Hassan Mekki
Agence France PresseSeptember 11, 2000
The foreign financing of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is raising a storm of protest in Jordan, where Islamists and leftists alike are crying foul at what they see as new western attempts to control the country. The controversy reached a new climax last week, when Jordan's journalists union expelled Nidal Mansur, the editor of the independent weekly Al-Hadath, for allegedly accepting foreign donations for his Center for the Defence of the Freedom of Journalists.
"In all cases, those who give money want to win the loyalty of those who are being paid, which constitutes a violation of Jordanian sovereignty and a is a kind of questionable neo-colonialism," said Saleh Armuti, an Islamist and head of Jordan's bar asssociation.
Jordan now has more than 40 NGOs, up from fewer than 20 a decade ago, ranging from human rights groups to political or social think tanks. Foreign donations help the NGOs organize pressure campaigns and seminars, and pay research and legal expenses. Major donors include Germany's Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Norway's Fafo Institute and the Ford and Fulbright Foundations from the United States.
"The donors have dubious ties with Zionism and the CIA," Armuti charged. "They give hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote the normalization of relations between the Arabs and the Jews and to gather intelligence connected to Arab countries' national security," he continued.
Uli Vogt, the representative in Jordan of Germany's Friedrich Nauman Stiftung, dismissed the allegations, noting that they came at the same time when other quarters were accusing the body of being too pro-Arab. "Our group doesn't set any conditions for its financing but works alongside local NGOs to launch projects that serve society," Vogt told AFP.
Hani Horani, director of the 10-year-old Al-Urdun Al-Jadid Research Center, said the NGOs "filled a void in Jordan's public life caused by the weakness of political parties and the lack of local donations."
The lawyer Asmaa Khadr, who runs the Law Group for Human Rights, said the criticism of foreign donations was just "a pretext used by certain institutions to muzzle NGOs that are more active than they are themselves." "Our center does work that ought to be done by the bar association," she added.
But the Islamic Action Front, the Islamist party that is Jordan's main opposition group, said that the lack of local money cannot justify handouts from abroad. The party is "totally opposed to foreign donations, which pave the way for interference in the country's affairs," said Abdel Latif Arabiyat, the party's secretary general.
Jordanian laws bar research centers from soliciting funds from abroad except for specific activities approved by the government. Armuti called on the kingdom's authorities to "impose strict control over the centers, which make fortunes off foreign funding." "If the government doesn't act, I intend to refer it to the attorney general," he threatened. He said that to offset the NGOs, the council of Jordan's unions was setting up its own research center, with its own funds, "with nothing to do with foreign finance."
The Jordanian government, which itself relies on foreign economic aid, has so far refused to take sides in the debate. "A mechanism should be developed to assure openness about the sources of funding, but without weakening institutions involved in civic action," Information Minister Taleb Rifai said.
More Information on Funding for NGOs
