Terror and Counter-Terror

After George Bush’s press conference last night, terror and counter terror are on our minds. Those issues certainly came up a lot during Daniel and Jennifer’s trip to Palestine. We thank you all for your many responses to their reflections on the trip. Keep your eye out for an upcoming photo essay on their trip, which will be announced here.

We want to draw your attention to the release of a new report by the NGO trade association, Interaction. The report, entitled “Handbook on Counter-Terrorism Measures: What U.S. Nonprofits and Grantmakers Need to Know is a long overdue summary of the new legal restrictions on grantmaking and nonprofit activity, in general, since 9/11/01. Everyone involved in international grantmaking should certainly read it. We would certainly be happy to have your comments on the report.

The Boston Globe published our own assessment of the political context of post-9/11 international grantmaking (especially in the Middle East). It gives more attention to the civil liberties issues surrounding the new regulatory environment. Both perspectives are important to keep in mind.

Over the next few days, we will offer more comments on the Interaction report and the broader issue of the impact of Bush Administration policies on international grantmaking. We will also start to shift our attention back to the specific case of Haiti. Several groups of North Americans have recently travelled to Haiti and published their finding upon their return. Among these, we wish to give special attention to recent press release by Amnesty International. Our Program Director, Maria Aguiar, will be travelling to Haiti in late April, and we hope she’ll be able to share some of her impressions in this Journal.

We have published our own short analysis of the declarations of UN official, Reginald Dumas, upon the completion of his assessment mission.. We invite you to add your voice to the considerable feedback we gotten on this work.