March 24, 2004 - PCOL Exclusive: Walter Poirier's Statement on Safety and Security of Peace Corps Volunteers before the House International Relations Committee

Peace Corps Online: Peace Corps News: Special Reports: March 24, 2004: The House holds Hearings on Safety and Security of Peace Corps Volunteers: March 24, 2004 - PCOL Exclusive: Walter Poirier's Statement on Safety and Security of Peace Corps Volunteers before the House International Relations Committee

By Admin1 (admin) (151.196.183.79) on Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - 10:42 pm: Edit Post

Walter Poirier's Statement on Safety and Security of Peace Corps Volunteers before the House International Relations Committee

Walter Poirier's Statement on Safety and Security of Peace Corps Volunteers before the House International Relations Committee



Congressman Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, presided over hearings on March 24 on Safety and Security of Peace Corps Volunteers. Read and comment on the written statement by the witnesses at the hearings at:

Walter Poirier's Statement on Safety and Security of Peace Corps Volunteers before the House International Relations Committee*

* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.



Walter Poirier's Statement on Safety and Security of Peace Corps Volunteers before the House International Relations Committee

Dear Chairman Hyde and esteemed members,

The Poirier family is extremely grateful for this opportunity to speak to this committee regarding our grueling experience involving the Peace Corps and the disappearance of our son, Walter J Poirier. In the three years since his vanishing without a trace, we have been through a gamut of emotions, which no family should have to endure.

To start, we firmly believe that if we had not tried to contact our son on March 4, 2001, after not hearing from him for over a month, the Peace Corps would not have known he was missing for another week or two. Lack of at least a weekly reporting mandate, coupled with an influx of new PCVs, Bolivia 26, which seemed to overburden the management for Bolivia Peace Corps, is to blame. Trying to place too many volunteers in an effort to boost enrollment numbers, while not having enough qualified management to deal with the situation, caused the Peace Corps to lose contact with our son. We believe that our son actually disappeared sometime after January 31, 2001, as no Peace Corps personnel can confirm seeing him after that week. Whatever happened to him, he was declared officially missing by the Peace Corps on March 6, 2001. When I spoke with the Country Director, I asked what safety protocols were in place for volunteers whose assignments were in remote areas such as my son and what provisions were made to enable them to communicate with Peace Corps Bolivia headquarters. She replied that there was a radio telephone within two or three kilometers of my son’s site. The radio telephone was actually several miles upriver. When asked why these young people had no cell phones, satellite phones, or GPS devices, her response was”we’ve been doing it this way for forty years”. This attitude that the Peace Corps had no need for change is a recurring theme in Peace Corps liturgy.

 Walter Poirier's Statement on Safety and Security of Peace Corps Volunteers before the House International Relations Committee

We believe that the Peace Corps response was too little too late. There are numerous reasons for this. The aforementioned lack of oversight is one, but more importantly, there is a prevailing attitude of acceptance within Peace Corps management that many volunteers take off from their assignments without leave.

One of the reasons for this phenomenon of going AWOL, maybe a lack of specific goals in the work assignments, and lack of proper experience to match the work assignment. This may result in a high rate of early separation. When young college graduates, who have just devoted four long years in reaching a goal, are placed in an environment where there is little or no tangible success to be achieved, boredom sets in and this would seem to be the reason for the unauthorized leaves. This current generation has been raised on visual and tactile stimulation. They need positive feedback and reinforcement so that they feel what they are doing is having positive results. The push to increase the number of PCVs will only increase if the number of generalists decreases. We believe that the Bolivian Peace Corps management team felt that our son has taken one of those leaves, as they only sent his immediate supervisor to find him. We are not sure, but we believe that the embassy and the Bolivian National Police were not notified until several days after we alerted the Peace Corps. To compound the matter, the supervisor concocted a lie, stating that our son had a meeting with his counterpart in early March 2001, at the La Paz government house. This assistant country director said he lied to protect himself after being confronted by the FBI. That is probably true, but we also believe that the constant theme of protecting the Peace Corps’ image was a factor. We believe that the lack of supervision, lack of a meaningful assignment and lack of a proper place to live all contributed to the loss of our son.

