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Le Monde Diplomatique #6443
The USA and Scientology In the Name of Freedom
May 11, 2001
Many thanks to Joe Cisar for
providing the Lisa McPherson Trust with this translation.
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Washington, USA
A dispute over religious freedom is poisoning
diplomatic relations between Washington and
Europe. In the name of individual rights, the United
States grants immunity from prosecution to groups
which portray themselves as minority faiths and
whose activities courts have repeatedly objected to.
These cults, which have developed from a brew of
the "new right," neoconservatism and
anti-communism, seek to hammer the ultraliberal
ideology and its values into the heads of the people
and proclaim themselves to be the common binding
foundation for all societies.
by Bruno Fouchereau, Journalist
Some time back the cult issue was regarded solely as
a "unsettling social phenomenon," but in recent years
it has grown into an "urgent problem of public
safety." The primary cause of this re-evaluation lay in
several spectacular events: the mass suicides of the
Solar Templists in 1994 and 1995, the poison gas
attack by the Aum sect in the Tokyo subway of
March 1995, and the collective suicide of the
Heaven's Gate cult in Los Angeles in 1999. France,
Belgium, Spain and Germany subsequently tightened
up their prosecution arrangements. In the majority of
these cases the legislators' decision was based on
parliamentary committees of inquiry into the risk from
certain groups and into the methods of brainwashing
which their members were subjected to. The leading
roles in stepping up state procedure against these
cults were played by France and Germany.
Yet practically everywhere in the European
countries, official government offices were installed in
order to observe the cult scene. In 1996, France
passed a series of laws for stronger protection of
psychically dependent people. The administration
under Minister President Lionel Jospin set up an
Interministerial Mission to Combat Cult Presence
(MILS) under the leadership of Alain Vivien. In
Germany a number of measures were taken, mainly
against the Scientology Organization. In connection
with a report of the Federal-States work group on
Scientology, the Office for the Protection of the
Constitution explicitly warned the federal government
and the people about this cult. Bavaria even decided
on a 15-point list of measures which included
monitoring contact with Scientology by civil service
applicants. (1) In view of these stepped-up
procedures in Europe, all observers of the scene
reckoned on a counter-offensive from the
cult-multi[national]s, who in France alone possess an
estimated fortune of several hundred million franks.
The attack came from the United States. (2)
On January 27, 1997 the administration in
Washington solemnly condemned Germany's
measures against the Scientology organization.
Several days later the U.S. State Department
published its "Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights
and Labor" (BDHRL)(3) annual report on the world
human rights situation. In it Germany was vigorously
attacked and put on the list of countries which
abused human rights, right behind China. The report
was timed so as to support the Scientology
Organization's publicity campaign, which included
organizing demonstrations in various countries,
putting protest advertisements into the international
press and calling upon the EU Human Rights
Commission. In order to "calm tempers," the U.S.
State Department issued a statement in March 1997
which said, "We did criticize the Germans, but we do
not support the Scientology campaign against
Germany." This statement was the least that could
have been expected from the U.S. administration.
When Congress passed a new law on religious
freedom in the world, the BDHRL established a new
department, the "Office of International Religious
Freedom." With a fully empowered ambassador at
the top who had five state department officials under
him, the new group has a representative in each U.S.
embassy. The first chief of the agency was named
Robert A. Seiple, an ex-Marine whose favorite
saying was, "The individual rights of freedom apply
everywhere because they are a gift from God." (4)
Seiple told the Naples Daily News (5) how very
much his faith had helped him in all his personal
tribulations, namely in his 300 combat missions in
Vietnam where he served as an officer in the Marine
infantry.
However Seiple did not obtain his office on account
of his war experiences. For eleven years he sat at the
head of ultraconservative World Vision Inc., a
heavily financed Christian welfare association with
millions of members all over the world, which
finances development projects in Latin America and
Asia. (6) In September 1998, the first report of the
"Office of International Religious Freedom" appeared
(7). In it France, Germany, Austria and Belgium
were accused of serious violations against religious
freedom. Even the report of the French parliamentary
committee of inquiry of 1995 was regarded as
persecution in blind rage. The representatives were
accused of pursuing a politic of religious alienation
insofar as the organizations named in the report were
said to be prosecuted not for any illegal activity, but
solely because of their beliefs.
