Light disinfects. The solution is to force NGOs to become both democratic and accountable. All countries and multinational organizations (such as the UN) should pass laws and sign international conventions to regulate the formation and operation of NGOs.

NGOs should be forced to democratize. Elections should be introduced on every level. All NGOs should hold "annual stakeholder meetings" and include in these gatherings representatives of the target populations of the NGOs. NGO finances should be made completely transparent and publicly accessible. New accounting standards should be developed and introduced to cope with the current pecuniary opacity and operational double- speak of NGOs.

Q. It seems that many values carried by NGO are typically modern and Western. What kind of problems this creates in more traditional and culturally different countries? A. Big problems. The assumption that the West has the monopoly on ethical values is undisguised cultural chauvinism. This arrogance is the 21st century equivalent of the colonialism and racism of the 19th and 20th century. Local populations throughout the world resent this haughty presumption and imposition bitterly.

As you said, NGOs are proponents of modern Western values - democracy, women's lib, human rights, civil rights, the protection of minorities, freedom, equality. Not everyone finds this liberal menu palatable. The arrival of NGOs often provokes social polarization and cultural clashes.

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XLVII. Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

Who is Guarding the Guards in Countries in Transition from Communism?

Written: August 23, 1999

Izetbegovic, the nominal president of the nominal Bosnian state, the darling of the gullible western media, denies that he and his cronies and his cronies' cronies stole 40% of all civilian aid targeted at Bosnia - a minor matter of 1 billion US dollars and change, in less than 4 years. The tribes of the Balkans stop bleeding each other to death only when they gang up to bleed another. In this, there are no races and no traces - everyone is equal under the sign of the dollar. Serbs, Bosnians and Croats divided the loot with the loftiest of egalitarian instincts. Honour among thieves transformed into honour among victims and their murderers. Mammon is the only real authority in this god forsaken, writhing rump of a country.

And not only there.