April 22, 2007
Gongos' din
"Gongos" are overseas analogues of American groups with monikers that include words like "citizens", responsibility", people", "integrity" and "justice." Often fronts for rich lefty sponsored anti-American operations. Gongos muddy the waters on an international scale and serve as the front line stooges for brutally repressive leaders. Moisés Naím writes in the Washington Post:
The Myanmar Women's Affairs Federation is a gongo. So is Nashi, a Russian youth group, and the Sudanese Human Rights Organization. Kyrgyzstan's Association of Non-commercial and Nongovernmental Organizations is also a gongo, as is Chongryon, the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. Gongos are sprouting everywhere; they're in China, Cuba, France, Tunisia and even the United States.Gongos are government-organized nongovernmental organizations. Behind this contradictory and almost laughable tongue twister lies an important and growing global trend that deserves more scrutiny: Governments are funding and controlling nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), often stealthily.Some gongos are benign, others irrelevant. But many, including those I mentioned, are dangerous. Some act as the thuggish arm of repressive governments. Others use the practices of democracy to subtly undermine democracy at home. Abroad, the gongos of repressive regimes lobby the United Nations and other international institutions, often posing as representatives of citizen groups with lofty aims when, in fact, they are nothing but agents of the governments that fund them. Some governments embed their gongos deep in the societies of other countries and use them to advance their interests abroad
The author advises more accountability and sunlight on these gongos . I suggest that news organizations start explaining to consumers of their products who the gonogs are when they quote them and start doing the same for their domestic counterparts.