According to a 60 Minutes investigation, author and philanthropist Greg Mortenson fabricated or exaggerated the stories in his books Three Cups of Tea and Stones to Schools and has misused the funds of the Central Asia Foundation, the charity he founded and for which two Santa Cruz benefits raised nearly $30,000.
Among the disputed accounts is Mortenson’s story of stumbling into the small village of Korphe in northeastern Pakistan after failing to summit K2. Mortenson cites the event as his inspiration for his mission to build schools to educate girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the two porters who accompanied Mortenson on the trip say it never happened.
In both Three Cups of Tea and Stones to Schools, Mortenson also claims to have been kidnapped by the Taliban for eight days while scouting locations to build a school. He says he won his captors over by asking for a Koran and promising to build schools in the area; a photograph of his alleged kidnappers is even published in one of the books. When 60 Minutes tracked down the men in the photo, one turned out to be a prominent Islamabad intellectual. That man said the group had been hired to act as Mortenson’s protectors in Waziristan, a mountainous region of Pakistan that borders Afghanistan.
Reporters from 60 Minutes also investigated 30 of the 144 schools the Central Asia Foundation purported to have built in Pakistan and Afghanistan. About half were performing well, but the others were abandoned, being used as storage facilities or had not had contact with the foundation in years.
The most serious of the allegations center around Mortenson’s misuse of the Central Asia Foundation’s funds. According to 60 Minutes, The Central Asia Foundation does not receive any money from Mortenson’s books, and little to none for his speaking engagements. However, in the single financial statement it released in its 14 years of operation, the foundation lists $1.7 million in “book-related expenses”—more than was spent on all of the foundations’ schools in Pakistan last year.
Two large benefits for Central Asia Foundation have been held in Santa Cruz. The first, in February 2009, raised almost $9,500. The most recent, in February 2010, raised $19,856.12,of which $632.50 went to expenses; the remainder of $19,223.62 was sent to the foundation. The meticulously balanced figures are posted on the Santa Cruz fundraisers’ website in an example of transparency that seems almost ironic in light of the circumstances.
Steven Barisof, who with his wife Bonnie helped organize the local events, was incredulous at the investigation, calling it “a tempest in a teacup.”
“It’s possible that I’m greatly in denial because I just don’t want to believe I’ve been so greatly fooled but just, in my gut, I don’t think I have been,” Barisof said. “I think some screw-ups will come out in the wash. Some things that maybe he should not have said or done—not that they were done with any mean or bad intent, or greedy intent—but they were just errors in judgment.”
If the allegations are true, then at least the Barisofs and locals who attended the benefits or donated money to Mortenson’s charity are in good company—President Obama donated $100,000 of his $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize purse to the Central Asia Foundation as well.
Barisof, who is organizing this week’s Help Japan Relief Concert at the Rio Theater, is able to keep a sense of humor. Speaking of the event, which will be held this Saturday, April 23, he said, “We have a way to get the money directly to the people in need in that part of Japan. It’s not just going to the Red Cross or some general organization that has a lot administrative costs—like a $1 million–plus executive director,” he joked, referencing the Mortenson investigation. He says the funds from the event will be distributed in Japan through the entirely volunteer-run Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California.
