Document: CRV Position Paper on the Peace Corps
The Committee of Returned Volunteers is an independent national organization of persons who have served as volunteers in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Various members have worked for the...
...However, our original idealistic concern did not include an understanding of the underlying causes -- social, economic and political -- of the underdevelopment we sought to combat...
...Therefore, because of our continuing commitment to the well-being of the people with whom we lived and worked, we have come to the unavoidable conclusion that the Peace Corps should be abolished, for the following reasons: I. The Peace Corps supports the status quo in the countries to which it sends volunteers...
...The Peace Corps volunteer supposedly represents a sacrifice to carry our "help" to the remotest village...
...Their conviction that they themselves do not have the creativity and cannot marshall the resources to understand and overcome their poverty and dependence is confirmed.-7II...
...government expenditures in the particular country...
...There may well be many superficial changes in the Peace Corps structure and policies from time to time, but regardless of these changes it will continue to function as an instrument of U.S...
...The United States opposes any such revolutions, and the Peace Corps is an integral part of U.S...
...This elite typically in collaboration with powerful U.S...
...Paul, Minnesota...
...Position Paper on the Peace Corps We are United States citizens who have worked abroad for voluntary service organizations including International Voluntary Services, the American Friends Service Committee and, for the great majority of us, the United States Peace Corps...
...interests...
...We who volunteered for the Peace Corps saw that organization as a vehicle through which we could work in poor communities overseas to help people improve their lives...
...policy in the Third World and can easily be recruited into local American business concerns and cooperating host country agencies...
...Coast and Geodetic Survey (aerial reconnaissance and mapping) or the thousands of U.S...
...E. It capitalized on the idealism of U. . youth and on the good will of the people of the United States to present a false image of the United States presence in the Third World...
...The Peace Corps director in the country, in turn, attends regular meetings called by the U.S...
...farm and business interests the latest intelligence on the world's major farm commodities...
...aid programs...
...penetration and domination of the Third World...
...FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICIALS IN LATIN AMERICA -- SEPTEMBER 1969 Note: The following breakdown of U.S...
...business interests overseas, thus serving, in effect, as a "graduate school for imperialism...
...C. It attempts to work through individual volunteers on a person-to-person level to ameliorate small, local difficulties, even though these may be but symptoms stemming from problems in the nation's basic institutional structure whose solutions require collective action and awareness...
...and 2) to maintain a "global reporting and analysis network covering world agricultural production, trade competition, and policy situations that affect American agriculture...
...The annual General Assembly, consisting of 65 delegates from all parts of the United States, met this year in St...
...These activities are administered by the 104 FAS officers and attaches stationed in over 100 countries...
...CRV was initiated in 1966 and is composed of twelve chapters with numerous local groups...
...F. It presents the Peace Corps volunteer to the people of the United States as the embodiment of its sincere concern with the world's "less fortunate" peoples...
...C. It grooms Americans for future employment as "area specialists" with the State Department, A.I.D., the Foreign Service, and pacification programs, and with U.S...
...government personnel in Latin America, rather, it is a description of the tip of the iceberg...
...These commodities are paid for in local currencies which are then used to pay for other U.S...
...This tabulation includes only Foreign Service Officers (FSO's) of class 6 rank and above, and the officers only of the various agencies (e.g., AID, USIA, FAS, Peace Corps...
...We call upon present volunteers to subvert the Peace Corps and all other institutions of U.S...
...Far from radicalizing volunteers, it attempts to dissipate their "excess energy" and to channel it to further U.S...
...Moreover, we have come to a new realization that present day underdevelopment is in many cases perpetuated by the negative and destructive policies of the United States...
...Now we have gained first-hand experience of the conditions of life in the Third World, and we have also worked to develop a broader perspective on our individual experiences through extensive discussions with many other returned volunteers...
...D. t assembles the considerable collective knowledge which the Peace Corps volunteers have about a country, as expressed in the reports, surveys, plans and evaluations they are frequently called upon to submit to their superiors...
...The FAS makes available to .S...
...A. It "makes friends for America" abroad who will become the future supporters of an apologists for U.S...
...Neither does the table include paramilitary personnel working with the U.S...
...The ultimate goal of this process is the Americanization of the entire world...
...Various members have worked for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), International Voluntary Services (IVS), the Frontier Interne Program of the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., the Yale in China Program and so forth, but most of its 3,000 members are former Peace Corps Volunteers...
...ambassador of his "country team" (including Foad f the U.S...
...D. It seeks to channel the energies of local people with-sincere aspirations (youth, leaders, idealists) away from examining and challenging underlying social, political, and economic injustices of the existing order by drawing them into superficial efforts to make that order, no matter how unjust, work more smoothly...
...B. It collaborates with other U.S...
...We call for abolition of the United States Peace Corps...
...B. It provides an illusion of progress by helping to coax out of an obsolete and inadequate politico-economic system some token social projects (a school here, a health center there), although on a scale so small that it can only be described as cynical...
...The public is led to see the Peace Corps as a sincere effort to do the "right thing" making up for many mistaken policies and bureaucratic shortcomings of other U.S...