At the invitation of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), the
sub-organization of the OSCE "Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights" (ODIHR)
arranged a seminar in Vienna on March 22, 1999 in
which the French sect politic was vehemently
attacked. In a natural progression of the U.S. State
Department's criticism, the American diplomats and
senators took on the role of accuser. The situation
almost led to a diplomatic debacle. A similar scenario
was staged in a hearing by the "Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe," an
independent U.S. federal agency with its
headquarters in Washington. Three witnesses were
invited who revealed terrible things: they said that
France was on its way to becoming a new
Vichy-state, that the French Minister President was
under the influence of anti-religious organizations, and
that children were being taken from their parents.
The report of the hearing, published in June 1999,
demonstrated what a powerful concern the U.S.
American Senators had for basic rights in Europe.
(9) For instance, they accused the French
government of misapplying the tax law as an
instrument of a new Inquisition.
The French anti-cult agency MILS and the Parisian
Foreign Ministry, based on an analysis of the financial
structure and the money flows of the Scientology
Organization, reported that they were clearly dealing
with a private commercial corporation which raked in
huge profits and which was therefore properly
subject to the tax law. The parliamentary report of
inquiry, on which lawyers, sect specialists and the
police had cooperated, listed 180 allegedly religious
organizations which, after thorough investigation,
could be classified as totalitarian because they used
psychological terrorism to keep their adherents in
line. Court judgments were in effect against most of
these organizations. Furthermore, the French
administration took the effort to clear away untruths
and misunderstandings. For instance France had
been accused of refusing to acknowledge some
minority groups as religion. The reality of the
situation, based on a 1905 law which mandates the
separation of church and state, is that France does
not acknowledge religion for any group at all.
But despite all those efforts, the dialogue remained
pointless. The annual report, published September 9,
1999 by the U.S. Office for International Religious
Freedom, attacked the European countries more
vehemently than ever before. On December 8,
Hubert V�drine, the French Foreign Minister, wrote
to his American colleague Madeleine Albright, "The
act of your government baselessly making an issue
out of the methods of operation of French
government agencies while high officials of your and
my administrations have dialogue in process throws a
shadow on the very promising outcome of those
discussions." Shortly thereafter the diplomatic
dialogue on the issue was broken off and, to date,
has never again been taken up. The last U.S. State
Department report, published March 2 of this year,
indeed took into account the French laws of 1901
and 1905, silently clearing away their past mistakes,
but again made accusations as caustic as any before.
Key figures and concerted actions
Taken by themselves, the history and the Constitution
of the United States do not explain why the U.S.
government so persistently supports various cults. As
previously mentioned, the "Office for International
Religious Freedom," a part of the "Office for
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor," resides in the
U.S. State Department. In addition to that there is a
"Commission for Religious Freedom" which was
founded in Washington by members of the U.S.
Congress. On top of that comes thirdly the "United
States Commission for Religious Freedom," which
reports directly to the White House. According to
information from its director, Steven T. McFarland,
his organization perceives itself as a "watchdog"
insofar as it "monitors the work of the other
commissions so that they do not stray from the right
path."
To the question of whether he had read the report of
the French National Assembly, Steve T. McFarland
had to say no, and this was because the French
language was not a strong point with him, as he
added apologetically. Neither did the report from the
MILS French anti-cult agency, nor the information
from the French Foreign Ministry nor the notes from
the French Embassy in Washington find a readership
in the government offices responsible. All officials
who could be reached in these three agencies had to
admit that they had not read these texts, neither the
originals nor the translations. McFarland excused this
with the reassurance that he regarded as absolutely
credible the information which had been forwarded
to him from the American intelligence service, the
embassy in Paris, academic experts and the
non-governmental organizations critical of France.