From the beginning, we have found the Peace Corps to be more concerned with its image and protecting the aura and prestige of the Peace Corps than any other issue. In the first meeting with PC personnel from Washington on March 26, 2001, they stated that the search for Walter, had been “reinvigorated”, then the Regional Director, Ms. Minutillo, and a psychologist, Ms. Gutmann, raised questions about our son’s sense of responsibility and his work ethic. Our son had first been declared missing on March 6, 2001, and now we were being told that the search was reinvigorated? The second visit came on April 6, 2001, and this time Mr. Boswell, a member of PCs Inspector General’s office accompanied Ms. Gutmann, along with a person who was to do a video for Bolivian television. Mr. Boswell, who said he was the lead investigator for my son’s case and had just returned from Bolivia, intimated that it was not uncommon for PC volunteers to form relationships with the locals in their host countries, and hinted that they thought that this might be my son’s case. On both occasions, there was a concern that we would say or do something that would impugn the Peace Corps image. This became more apparent, each time we tried to bring national attention to Walter’s disappearance. The most glaring example occurred when we appeared on the Today Show in April 2001, there was a press release already being circulated as we were appearing. Further examples of this constant spin done by PR people within Peace Corps, is the outraged response to the two reports done by the GAO, especially the one which focused on our son which is GAO report #01-970R dated July 20, 2001.

 Walter Poirier's Statement on Safety and Security of Peace Corps Volunteers before the House International Relations Committee

We have also found the Peace Corps to be obstructive. Simple requests for information were always met with the response that the FOIA act came into force for our requests and that we must follow procedure. Now when we did submit for the information we wanted, we were met with stonewalling and denial of information. This practice seems to be consistently used to stop discovery of information, which could damage the Peace Corps image, from being obtained. Only after the Dayton Daily News sued to obtain the information, was it begrudgingly dispensed.

We also find the Peace Corps to be insensitive. Two examples: On January 13, 2002, we were sent an invitation to celebrate Peace Corps Day by sharing our experiences about our Peace Corps volunteer’s service and our thoughts. In other words, we were left on a mailing list despite all we had been through. The second incident occurred when we were sent a letter by the Peace Corp Director, informing us that Peace Corps was going to close out our son’s service. As there was no resolution to his case, we were outraged that such a letter would be forthcoming. Only after calls to Senators Kennedy and Kerry, and Representative Meehan, did the Director reverse his decision and agree to a one year extension with a review every year. So far another year’s extension has been granted for this year extending our son’s service to February 2005. We feel that our son should be kept active until there is a final outcome, whatever that may be. We feel that he should be listed on the wall of remembrance at Peace Corps headquarters with the notation “missing in service” until such time as proof of his whereabouts and status changes. We know that since 9/11 there has been little if any active searching for our son. Embassy personnel have turned over, the Country Director and Assistants have left Peace Corps service, and the FBI agent in charge has been reassigned. We suspect that our son’s disappearance is considered a cold case by the Bolivian National Police and tucked away in a manila folder gathering dust. Twice, we have asked for Peace Corps to hire a private investigator to really concentrate on our son’s case, and twice we have been rebuffed.

 Walter Poirier's Statement on Safety and Security of Peace Corps Volunteers before the House International Relations Committee

In closing, we have been met at every turn with the attitude at Peace Corps that it doesn’t need fixing as it isn’t broken and that our son is/was responsible for whatever has happened to him. There is also an attitude that there should be no outside governmental oversight of Peace Corps, other than within its own Agency. The Director sent a letter to the Senate, outlining the Peace Corps proposed changes to the practices and protocols for volunteer safety. The changes are necessary and should be adopted immediately. However, in order to insure that the change doesn’t only take place on paper, the Poirier family feels that there should be an entity doing oversight which has no vested interest in Peace Corps.