...The Peace Corps supports the world-wide vested interests of United States business and the United States government...
...Tobago Uruguay Venezuela Latin America Totals: EMBASSY - Gen'l 'Executive Political Economic Administrative Consular 49 8 31 104 46 -- 45 19 56 48 21 28 11 21 22 18 152 20 32 19 43 12 31 49 ARMED FORCES ATTACHES AID I USIA I 6 1 10 i 24 _- -- 1 3 66 12 6 164 46 5 37 16 1 48 18 4 23 5 3 67 6 2 34 13 4 18 3 4 41 8 - 15 2 I - - 1)~~~ 4 3 5 4 4 2 3 5 23 7 10 1 6 18 46 22 35 20 17 29 4 7 8 17 1 7 11 PEACE CORPS 16 35 22 32 6 11 19 12 6 6 11 7 3 14 5 22 4 21 71 FAS 2 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 I 3 1 1 TOTAL 91 9 128 358 127 145 58 144 117 59 88 34 26 67 39 195 49 99 58 119 14 65 104 I 885 720 248 252 17 2193...
...agencies in underdeveloped countries (including the Agency for International Development, the United States Information Service, the Alliance for Progress) to promote an "alternative to communism...
...Therefore, we oppose the presence of Peace Corps volunteers in the Third World...
...In cooperation with U.S...
...The Committee of Returned Volunteers is convinced that real development is often impossible without a revolution which carries out an equitable re-distribution of economic and political power, including nationalization of all resources...
...agricultural products abroad...
...policy...
...military assistance program, the Central Intelligence Agency, A.I.D., U.S.I.S...
...imperialism, such as the GreenBerets, but because of its subtlety it is a dangerous extension of U.S...
...G. It not only draws attention away from the obvious manifestations of U.S...
...The FAS also teams up with AID to distribute surplus commodities under the Public Law 480 (Food for Peace) program...
...domination...
...This is nothing more than a kind of "development" along lines which American interests can control for their own benefit -- a goal which can only be assured by frustrating the development of the people's awareness of their own self-interest, which might well take the form of socialist revolution...
...The total numbers of Peace Corps volunteers in each country were "unavailable" from PC headquarters at the time of this writing...
...government employees in the Panama Canal Zone, Guantanamo and other bases...
...imperialism-- 8Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) The FAS serves to main functions: 1) to promote the sale of U.S...
...agribusiness corporations, the FAS undertakes jointly financed market development projects including trade fairs and the operation of trade centers...
...Republic Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Trin...
...E. It as the effect of reinforcing the belief already held by many of the world's poor that their underdevelopment is really their own fault and that the unjust social order in which they struggle for existence is immutable...
...17 FAS officers are assigned to Latin America...
...It is by no means accurate in terms of the total number of U.S...
...on September 15, it unanimously approved the following position paper on the Peace Corps...
...The 'Country Team' Executive Section Ambassador Deputy Chief of Mission Executive Assistant Political Section Counselor for Political Affairs Two Political Officers Labor Attach6 Economic Section Counselor for Economic Affairs Three Economic Officers Four Commercial Officers Transportation and Communicatiols Attache Petroleum Attache consular Section Consul General Four Consular Officers Visa Assistant Administrative Section (;ounselor for Administration Administrative Officer Twr\o Security Officers Budget Management Officer tGeneral Services Officer l)isbursing Specialist (:ommunication.s and Records Supervisor Personnel Asistani (,eneral Services Assistant General Assignnment Foreign Service O)ticer ( unior otlicer on rilst tour (,f dutit alhroad) .Military t.ltaches Army Attache A distant Army At a c!:' Naval Attache Assistant Naval Attache Air Attache Assistant Air Attach Forign Agriculturul Serrice (AS) AricilIt u rld Attach(c Assistallat Agricultural Attach Agency for Inticrnolional Development (AID) A II) Representat ivt Controller Training Officer Programs Analysis Officer Public Safety Adviser .Manpower Adviser Agriculture Credit Adviser Industrial Officer Resources Development Officer Sociologist Education Adviser Reports Officer Peace Corps Peace Corps Representative Deputy Representative Physician lUnited States Information Service (USIS) Counselor for Public Affairs Information Officer (Cultural Affairs Officer Executive Officer C0 - E .o 4. a) C C, D O I. a o ..U.S...
...A. It ives legitimacy, through its very presence, to the local power structure which invi.ed it...
...All FSO's below class 6 rank, American and local secretarial, clerical and maintenance employees, translators, librarians, security personnel and other support staff, "contract employees," Peace Corps volunteers (PCV's) and undercover agents are excluded from the totals...
...COUNTRY Argentina Barbados Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Dom...
...The figures in the Armed Forces Attaches column include only the commanding officers of each branch of the embassy's armed forces mission...
...government personnel stationed in Latin America was compiled from the State Department's Foreign Service List of September 1969...
...financial interests, indulges its narrow self-interest at the expense of the common people...
...one which makes education, employment, housing and medical care available to all the people...
...It cannot be denied that much of the information they gather is available for passing on to other government agencies...
Vol. 3 • November 1969 • No. 7
