Know Thy Enemy
Non-governmental organizations hurt themselves-and us.

or almost two decades, the Western media has described Argentina's Madres de Plaza de Mayo as a model of "civil society" in the Third World. The group has been lionized in books written in the United States, supported by groups established all over Western Europe, and become rich enough from donations from Western sympathizers to establish "The Popular University of the Mothers" (UBA), an unrecognized pseudo-educational entity in Buenos Aires. The group, and its founder and leader, Hebe de Bonafini, have long been seen as a "natural" for the Nobel Peace Prize. Little attempt, however, has been made to look beneath the surface at the actual nature, ideology, goals, and statements of Bonafini. Like Rigoberta Menchu before her (Nobel Peace Prize winner, 1992), Bonafini's totalitarian past and present have been papered over in the name of political correctness and misguided sympathy.

But like much else, this too may change as a result of September 11th. In her characteristically direct fashion, Bonafini created mass confusion and panic among the global human-rights establishment by stating that "in the Twin Towers died the powerful. And the powerful are my enemy; because it is the same that killed my children" (a reference to members of the Montoneros terrorist group killed during Argentina's civil war in the mid-1970s). Asked about the fact that office workers of African, Muslim, and even Argentine origin also were killed, she answered, "What does that have to do with anything? . . . It is true: I am happy and celebrate the fact that this savage capitalism which destroys us has for once been hit. I do not feel sorry over them."

While admitting that there are a few good Americans — like Noam Chomsky and unreconstructed Leninist James Petras — Bonafini made it clear that she hates the American people. Men like Chomsky and Petras are few, while the great majority of Americans are guilty and deserve what they got in September. She concluded: "Now things are clear. Revolution is the only way people can succeed. . . . You are either imperialist or Marxist" (For the complete text in Spanish, click here.)

Bonafini's sincerity and consistency in her comments cannot be doubted. At least twice she has condemned the United States for "genocide" while on the soil of its adversaries: on visits to Baghdad after the Gulf War and Belgrade during the Kosovo war of 1999. Add to this her sycophantic support for Fidel Castro, and it is clear that she can find no enemy of the United States, no matter how murderous, that she cannot love, as long as it is totalitarian. It is not easy to place oneself to Castro's left, but Bonafini has done just that, since even Fidel condemned the September attacks.

Bonafini's stance provoked a strong reaction among her colleagues, who were perhaps fearful of being tarnished by association. Horacio Verbitsky, a former Montonero supporter himself, a committed Leftist, and one who lost family members to the military crackdown against that terror group, publicly condemned Bonafini's statements — at which point she accused him of being an American agent because his group receives money from the Ford Foundation. Moreover, she added, Verbitsky is a Jew, the implication being that all Jews are American agents. To their credit, twelve faculty members of her own "university" resigned in protest. It is not the first time that manifestations of totalitarianism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism are all wound together; it is what makes Bonafini a kin of Osama bin Laden.

Bonafini's ravings shed light on the oft-overlooked fact that particularly in Latin America, but elsewhere as well, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that ostensibly advocate human rights have largely become the refuge of the Left — the unemployed and unemployable Marxist radicals "victimized" by the shrinking subsidies to the dysfunctional public sector, and especially public universities, and now subsidized by rich Western foundations, socialist governments, and Protestant or Catholic elements. September 11th and the likes of Hebe de Bonafini helped, if anything, to bring these people out of the woodwork.

In a far less repugnant but still very troubling way, more mainstream groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are effectively asking that the United States prosecute its war in Afghanistan with one hand tied behind its back, by issuing rules for comportment for both sides that it can never conceivably expect the Taliban to follow. Issuing demands that the Taliban allow distribution of humanitarian aid and that the United States cease using cluster bombs is just not very fruitful. Framing the conflict in such a way suggest a false moral equivalence that will only damage the NGOs' own reputations. Does Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch really believe that the likes of al Qaeda would accept their "rules"? After all, Osama bin Laden has just described the United Nations as a "criminal organization" and condemned the Muslim governments participating in it as lackeys of the "infidel."

Nor do such AI and HRW demands as the trial of the victorious Northern Alliance leaders — now seen as liberators by many Afghans — for real or alleged past abuses, or the placing of "human-rights observers" in a country still at war and without a functioning government do any good to their image as hopelessly utopian and arrogant.

Ultimately, the human-rights establishment is faced with two equally important and vital problems: how to deal with the Bonafinis in their ranks and how to make themselves relevant post-September 11th.