c. 1996 Religion News Service

KINSHASA, Zaire _ Experienced foreign missionaries and businessmen in this city of 4 million people perched on the banks of the Congo River have much advice for the uninitiated eager to save souls or make a buck in this nation where anarchy reigns supreme.

They will tell you that nothing is easy here; that the infrastructure is virtually non-existent; that corruption is a way of life, that everything can be risky and dangerous. But above all, they warn, a promise _ no matter who utters it _ means nothing. And if one is brave enough to wade into Zaire despite such warnings, then these folks will provide an even more detailed description of the pitfalls that await the unwary.

When religious broadcaster Pat Robertson began asking in the early 1990s about how to run both humanitarian and commercial operations in Zaire, he heard such warnings from a number of old-timers experienced in the ways of this central African nation.

As it turns out, it was advice he did not follow. The result was the failure of his 173,000-acre farm meant to provide low-cost food to the city of Kinshasa and the loss of millions of dollars in Robertson’s private business ventures, which were intended to create funds that could be plowed back into humanitarian relief projects.”There were a lot of people in Zaire who warned (Robertson) what he was getting into,”said the Rev. Wayne Turner, an Assemblies of God minister from California who has lived in Zaire for years.”But he didn’t seem to pay any attention to them. He was seriously taken advantage of here. To me, Robertson seemed to be set up quite easily.” Robertson’s dealings in Zaire have their origins in the end of the Cold War.

Zaire’s strongman leader, Mobutu Sese Seko, had been propped up by the West for years in response to Soviet influence in the region. But when the Soviet threat ended, Mobutu came under strong pressure to liberalize Zaire’s political system and he found himself increasingly shunned by the West.

Following riots in 1991 and a worsening economic situation, he became an unpopular leader among his own people. Soon after, Mobutu sought out Robertson in the apparent belief that an association with him would bolster his sagging regime.

It is against this backdrop then, that an emissary from the Zairian embassy in Washington approached Robertson’s offices in Virginia Beach, Va. At first, the Mobutu government only asked Robertson to begin televising his Christian Broadcast Network (CBN) programs in Zaire. Later, the Zairian officials raised the issue of an agricultural project and private commercial ventures.

Jon Cassel, a trained agronomist from Pennsylvania who previously had worked in Zaire for Mennonite aid programs, was asked to run Robertson’s farm project. When he arrived in Zaire in 1993, he was given three pieces of land to chose from and picked the one closest to Kinshasa, the nation’s capital. One of the first things Cassel did was submit soil samples from the farm for analysis to determine if the land could support growing corn and soy beans, as was the plan.”After we got the samples back it was obvious the soil was bad,”said Cassel.”I told Virginia Beach this would not work, but they wanted to go ahead anyway. I argued that we move the project, but it would have cost $300,000 to $400,000, and they weren’t interested. Pretty soon, the project started swallowing huge amounts of cash.” Cassel said that with a better piece of land he could have made the project work. Others in Zaire who know Cassel’s work as an agronomist said if anyone could have made Robertson’s project fly, it was he.

But at the end of 1995, the project shut down. Now Cassel is trying to sell more than $1 million in agricultural equipment sitting idle at the farm, which is about 60 miles east of Kinshasa.

Robertson’s farm project was part of Operation Blessing International Relief and Development Corp., which he founded in 1978. Operation Blessing is a not-for-profit organization affiliated with CBN, which broadcasts programs throughout the world.

The farm project in Zaire was run separately from the other operations funded by Robertson’s own money and known as the African Development Corporation (ADC).

Spokesman Gene Kapp described ADC as a private company funded and operated by Robertson. It was established, Kapp said, with the idea that profits from these private ventures would”finance humanitarian projects through economic development investments in mining, lumber and power generation projects in Africa.” As for Robertson’s overall difficulties in Zaire, Kapp said”it’s always challenging for a ministry like CBN to be effective in countries like Zaire. We often rely on contacts established in such countries (and) our priority is always to help the people and break through the internal problems of the country to the best of our ability.” ADC, which ceased operations in mid-1995, fared no better than Robertson’s ill-fated farm. Robertson began seeking diamond concessions in Zaire’s southern mining region and soon began setting up a dredging operation at Kamonia, about 40 miles south of the mining town of Tshikapa. The company also explored gaining timber concessions in the rain forest.

Robertson relied heavily on William Lovick, a defrocked Assemblies of God minister originally from Birmingham, Ala., who had spent nearly 35 years in Zaire. Lovick had been defrocked because of ethics charges involving his handling of church funds.

