In an update to a story I wrote about earlier this week, “Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson has attracted even more heat.
After a scathing 60 Minutes expose in which “Into the Wild” author Jon Krakauer publicly cast doubt on many of the claims Mortenson made in Three Cups, the villagers Mortenson claimed held him hostage intend to sue him for defamation, and the State of Montana’s Attorney General has opened an inquiry into Mortenson’s Bozeman-based Central Asia Institute (CAI) charity.
Mortenson claimed to have been kidnapped by the Taliban and detained in the dangerous Waziristan region on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. For the book he supplied a photograph of himself, supposedly being held captive by armed tribesmen. But as The Guardian reports,
“Greg Mortenson came with a relative of mine and he was a guest of the village. He stayed for about 10 days. He was living in the village, sightseeing, taking photographs. He had a really good time,” said Mahsud, adding that some of the tribesmen carried guns to protect Mortenson.
In Mortenson’s account, his hosts from the Mahsud tribe have been turned into the then better-known Wazir tribe, while the location has morphed to Razmak, North Waziristan.
“It’s lies from A to Z. There’s not one word of truth. If there had been a little exaggeration, that could have been forgiven,” said Mahsud. “The way that he’s portrayed the Mahsuds, as hash-smoking bandits, is wrong. He’s defamed me, my family, my tribe. We are respected people in my area. He’s turned us into kidnappers.”
The article goes on to note that Mahsud was only made aware of the alleged fabrication later, when he was solicited by Krakauer for his side of the story.
Domestically, Montana’s Attorney General Steve Bullock has announced that, while he is not casting any aspersions just yet, his office has “a responsibility to make sure charitable assets are used for their intended purposes.” Citing Krakauer, the AP relates that
Tax information filed with the Internal Revenue Service for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2009, the most recent available, put the charity’s expenses at $9.7 million. Of that, $3.9 million — about 41 percent — was spent on building materials, teacher salaries, scholarships and other expenses related to school building.
A larger amount, $4.6 million, was spent on what was described in the tax documents as “domestic outreach and education” and “lectures and guest appearances across the United States.” Mortenson, who is the Central Asia Institute’s executive director and a board member, received $180,747 in compensation that year.
More than $1.5 million of the charity’s expenses went to advertising and marketing Mortenson’s books.
At the moment, while admitting to “some omissions and compressions,” Mortenson—who is unavailable at the present moment due to surgery—still denies any serious wrongdoing, although he has been notably uncooperative with the press in their past attempts to get his unrehearsed side of the story.
Krakauer issues an even more scathing denunciation of Mortenson’s alleged misdeeds in this article called “Three Cups of Deceit”.
Image Credit: gregmortenson.blogspot.com; Amazon.com
