. The lot went to Tvinds coffers. I managed the whole thing"

Simonsen: And then they changed the law in 1987?

Bjornlund: "Yes, that was purely a "Lex Tvind", a Tvind Act. But then we simply started the Humanitarian Foundation where you could only deduct sixteen per cent. We just said, "Oh dear, ever so sorry". Weve got one hell of a fine accountant and lawyers who otherwise only work for the best firms in Denmark, you really have to know what you are doing if you want to catch them out. Were simply too smart. Unlike everybody else on the political left a phrase I have to say I find meaningless anyway weve always had a nose for money," Henning Bjornlund explains with a tinge of pride.

Danish TV investigation

A correspondent writes a summary: From the middle of the 80s, Amdi Petersen started to prepare the economy of the Teachers Group for the ending of the economic support for the schools from the Danish government. A lot of projects in Africa and South America were started in order to supply the TG with money.

For many years the TG project workers in Africa had no salary. Suddenly, in 1992, Britta Junge (former TG member 1977-95), at that time working in Africa, had a gigantic raise of salary from nil to $60.000 a year. They were paid on the scale of UN salaries.

The money from their salaries came from the profit from all the old clothes UFF/Planet Aid/Humana sold in Africa, Europe and Eastern Europe. Britta Junge travelled with a suitcase filled with dollars, from Africa to Vejle in Denmark, where the Humanitarianj Foundation was located. She delivered the money to a man called Niels Holst.

Hans la Cour (former TG member 1972-90) told about his work as a scientist on the Tvind ship "Store Claus" - for 9 months he and some other TG members were employed and paid with money from the "Humanitarian Foundation for research and environment protection" via IFAS - Institute For Applied Science - to find projects of all sorts in Central and South America and make the people apply for economic support from the "Foundation".

The reason for this was to prove that the Foundation was real and that there was a need for it - but in fact the people in the projects never received any money at all.

After 9 months the ship changed its name to "The Return of Marco Polo" and most of the crew of "scientists" - really TG members without any education - were changed to a TV production team who received 13 million dkr. from the Foundation and produced some nature films with cameras bought from another Tvind company.

The Danish Ministry of the Interior has in vain asked Poul Joergensen for copies of all the applications to IFAS but Poul Joergensen claims they have been burned. If anybody is interested Hans la Cour has copies. The Danish Taxation Authorities ought to be interested as the amount of money paid in fact by the Danish taxpayers amounts to around 60 million dkr. which the Foundation has paid since 1986 to Tvind and not to needy projects around the world.

Sept 2002: TG defends the Humanitarian Fund.

Denmark, Friday Sept 6^th: A book published by leading members of the Teachers Group seeks to defend Amdi and the Humanitarian Foundation against fraud charges. The 300-page book, formally by nine leading TG members, praises the foundation and its "29 projects in the service of mankind and nature. A Danish journalist tells Tvind Alert: There is nothing new in the book - nearly everything in the book was published on one of the several Tvind web-pages, www.fonden.org, more than a year ago. Actually the book is only a reprint of - parts of - the web-page.

http://www.berlingske.dk/artikel:aid=210840/

Aug 2002: NEW BOOK ABOUT 18 YEARS AT THE HEART OF TVIND

Denmark, Friday Aug 30th 2002: Hans la Cour, who joined Tvind as a young man and stayed for 18 years, has written a 365-page account of his time with the organisation. La Cour, a leading witness against Amdi and the other TG-members in the upcoming case, was in a central position in the Humanitarian Foundations (alleged) laundering of money back to Tvind. He was a project-leader in some of the most important, extravagant projects, amongst them Global Research (2.4 million Danish kroner) and The Voice of The Third World (14 million Danish kroner). La Cour left the TG 12 years ago because, he says, he found out that the whole idea not was to help the suppressed masses of the world - but to help Amdi and the TG. He stayed silent for 10 years but 2 years ago he told Danish TV2 about his knowledge about the use of the money from the Foundation. In the book he - for the first time - tells the whole story about his life in the TG and his many meetings with Amdi. (Danish media)

Website: www.fonden.org