Bonn. Welthungerhilfe is outraged about eavesdropping operations against the project it is heading in Afghanistan "Afghan NGO Safety Office" (ANSO). The BND (German Federal Intelligence Service) informed Welthungerhilfe in correspondence that from October 2005 to April 2008 more than 2,000 "telecommunication transactions" had been intercepted and evaluated. The Bonn-based non-governmental organisation is going to have an expert in constitutional law examine the matter.
In a letter to the German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, Secretary General Hans-Joachim Preuß demanded that the incident should be investigated and that in future there should be no more eavesdropping on development aid workers. This correspondence stated: "We are disconcerted and annoyed that German intelligence agencies are observing an independent German development aid organisation. We assume that those who bear political responsibility for these operations will apologise. And we expect you to state that in future there shall no longer be any such eavesdropping operations against projects and employees of humanitarian organisations, who work in a dangerous environment."
ANSO is an independent project, which is financed by the EU and other European governments (Switzerland and Norway) and headed by Welthungerhilfe. It collects information on the security situation and provides the information free of charge to all non-governmental organisation and other agencies.
Nic Lee, project director of ANSO, commented: "It is an obvious waste of tax revenue if organisations are spied on when their reports are in any case publicly available. The German secret service should instead concentrate on the Taliban." However, it is even more serious that the eavesdropping operations jeopardises the work of ANSO. Nic Lee: "That undermines trust in us. We will find it more difficult to obtain information from other non-governmental organisations because people will think someone is listening in on them."
Secretary General Preuß stressed that independence was the leading principle and an important security prerequisite for Welthungerhilfe's work in Afghanistan. "We distance ourselves from every type of civilian-military cooperation. We are oriented to the needs of the Afghan civilian population, above all in the rural regions. Humanitarian aid must be impartial. Military or other strategic considerations do not play any role for us. However, the eavesdropping operations of the BND contribute towards further blurring distinctions, and that is outrageous."
Deutsche Welthungerhilfe has been continuously operating in Afghanistan since 1980. A total of 100 projects costing 75 million euros have been implemented. The work is primarily focused in the North and East. The organisation has concentrated on rural infrastructure projects, such as drinking water supplies, irrigation systems, food security and erosion protection. It also implements projects for communal village development and the creation of alternative income opportunities for opium farmers.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
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