When he was confronted with a series of despatches
from the American Embassy in Madrid (10) from
which it could be clearly seen that the "Bureau for
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor" had
intervened in Spain for the purpose of delaying a
magistrate's investigative proceeding against the
Scientology organization, McFarland refused to
make any comment.
The names of the intelligence service agents from
whom the U.S. commission culled its information
could not be discovered for obvious reasons. A
glance at the internet page of the U.S. Embassy in
Paris was therefore all the more informative. There,
for one example, the services of lawyer Kay Gaejens
were recommended, who is himself a professed
member of the Scientology Organization. And when
the National Assembly conducted a public hearing in
February 2001 about the problems of psychological
manipulation techniques, the U.S. Embassy, although
not invited, sent two of its staff in the company of a
leading member of the French Scientology
Organization. Also questions are posed about the
witnesses who appeared in support of the U.S.
commission. The leader of the Vienna seminar of
March 1999 was none other than Italian sociologist
Massimo Introvigne, one of the founders of the
Catholic fundamentalist "Centro Studi sulle Nuove
Religioni"(11), which maintains close contact with the
neo-fascist "Travail Famille Propri�t�" cult in France.
Massimo Introvigne's words are to be found in
numerous publications of the Scientology
Organization, and he appeared as a witness for them
at a trial in Lyon.
Another key figure is Willy Fautr�, who wears the
badge of chairman of the Belgian "Droit de lHomme
sans Fronti�re" organization, a name which should
not be mistakenly assumed to be acknowledged by
the International Federal of Human Rights
Associations. For a long time Fautr� was a
correspondent for the "News Network
International," a U.S. American press agency which
is known for its militant anti-communism and its
opposition to abortion. In addition to that Fautr� is a
member of the Helsinki Federation for Human Rights
(HFHR), whose publications are cited in detail in the
U.S. commissions' reports.
The last crown witness mentioned in the alleged
violations against religious freedom by the French
government is Pastor Louis D�meo of the "Institut
Th�ologique de N�mes." This institute is part of the
"Greater Grace" cult, whose headquarters in in
Baltimore, Maryland. Greater Grace commands over
3,000 mission branches in Latin America, several
hundred in Africa and a handful in eastern Europe.
the Institute of N�mes functions as a staging platform
for the eastern European countries. Greater Grace,
whose methods have been met with vehement
protest even in the United States, can effortlessly be
described as a "traveling companion" of the
Scientology Organization.
Stacy Brooks, chairman of the Lisa McPherson
Trust (12), the most important U.S. American aid
organization for Scientology victims, was herself a
member of the organization for 15 years. She
worked as an official for David Miscavige,
Hubbard's heir and currently the Scientology guru.
She remembers the director of Greater Grace,
George Robertson, very well, "He is in close contact
with the managers in Scientology. When the cult
cannot itself intervene in certain matters because of
image problems, it asks Robertson for help. He is
their most important liaison with the Evangelical
movement." It was under his management that
Greater Grace and Scientology were able to sue and
ruin the Cult Awareness Network, founded in 1970 -
and then buy it up. (13)
The influence which the Scientology movement and
its adepts are able to exert in the USA is also
demonstrated under an entirely different
circumstance. Since 1993, the cult has been
acknowledged by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service
as a religious community, thereby giving it tax
exemption. For 25 years that office had rejected all
applications from Scientology, and this had been
legally validated by all the U.S. courts, including the
Supreme Court. The change of mood in 1993 gave
the Scientology organization access to millions in
savings and provided it with a PR instrument to the
extent that it gained access to the U.S. government.
The New York Times revealed the details of this
turn-about in 1997. According to that paper
Scientology had waged a regular war against the tax
agency, including on the legal level by bogging down
the agency with over fifty law suits. But that was not
enough. They also hired detectives to spy on the
private lives of high officials in the tax agency. One of
these private investigators told the New York Times
in March 1997 that he worked for Scientology for
18 months between 1990 and 1992. From his office
in Maryland he gathered information on officers who
missed appointments, who drank too much, or who
maintained extra-marital affairs. Tax exemption
occurred at the explicit instruction of the director of
the income tax department, circumventing the normal
decision-making channels.
Annual profits of 300 million dollars, sophisticated
techniques of intimidation and infiltration and finally
the IRS acknowledgment as a religions community
brought the Scientology Organization influence at the
highest decision levels of the U.S. American state.
Stephen A. Kent of the sociological institute of the
University of Alberta, Canada investigated the
lobbying strategies of various cults and religious
groups in Washington. His detailed analysis showed
the degree to which the Scientologists - as did the
Moon cult before them - exerted influence upon
members of the House, the Senate and the White
House. To that end the Scientology Organization
hired a public relations corporation which specialized
in lobby work for which it received 725,000 and
420,000 dollars in 1997 and 1998 respectively.
A number of actors and actresses, invariable
Scientology members, donated over 70,000 dollars
to Hillary Clinton for her senatorial election
campaign; Tom Cruise handed over 5,000 dollars to
Albert Gore, and John Travolta together with other
Scientologists, arranged a banquet the proceeds of
which went to the Democratic Party - admission:
25,000 dollars. Finally, an attorney for the
Scientologists donated 20,000 dollars to the
democratic election. The influence of the Moon cult
has also grown remarkably. Since just recently
Democrat Hillary Clinton's sneering comments have
been permitted to appear weekly in the conservative
and widely-distributed Washington Time, which
belongs to the Moon cult.
To all appearances the Moon cult and the
Scientology Organization have been making
arrangements together for a long time. In any case,
since the mid-1990s both organizations have
coordinated their efforts at religious freedom in the
USA and in Europe. Their joint operation in eastern
Europe is documented, published on the internet, by
an exchange of letters between the managements of
the Moon cult and the Scientology Organization. This
partnership has also more or less officially included
other cults, and Moon and Scientology have also
found support for some time in the fundamentalist
Protestants in the USA. For instance several
ultra-conservative senators and the U.S. State
Department have warmly received a number of
Moon greats as well as guru Sri Chinmoy of a cult by
the same name. The Institute, whose headquarters in
Washington is located right next to the White House,
announces that it embraces an "integralistic"
Catholicism and is involved in promoting regard for
the rights of the Scientology Organization, the Moon
cult, and other so-called "minority religions" in
Europe.
Finally the ultra-conservative, anti-gay and
anti-abortion "Institute on Religion and
Democracy"(IRD)(15) is also mentioned, which for
twenty years has been making appearances for
fundamentalist-Protestant reform of democratic
institutions all over the world. Therefore it is not
surprising that IRD President Diane L. Knippers sits
in the choir of France-slanderers, "France is a model
for the other European democracies. It absolutely
has to give up its anti-religion politics and reinstate
the guarantee to practice belief." In the very next
sentence she then involuntarily reveals what binds
together these, at first glance, very diverse groups
and cults, "Today we are working for religious
freedom for the same reason as people once did
against communism. A human society cannot develop
if it lives in a lie. Atheism and communism can only
produce lies. Spirituality is a guarantee of civilization
because spirituality and faith produce honest people.
Without honesty there is no trade, and without trade
no civilization." [Note: all quotes in this article are
non-literal quotes. They have been translated from
English to French to German back to English.]
The fight for "spiritualization of the world" serves the
same purpose as those of the lobby groups which are
attempting to put American values into effect on the
path to globalization. (16) In globalizing markets and
American values, according to the "Institute on
Religion and Democracy," the United States uses the
Bible. This mystic-imperialistic worldview is shared
by all fundamentalist groups in the USA: they feel
they make up the ideological framework of all forces
which have the urge to champion religious freedom.
Just to name two examples: John R. Bolton, member
of the U.S. Commission for Religious Freedom, was
previously the vice president of the ultraliberal
"American Enterprise Institute for Policy Research."
In the old Bush administration, Bolton served in the
President's office as an advisor for international trade
issues. Nina Shea, also a member of this commission,
reported, "Our primary goal consists of worldwide
implementation of the new liberal order."
This logic of domination, whose beginnings go back
to the Reagan administration in the early 1980s and
which one could almost describe as "interactive," is
being emphasized in a concurrent attempt to
implement universally valid standards of law. By this,
market globalization is to be brought to closure. But
there is still resistance against it. Among other places,
that goes for the market of education where the cults
and communications groups oppose a common
enemy: a basic ideological position which has its
historical roots in France - the principle of laicism.
The attacks on French cult politics is therefore
directed at something much more basic: the laic
character of the French Republic.
What the cults intend to gain in this battle is obvious.
If they succeed in getting their foot inside the door of
European education, when they gain the right to
operate their own schools, as they have in the United
States, without any state control, then they will have
assured themselves of a stable and comprehensive
base of recruitment. These institutions would then be
directly involved in the coining of the culture and the
psychology of the individual.
With the background of this cultural-political goal
one can indeed not think of a standard united front
made up of corporations from the communications
industry, but clearly far-reaching connections are
evident with the producers of the programs and their
content in the film and computer industry. It is known
that ABC, CNN and associates maintain close
contact with the fundamentalist lobby groups.
In closing, several remarkable coincidences are
pointed out: Bill Gates' first biographer, David Ichbia,
is a Scientologist; the same goes for Guy Jensen, one
of his closest staff members, and "Executive
Software," a key corporation of the Microsoft
empire, openly describes itself as oriented to
Scientology. Who knows: maybe next Big Brother
will come to us in our homes via the video screen.
Footnotes
(1) See www.innenministerium.bayern.de/scientology/.
(2) This is not particularly surprising, as 90 percent of cults come from the
USA and have their headquarters there.
(3) The agency, founded in 1990, works with all U.S. intelligence agencies and
has the mission of assessing the situation of democracy and rights of freedom
in all the countries of the world. It produces reports by subject and country
for the administration and also does work for the House and the Senate.
(4) Interview with the author.
(5) Naples Daily News of January 1999 (Naples, Florida), quoted from Stephen
A. Kent, "Consultation on Religious Persecutions as a US Policy Issue",
Trinity College, Hartford/Connecticut.
(6) Also the publications of the "Interhemispheric Ressource Center" and the
December issue of the World Vission magazine of 1991. See also
http://www.pir.org/gw/wv.txt.
(7) The report of the "Commission of International Religious Freedom" is found
onwww.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/drl_reports.html.
(8) The "Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights" was founded in
1990, an application "Charta von Paris fuer ein neues Europa," as a
sub-organization of the OSCE in order to monitor the elections in Europe. In
addition, it also took on the goal of preventing conflicts in its list of
missions at the Budapest summit of 1994. Influenced by former U.S. Senator
Dennis DeConcini and Alfonse dAmato, the ODIHR is also involved in issues of
religious freedom (http://www.osce.org/odihr/index.php3).
(9) Hearing on the subject of "Religious Freedom in Western Europe: Religious
Minorities and Growing Government Intolerance", Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe, June 8, 1999,
http://www.csce.gov/hearings_briefings.cfm.
(10) The author obtained copies of this telex from an internet page which
received the U.S. despatches by anonymous mail, see
http://parishioner.org/spain.html.
(11) See http://www.cesnur.org/.
(12) See http://www.lisamcpherson.org/LMT/.
(13) See the Los Angeles Times, September 9, 1999
(http://www.latimes.com/).
(14) See http://www.religionandpolicy.org/.
(15) See http://www.ird-renew.org/.
(16) Stephen A. Kent, "The French and German versus American Debate over, New
Religions', Scientology, and Human Rights", Marburg Journal of Religion 6 (1),
Januar 2001,
http://www.uni-marburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/mjr/kent2.html.
Le Monde diplomatique Nr. 6443 vom 11.5.2001,
Seite 1,20-21, 90 Documentation, Bruno Fouchereau
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