Huge Soros gift to HRW

NEW YORK – Billionaire philanthropist George Soros is putting up N$720 million, one of the largest donations of its kind, to expand Human Rights Watch and help it court more international support.

The financier and major donor to liberal causes said on Tuesday that it’s become a disadvantage for the group to be primarily funded by Americans because the US has lost the “moral high ground” when it comes to fighting abuses.

The gift, to be distributed over 10 years, is meant as a dramatic start toward major growth for the group, which documents abuses and advocates for human rights in about 90 countries.

Soros’ donation is meant to help Human Rights Watch volunteers around the world entice other donors to give enough additional money to boost the organisation’s budget from N$345 million a year to N$576 million within five years. 

The organisation envisions hiring about 120 more staffers, primarily researchers and advocates, and setting up new offices to encourage such emerging powers as India and Brazil to make human rights a keystone of their foreign policies.

But the money also is meant to make its donor base as international as its outlook. 

Diversify income and board Plans call for Human Rights Watch to draw at least half its income and most of its board members from outside the US within five years. 

Now, about 70 per cent of the money and 80 per cent of the board members are US-based. Soros considers that a liability, one he blamed on a frequent target of his, former President George W Bush.

“They’re basically an American organisation advocating human rights all over the world. But the United States has lost the moral high ground, during the Bush administration, and, therefore, it runs into opposition because there’s resentment of American interference,” Soros said in an interview in his sleek office in a midtown Manhattan high-rise. “It’s a drawback, to be American in this context.”

For its part, Human Rights Watch says it feels it’s seen as independent of the US government, and should be.

“But it is helpful for our organisation to personify the global values we promote,” Executive Director Kenneth Roth said.

While the gift isn’t a record-breaker in the annals of philanthropy, those are measured in billions, experts say it’s one of the largest in many years to human rights, a cause that in recent years has tended to attract fewer mammoth gifts than such organisations as medical centres and universities.

Born in Hungary, Soros emigrated to Britain as a youth after surviving the Nazi occupation of his country and later moved to the US. 

He runs a hedge fund and is known for his high-profile success in currency trades. – Nampa-AP

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