COMMENTARY
Perils faced by volunteers need to be reported
By Jeff Bruce
Dayton Daily News
For more than 40 years, the Peace Corps has dispatched tens of thousands of Americans to far-flung places across the globe to spread good will. Many former volunteers point to their time overseas as a pivotal experience in shaping the direction of their lives.
Indeed, since its inception, the Peace Corps has generally been viewed favorably by the public, which sees its mission as a noble extension of what is best about America.
But while the organization takes some pride in being "the toughest job you'll ever love," it has proven for hundreds of volunteers to be a far more dangerous and disturbing experience than is generally perceived.
It is a part of the Peace Corps story that has been underreported, but needs to be told. We do that beginning today in our series of articles entitled "Casualties of Peace."
President George W. Bush has proposed doubling the number of Peace Corps volunteers. What will they be getting into? We decided to find out.
For the past 20 months, reporters from this newspaper have traveled to 11 countries, interviewed more than 500 people and filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests in an effort to better understand some of the perils facing Peace Corps volunteers.
Their research discloses that violence against volunteers is commonplace; since 1991, reports of assaults have more than doubled. Mortality rates among volunteers are surprisingly high with accidents, disease, suicide and murder claiming lives at a rate of about one every two months. Nearly 70 percent of the assaults are committed against female volunteers, who comprise a majority of the Peace Corps.
Volunteers, stationed in some of the most troubled corners of the world may be unsupervised for months at a time, and warnings about volunteer safety have too often gone unheeded.
In an accompanying letter on this page, H. David Kotz, Peace Corps associate general counsel, wrote in advance of publication of our series about his concerns regarding "inaccuracies and misleading information." The organization has strenuously objected to this newspaper's analysis of the Peace Corps' safety record.
In essence, the agency's database catalogs "incidents" and "events" and not the number of victims in those incidents. So, for example, when in 1996 three female volunteers were raped and two men were mugged, the Peace Corps reported it as a single rape "incident."
This method of collecting statistics does not correspond with how law-enforcement agencies like the FBI report crime rates, and it tends to mask the true level of danger to which Peace Corps volunteers are exposed.
In a separate e-mail received prior to publication of the series (and on the same day Peace Corps Director Gaddi H. Vasquez announced his resignation), press secretary Barbara Daly went further and asserted:
". . .The assault database should never be considered a database to count crimes against volunteers. We do not have a database that counts crimes against volunteers or even crime events against volunteers."
Which raises the obvious question: Why not?
Kotz also argues in his letter that it would be incorrect for the newspaper to assert that the Peace Corps "was not appropriately responsive" to requests for information.
In truth, one of the reasons it has taken nearly two years to tell this story is because of the Peace Corps' foot-dragging. It took a lawsuit to pry free much of the information sought by reporters, and it has been only in the past few weeks that questions (submitted in writing) have begun to be answered. Even then, many answers have been incomplete. The lawsuit was dismissed when the Peace Corps agreed to provide the information we sought.
Regarding the death of Brian Krow (detailed in part four of this series), a Ukrainian prosecutor has told the Daily News that the Peace Corps was uncooperative in the investigation and that new information brought to them by our reporters now leads them to believe he may have committed suicide despite the Peace Corps' finding.
Kotz also asserts that because the newspaper looked into the carjacking of Christine Djondo in Lesotho (part three of this series) she had to be transferred. We did, in fact, inquire about the incident. It is unclear how that would put her in danger. Her transfer occurred nearly two years after the hijacking.
The Peace Corps also accuses the newspaper of providing misinformation to Paul Leveille, the father of deceased former Peace Corps volunteer Kevin Leveille. The assertion is simply untrue. Leveille has refuted it and has told the newspaper that he is supportive of our efforts to tell this story.
Finally, Kotz points to the Peace Corps' legacy. No doubt, many, perhaps most, Americans who have served in the organization remember their experience with pride.
But not all. There are more than 250 volunteers who cannot talk to us, because they perished during their service. Many more, whose experiences are recounted in "Casualties of Peace," are embittered and disenchanted.
Their stories deserve to be told, too.
Jeff Bruce is the editor of the Dayton Daily News. He can be reached at 225-2335. If you’d like to send him an electronic letter, include your name, e-mail address and daytime phone number. His Internet address is jbruce@DaytonDailyNews.com.
[From the Dayton Daily News: 10.26.2003]
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