from Lowdown Magazine, Zambia, Mai 2002
David Simpson
On 17 February 2002, Mögens Amdi Petersen was arrested by the FBI at Los
Angeles International Airport. He is currently in custody in Los Angeles
pending extradition to Denmark, where he is likely to face charges of
serious fraud, tax evasion, and embezzlement of millions of dollars
involving large but wholly fictitious "environmental projects".
Why should this concern us? Because Petersen, founder of the Danish Tvind
organisation (known as Humana in English-speaking countries), is the man
behind Development Aid - People to People (DAPP), the second-hand clothing
distributors who have had a devastating effect on Zambia's textile, clothing
and shoe manufacturing industries.
Zambians, in general, are not rich. But they very much like to be well
dressed. And they have welcomed the second-hand clothes market, which has
mushroomed in Zambia under the general heading of salaula. At its peak DAPP
Zambia had 19 retail outlets, with 150 employees, and distributed close to
400 tonnes of shoes and 400 tonnes of clothing each year, besides being
involved in other projects like Children's Town.
It sounds like a worthwhile business - redistributing used clothes to
benefit poor people in developing countries. But what we see here in Zambia
is just the tip of a very murky iceberg.
Tvind (the name of a village near Ulfborg in Denmark) has a web of
subsidiary organisations which help to obscure the route taken by the money
involved. Among these are Humana, UFF, Green World, Planet Aid, Gaia,
ConMore bv (Holland), Holland House, DAPP and several others
Its clothing venture involves subsidiary companies that collect used clothes
given by the public; trade in them; transport them; sell them; make the
collection boxes and even make new clothes. Many of these companies are
located in offshore tax havens like Jersey, and trade with each other,
facilitating the manipulation of the records. They often change their names,
go in and out of receivership and liquidation, or go bankrupt. They usually
deny any links with Tvind, but the names of the directors show that they are
all members of the Teachers Group, a band of Petersen's loyal supporters in
Denmark.
Former members explain that Humana collection centres sort the used clothing
into items suitable for the African climate and items suitable for Eastern
Europe's climate. Some of the best items go to Humana shops.
Humana sends an invoice to its sales agent, understating the value. The
agent sends a different invoice (doubling the amount) to the local agent in
the destination country. The recipient of the clothes pays the higher figure
to the local agent, often a Tvind operative. The sales agent pays Humana the
lower figure minus a charge for his service.
Humana headquarters demands a large percentage of the proceeds as a charity
donation, to be used to buy clothing suitable for Africa. Some of this money
may actually be used for this purpose. However much of it goes to benefit
the members of the Teachers Group.
Tvind's claim to charitable status has been refuted by Danish, French and
British government investigations which show that the organisation makes
huge profits. The field workers are volunteers, who believe that they are
helping to alleviate third world poverty. In fact though they start out as
idealistic, starry-eyed youngsters they are exploited in order to produce
profits which have gone to enrich the Teachers Group and in particular its
founder, Amdi Petersen. They are often brainwashed, and lose their money,
family life and private property rights. Many have left disillusioned.
Project leaders often never see the money they have been promised.
Government authorities in Europe regard Tvind as a dangerous cult.
Concerns about the organisation's operations date back 20 years, but
evidence was hard to unearth until 1996, when the UK's Charity Commission,
acting on a tip from the Observer, flew into Zambia and discovered that many
"aid projects" in Zambia supposedly run by Humana were
"double-funded",
being financed by other charities or even by the Zambian government. But
Humana itself had been collecting for these projects. What happened to that
money? Very little Humana or DAPP money went into the projects. Instead,
said the investigators, it was misused to fund the extravagant lifestyles of
the Teachers Group and its leader.
Humana has recently been closed down in England and France following
official investigations. Though it still operates a collection scheme under
that name in Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, and
Belgium, it has recently moved out of Europe, and under the title Humana
People to People set up its headquarters in Zimbabwe, where Petersen owns a
game ranch.
Humana's development aid projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America include
schools for children, child aid, preschools, vocational schools, Frontline
Institute, teacher training colleges in Angola and Mozambique, One World
University, the scholarship programme, the development instructor programme,
Hope, environmental projects, commercial companies, clothes collection and
sale, relief aid, and refugee aid.
According to a former Teachers Group member, many of the projects in Africa
and South America were deliberately started as a source of income for the
group after 1992, when the Danish state stopped funding Tvind. Humana is
active in almost 40 countries. Money raised from old clothes sales in Europe
is "recycled" through the foreign aid projects and returned to the
Tvind's
Humanitarian Fund.
The schools projects employ ill-trained volunteer teachers. The Hope project
(also known as TCE - Total Control of the Epidemic), is regarded as one of
the more effective Tvind development aid projects, but in Denmark it has
been accused of making highly overoptimistic projections about its ability
to end the AIDS pandemic in three years - given sufficient financial support
from well wishers.
Mögens Amdi Petersen "disappeared" in 1979 and after 22 years of
obscurity
was discovered in April last year living in a US$6 million luxury flat in
Fisher Island, off Miami. Security on the island, paid for by the
millionaire residents, is so tight that intending visitors must be
specifically invited by a resident or booked into the resort hotel, which
checks credentials in great detail before accepting bookings.
Petersen began as a hippie in the counter-culture, with what was probably a
genuine concern for the downtrodden people of the third world. Somewhere
along the way he was seduced by the potential profits of the development aid
process, and amassed a vast fortune based on exploitation and dodging the
law. His arrest and forthcoming trial should see the final collapse of his
empire.
END