Corruption: Lift the rock, shine the flashlight

This perhaps was the best advice a deceased colleague gave me. "The insects will always run out" he said

On our About page he says:

"We research and design regional and national programs.  More about these programs are in the "Projects" section.  We continue throughout with advocacy and activism in raising awareness of stakeholders we aim to help: vulnerable children, and people in poverty, first.  

These problems almost always stem from government corruption that was a way of life in the USSR, and remains so to varying degrees.  Hence the overall process of what we do in promoting change inevitably runs into varying degrees of conflict along the way.  Dealing with such things as threats and smears is as much a part of projects as the hope and good will built within communities for standing up to it.  Hope, good will, and improved lives far outweigh the stresses and strains mounted by corrupt government officials, so strife and institutional resistance to change are taken in stride as part of the change process."

Just weeks before his death, he suggested this ending for an article about changing capitalism to serve people and planet first::       

"Hallman concludes that social business and social enterprise must be done by working backwards, from the problem: identify the worst social conditions in any given location, then analyze why the problem(s) exist.  This method will always reveal all factors and barriers.  Only then can the problem be understood, and then possibly fixed.  But, he notes, barriers are often found in various organizations who are supposed to be trying to fix the problem, but have vested interests in direct conflict with achieving actual solutions."

He was no slouch when it came to walking the talk. In 2003, he'd discovered his project for Crimea's Tatars was at risk from a politician who wanted a piece of the action, some $40 million of US investment.

Visiting the deputy finance minister with is interpreter, he was told "What does it matter to you? it's not your money"

"Oh yes it is" he responded,. "mine and every other American taxpayer. I'm cancelling the project and you can go fuck yourself". 

WhenI met up later with his interpreter he told me "I was shaking as I spoke the words. We left him banging his head against the wall in rage" 

Within 18 months the deputy minister had been removed from office and Terry told USAID in no uncertain terms that he'd have no qualms about suing them if they delivered the project without him. It was his copyright.

The story will be found in his notes on Ukraine which lead on to the later challenge of 'Death camps, for children'   

USAID weren't best pleased either. They'd been itching to get on the ground where Russia's Black Sea fleet was moored.  

he was no stranger to controversy having put himself on radar with his investigation of an AC-130 which went down in Laos in 1970. On board was his father-in-law. It led to creating a MIA veterans organisation known as Freedom Now of Virginia. His activism would lead to an invitation from Bill Clinton to serve on the Committee to Re-elect the President, where he wrote the P-CED white paper.

Through Clinton's office he'd been able to source an experimental development project in Russia which became known as the Tomsk regional Initiative. During his time there he'd been arrested at gunpoint after refusing to comply with the demands of a local FSB official who wanted a hand out. His refusal would lead him to become a threat to national security, not longer welcome in Russia. Much the same treatment as venture capitalist Bill Browder which led US Government to create the Magnitsky Act.              

Getting back to the Crimea project, Terry lambasted Ukraine and its government in an article for Kyiv Post and then returned to the USA.   

The story of 'Death Camps, For Children surfaced in 2006, with the revelations of an NGO visiting the home for disabled children at Torez  and by October the proposal for microectonomic development and social enterprise was in Ukraine's government channels. Placing children in loving

The following summer we got wind of a potential hijack when one of Ukraine's oligarchs revealed plans for a development initiative which was described as a Marshall Plan. Terry Hallman wrote in his notes:

"As the 60th anniversary of the Marshall Plan came around in June 2007, noise was emerging within Ukraine of a certain political boss preparing a Marshall Plan for Ukraine.  This person was a reputed mob boss -- exactly the sort of entity that the original Marshall Plan meant to oppose.  It seemed most likely that whatever he came up with would be self-serving, hijacking the label 'Marshall Plan' and turning the whole notion on its head.  I reviewed the original Marshall Plan and realized that what I had written was, in fact, the definition and spirit of the original Marshall Plan.  Thus, in June 2007, I appended the original title with "A Marshall Plan for Ukraine."  After some discussion among trusted colleagues over timing, I published an abbreviated version of the paper in two parts in August 2007 in the 'analytics' section of the Ukrainian news journal for-ua.com. "

At that point it seemed that we'd been able to protect our IP for its intended social benefit, going on to introduce the proposals directly to USAID, The British Council.and Erste Bank among others. These would ultimately be major players in the social enterprise development initiative which displaced our own, leaving vulnerable children to their inevitable fate.