Capitalism, Corruption and the EU
According to Rudyard Kipling you’ll be a man:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
When a friend gave his life in efforts to help the vulnerable and voiceless he wasn’t in the position to hear or watch anything.
What I saw was his efforts being coopted and diluted by a political elite who grasped the opportunity to build their own reputations and profit from it.
70 years ago, speaking at Harvard General George Marshall said of his European Recovery Plan:
“Any government which maneuvers to block the recovery of other countries cannot expect help from us. Furthermore, governments, political parties, or groups which seek to perpetuate human misery in order to profit therefrom politically or otherwise will encounter the opposition of the United States.”
10 years ago , my deceased friend wrote in a ‘Marshall Plan’ for Ukraine
‘This is a long-term permanently sustainable program, the basis for “people-’centered” economic development. Core focus is always on people and their needs, with neediest people having first priority — as contrasted with the eternal chase for financial profit and numbers where people, social benefit, and human well-being are often and routinely overlooked or ignored altogether. This is in keeping with the fundamental objectives of Marshall Plan: policy aimed at hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. This is a bottom-up approach, starting with Ukraine’s poorest and most desperate citizens, rather than a “top-down” approach that might not ever benefit them. They cannot wait, particularly children. Impedance by anyone or any group of people constitutes precisely what the original Marshall Plan was dedicated to opposing. Those who suffer most, and those in greatest need, must be helped first — not secondarily, along the way or by the way.’
I made repeated appeals for support. First in the EU Citizens Consultation and then via my MEPs.
I saw my friend die, I saw the bodies of vulnerable children he tried to help tossed into trenches, I saw a peaceful revolution turn violent, I saw a plane shot down and the bodies of passengers strewn in the garden of the very orphanage he described as a “death camp, for children.”
Today I want to know why a political party is trying to pass of our efforts as their own work and what connection they have with organised crime.
So, I wrote again to MEPs:
Wednesday 19 April 2017
Dear William (The Earl of) Dartmouth, Clare Moody, Molly Scott Cato, Ashley Fox, Julie Girling and Julia Reid,
In 2012, Sir Graham Watson kindly took up the issue I raised about our ‘Marshall Plan’ proposal for Ukraine which was a strategy for applying business for social benefit, social enterprise, on a national scale. We had made many appeals for support of people-centered economic development
These appeals included the 2008 EU Citizen Consultation on the economic and social future of Europe.
The response from Commissioner Barnier was to claim that the ideas presented in our work had been evolving elsewhere across Europe and he suggested scope for future collaboration.
In 2013, the EU hosted a conference on people-centred business in Strasbourg. It was about business which puts people rather than profit at the heart of business. As described in our proposal and our original business model.
In February 2014 Maidan leaders appealed for support from the EU including a ‘Marshall Plan’ strategy. I made contact with l ocal MEPs to share the appeal, reminding them of past communications.
Just this year, the European People’s Party have announced the development of another ‘Marshall Plan’ for Ukraine. Their V P is Commissioner Michel Barnier who responded to Sir Graham Watson as I described above.
Even more recently I’ve become aware of a project which appears to be supported by EU funding on The Purpose of the Corporation and the matter of shareholder primacy which was challenged 20 years ago in our white paper for people-centered economic development.
In 2006, our founder Terry Hallman with his reports on ‘Death Camps, For Children’ had spoken out about corruption and neglect in institutional childcare, which became the primary focus of our wotk.
It cost him his life and the lives of many children he’d hoped to help as the primary focus of the ‘Marshall Plan’ which was developed from our own resources, without EU support.
Given the EU funded replication I describe above, It is highly likely that the EPP ‘Marshall Plan’ will draw on what has been published online for the last 10 years.
I have even greater concerns about yet another ‘Marshall Plan’ initiative led by oligarch Dmitri Firtash which has brought many politicians on board. They include Lord Mandelson and Lord Risby, It has been described by anti-corruption deputy Sergei Leschenko as ‘The Firtash Octopus’
Should this be connected in some way to the EPP proposals, we all have a great deal to be concerned about.
Yours sincerely,
Jeff Mowatt