When Lovick died in May, he was in the process of setting up an operation similar to ADC in Zaire. The project, called the Salomon Corporative, is now headed by Lovick’s son, David, and is involved in gold and diamond mining, telecommunications and timber.

William Lovick is said by many here to have been an unfortunate choice to head Robertson’s venture.”Pat Robertson lost $5 million to $7 million here,”said Fred Keller, an American businessman who has lived in Zaire for some 25 years.”He made some bad decisions and he let Lovick facilitate things for him here. That was a mistake.” Lovick’s attempts to obtain concessions _ permission from the government to develop tracts of land _ show just what kind of mistakes were made.”Lovick got a lot of mining concessions for Robertson,”said Keller.”Concessions are reasonably priced here, but Lovick presented Robertson with a bill for three-quarters of a million dollars, when it should have been closer to $50,000.” According to Turner, the Assemblies of God minister from California, in 1992 Robertson inquired about Lovick’s character.

In a letter to Robertson, Assemblies of God leaders in the United States said that Lovick had been asked to leave the church because of, among other reasons,”a lack of ethics in raising Assemblies of God monies without specifically designating how they were to be handled and where such funds would be used … and the discord being brought to the ministry in Zaire …” After providing that information, Turner said,”we didn’t hear anything from Robertson’s office, although we knew Lovick was still working for him. Then out of nowhere we start getting these calls from Robertson’s office wanting to know, what’s the deal with our guy Lovick, as if they had never been warned about him.” (BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

Another Assemblies of God minister, Jacques Vernaud, a Swiss citizen who has lived in Zaire since 1965, also tried to warn Robertson’s office about Lovick and the ADC venture.

Vernaud said that at first he thought ADC was a good idea, but later became”disgusted with Pat Robertson and all that wasted money.””Robertson stopped listening to me and the other missionaries around here and listened only to Lovick. Many of us were upset about the money being wasted here and the people he was being associated with through Lovick. These were not nice people.” Vernaud said he phoned Robertson’s offices and told them what was going on in Zaire.”They did not want to listen to me,”said Vernaud.”I talked to a man named Bob Warren, and he was not kind at all. He told me not to stick my nose in their business.” According to CBN spokesman Kapp, Bob Warren is the former head of Operation Blessing, but no longer works for Robertson.

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Robertson finally abandoned Lovick in 1994 and started using some of his own people to run the Zaire operation. But by then the project had problems galore and it was becoming evident that Robertson was losing control of the operation. The mining concession was producing nothing and running into major logistical and technical problems.

Dredges imported from California were inappropriate for the swift currents of the Kasai River. Supply planes purchased by Robertson were usually grounded because of a shortage of aviation gas in Zaire, according to Jose Olivo, a former Navy Seal who worked on the mining project.”It was a tough time and we lost a lot of money and Pat got ripped off pretty bad on the whole thing,”said Olivo.

Just about every piece of equipment imported into Zaire turned out to be subject to tax, contrary to Mobutu’s earlier promises that it would be exempt.

Kapp declined to say much about ADC’s financial situation, saying that”since the company itself is privately held by Robertson, neither his investments nor his profits and/or losses from ADC are available.”But he insisted that ADC had produced enough revenue to provide an estimated $1.2 million in medical aid during the Ebola virus epidemic of May 1995.

Although most here feel Robertson was well-intentioned in Zaire, many are incensed by his association with Mobutu, a man human rights groups have criticized for years.

Pascal Kambale, vice president of Zaire’s Association for the Defense of Human Rights, said human rights violations are widespread in Zaire and are committed by the intelligence services, the military and the police. But the root of the problem, he said, is Mobutu.”Human rights violations are committed around here all the time by all sorts of people,”said Kambale.”But Mobutu still controls the military and security services, so it is Mobutu who is at the basis of human rights violations in this country.” Kambale said the worst thing about Robertson’s coming to Zaire is that he made Mobutu look good.”When Pat Robertson first came to this country he spoke good things about Mobutu,”said Kambale.”Mobutu was at a low point then and he needed some boosting. You must understand that people in this country love the Gospel and they trust big, powerful evangelicals like Pat Robertson. When Zairians saw him on TV with Mobutu they were very confused. Robertson helped Mobutu a lot, helped to prop him up. The man was used to bolster Mobutu’s reputation.” In response, Kapp said Robertson operates in more than 70 nations and”our position has always been to not get involved in the internal politics of any of the nations we work in. We work with the government in power to accomplish the humanitarian work we attempt to do, and our humanitarian work speaks for itself.”

MJP END FLEMING