|
I posted the link to the Panama report on my own Facebook page, and waited to see what the response would be.
Some of my friends who apparently skimmed through the report quickly, had positive comments.
To me, this shows that Theresa Sidebotham did her job well. She is paid by NTM to protect their organization and its reputation and financial income. She is obviously a smart woman and a brilliant strategist. NTM should be very pleased with her work.
At first glance, the report is attractive, with colored pictures, clearly laid out sections, and explanations that seem logical and understandable.
Theresa does speak of the horrendous physical abuse that IHART confirmed was indeed inflicted on the children at NTM's MK school in Panama. But she surrounds it with so many rationalizations that the reader is distracted from the muck by the flowering trees surrounding it.
And I think that was the intent. Obviously a great deal of time went into crafting this piece of work called a Summary Report. (Unlike the previous IHART report on a different school, produced by a different coordinator .... that product was abysmal in every way.)
My guess is that when active mission members received the link to the report (as far as I can determine, not even the link was sent to retired members -- who account for a large percentage of NTM's numbers, and naturally would be the contemporaries of the missionaries who beat and abused children), any of them who actually took the time to click on the link, skimmed through the pages quickly, and saw just what NTM wants them to see: Yes, some bad stuff happened to a few kids at the school, but nothing out of the ordinary for that period of time ... and no one in leadership can or should be held responsible, and anybody who was really, really bad has been dismissed from the mission or had their personnel record amended, but we aren't going to tell you who those really, really bad people are, because you don't need to know.
And then they X'ed out of the report document and will never look at it again.
Casual readers will not even notice some of the features of the report that are so glaring to Panama MKs. Like the absence of names. Not a single abuser is named. Casual readers don't think that is significant.
But casual readers don't continue to have nightmares about the beatings they received that were so severe they could not even sit down, or had to have their pants soaked off them because of the dried blood on their bottoms.
Casual readers don't remember how it felt to have a rag stuffed in their mouth to muffle their screams as they were "spanked" with huge paddles, asking themselves if they would be able to catch their terrified breaths, or if they would suffocate to death there in that room, far, far away from their parents.
These MKs know the names. They know who whipped them, humiliated them, berated them, and made their childhoods a living hell. They know the names, and they told those names to the IHART interviewers. The interviewers who the MKs were led to believe were "independent" investigators, when all along they were but a part of a "process" created by the mission.
A "process" which includes keeping the mission safe from scrutiny by refusing to publish the names of child abusers, under the excuse that this is an "employment investigation". Employment investigation? What happened to independent investigation? And since when is a mission member an employee of New Tribes Mission? I was a member of this same mission at the time the abuse in Panama was taking place. My husband and I filed our taxes as "self employed". We were never employees of the mission.
I am both impressed and depressed by the response of the general public to this Summary Report. Impressed at the skill that went into producing the document. Depressed by the fact that so many people want so badly to believe that the mission they have had confidence in for so long has done everything with godliness and integrity. They are skimming but not thinking. They are not asking themselves the hard questions. They are not comparing this report (which is not even called an abuse investigation report) with reports produced by other investigations, such as the report GRACE wrote on abuse in NTM's school in Fanda, Senegal.
Theresa has rewritten the narrative according to her own crafty crafting. But her report is what many want to believe.
And so they do.
I weep for the MKs of Panama. I weep for what they waited for and did not receive.
|
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