Only after the safety of each an every individual volunteer is property addressed should there be an expansion of Peace Corps. If not, then the incidents that were reported in the Dayton Daily News will increase, perhaps, exponentially, as the number of volunteers’ increases. The robberies, rapes, and murders, will undoubtedly grow. We as a family do not wish that the Peace Corps mission be changed, but before any other volunteer is harmed due to lack of proper security measures, availability of communication devices at all times, and assignment of solitary volunteers to remote area is stopped, the problems can only get worse. Congress must be brave and bring about change. It must be done legislatively so that each succeeding Peace Corps Director and Assistant Director will carry out the mandate to protect the volunteers, first and foremost. The Peace Corps must realize that the world is not the same place it was 42 years ago, and change is necessary to protect its life blood, the volunteers, without whom, there is no Peace Corps.

If change is mandated through legislation, perhaps no other parent will have to appear before this body, after losing a precious son or daughter, due to lack of proper management security protocols and resistant attitudes toward change in the Peace Corps.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is the end of my prepared statement. I am now ready to answer any questions that your and any member of the committee may have.






March 23, 2004 - US Newswire: Hyde to introduce Peace Corps Safety and Security Act of 2004

Hyde to introduce Peace Corps Safety and Security Act of 2004



Read and comment on this Press Release from the Committee on International Relations that Chairman Henry Hyde will introduce the Peace Corps Safety and Security Act of 2004 to create an agency ombudsman; enhance the Corps' security office; and give greater independence to the agency's Office of the Inspector General. Read the story at:

To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor*

* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.



Safety & Security of Peace Corps Volunteers: Hyde schedules Wednesday oversight hearing; Plans introduction of legislation to remedy problems

BACKGROUND: The president's intention of doubling the size of the Peace Corps comes at a time of heightened risk for Americans living abroad. Recent critical reports by the General Accounting Office (GAO) and an award-winning series by the Dayton Daily News illustrate uneven performance by the Peace Corps in developing safe and secure housing and worksites, responding to volunteer concerns, and planning for emergencies. Among those scheduled to testify are Walter R. Poirier, the father of missing Peace Corps volunteer Walter J. Poirier. The younger Poirier, a native of Lowell, Massachusetts, and a 2000 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, served as a volunteer in Bolivia until his disappearance in March 2001. A subsequent GAO report found that "the Peace Corps failed to properly supervise Poirier and lost track of him." Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez is expected to testify on recent policies adopted by the Peace Corps to promote the safety and security of its volunteers. Later this month, Chairman Hyde will introduce the Peace Corps Safety and Security Act of 2003 to create an agency ombudsman; enhance the Corps' security office; and give greater independence to the agency's Office of the Inspector General.

WHAT: Full Committee oversight hearing: Safety and Security of Peace Corps Volunteers

WHEN: 10:30 a.m., Wednesday, March 24

WHERE: Room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building

WITNESSES: Gaddi H. Vasquez, Director, The Peace Corps; Charles D. Smith, Inspector General, The Peace Corps; Jeffrey Bruce, Editor, Dayton Daily News; Jess Ford, Director, International Affairs and Trade, General Accounting Office; Walter R. Poirier, father of missing Peace Corps volunteer; and Kevin Quigley, President, National Peace Corps Association.

Issues expected to be examined at the hearing:

-- How does the Peace Corps monitor the safety and security of its volunteers in the field?

-- Is there a standard policy on a global or country-by- country basis that requires supervisors to visit or contact volunteers in person at a specified interval?

-- How does the Peace Corps train its volunteers, especially with respect to safety and security? After several months on assignment, do Peace Corps volunteers feel that they have been adequately prepared for their assignment?

-- Is it possible to expand the presence of the Peace Corps in additional countries while taking into account the safety of Peace Corps volunteers?





Click on a link below for more stories on PCOL

Read the series on Safety and Security here



Leave your comments on the series below.

Read comments by RPCVs here, here and here.





Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Congress; Hearings; Legislation; Safety and Security of Volunteers

PCOL10621
28

.


Add a Message


This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.
Username:  
Password:
E-mail: