The following report is taken from The Guardian
Newspaper,
a much respected newspaper in England.
Stephen Bates, Religious affairs, Monday October 15 2001
The Jehovah’s Witnesses have hurriedly disaffiliated from the United Nations within days of a Guardian story in which members accused the sect of hypocrisy for supporting an organisation it has repeatedly denounced privately.
After the article last Monday, the organisation’s New York hierarchy pre-empted a UN inquiry by agreeing to dissociate the Witnesses from an organisation which it holds to be the scarlet beast named in the book of Revelation.
The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, as the sect is formally known, has 6 million members world-wide and 130,000 in Britain. It had been secretly affiliated to the UN as a non-governmental organisation for 10 years.
Recognised organisations are supposed to demonstrate that they share the UN's objectives, but Witnesses are instead told by elders to regard it as "a disgusting thing in the sight of God and his people" for allegedly aspiring to world domination like Babylon the Great, the beast in Revelation.
The sect does not believe in participating in government and initially strove to play down or deny the evidence of the UN's website, which lists it as one of 1,500 affiliated NGOs.
Those bringing the evidence to light were accused of apostasy. Disaffiliated members become known informally, like the rest of humanity, as "bird seed" in line with biblical prophesy of the fate of non-believers, "whose corpses will be pecked bare by crows".
Within hours of the article's appearance on the Guardian website on Monday and its posting on a Jehovah's Witnesses bulletin board, more than 14,000 people across the world had read it.
By yesterday there were 353 official posts and 325 message boards discussing the article and its revelations, with Witnesses in the US demanding to see copies of the paper.
For members of the Watchtower Society the above report was met with confusion and unbelief. For years the Society has been telling the faithful that the United Nations was the "disgusting thing that causes desolation" mentioned in scripture. For years the Watchtower Society has been saying
Now the Watchtower Society has been exposed as being a non government organisation (NGO) member since 1991 when the Watchtower rules apparently were secretly changed. The Watchtower filled out an application and joined the United Nations as an NGO. NGO’s are required to further the agenda of the United Nations, which the Watchtower has been doing in many recent Awake magazines as well as on their website. Are those in charge at Bethel aware of this. Apparently so since the names of Lloyd Barry (Governing Body), Ciro Aulicino (Writing Dept), and Robert Johnson (Service Dept) all appear in the UN registry. Witnesses and ex-witnesses alike were shocked over this matter discovered by the news media. Apparently the Watchtower joined to further their interest in Human Rights and Holocaust issues.
This was all a pre 1991 plan to cosy up to the world’s governmental and non-governmental communities, so as to work their legal, political etc, systems, so as to gain access to the then newly opening marketplace i.e. the former communist bloc of countries of Eastern Europe.
Many religious organisations conscientiously participate as members of the United Nations' NGOs, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, the issue about the WatchTower organisation doing so arises because their leadership has consistently characterised the United Nations as the prophetic "disgusting thing", the "image of the beast" whose number of its name is 666 (Rev.13:11-18), with whom alliance must be avoided at all cost to have Jehovah's approval. See for example the Watch Tower publication "Revelation--Its Grand Climax at Hand" (1988), pg 195, para.31; also pg 204-205, paras. 13-14. Also note the illustration from the book "Babylon the Great Has Fallen" (1966), page 577, where the United Nations is depicted behind the harlot of Revelation riding the back of the prophetic "wild beast with seven heads and ten horns".
That year, Jehovah's Witnesses unanimously adopted a resolution at their 1966 district assemblies around the world, vowing to remain completely separate from the Devil's world, its religions and governments, including the United Nations. The question then arises, how can the Watchtower represent itself to the UN, with proof that it is an advertiser and supporter of UN objectives when, in fact, their literature aggressively opposes the UN and its objectives?
Considering the Watchtower's alliance with the very organisation it has blatantly condemned from its inception, and even more so all other religions for endorsing it, it appears the Watch Tower leadership had to intentionally misrepresent itself with so-called documented 'proofs' (four required) of their activities that aggressively promote the mission and objectives of the United Nations' charter. Little wonder then that numerous Jehovah's Witnesses have expressed shock, especially since a Witness can be disfellowshipped, shunned, and doomed for something as benign as work in their employment on a non-JW church. Both current and former members of Jehovah's Witnesses called or wrote the UN to inquire whether this was all true, and whether they were aware of the Watchtower religion's subversive teaching about the United Nations. A representative of the UN informed callers that an investigation into the matter would be initiated. To avert the inevitable, the Watch Tower organisation promptly sent a fax to the UN requesting resignation and withdrawal from the list of NGOs and DPIs. The UN acknowledged their resignation in a memo dated October 9, 2001. Many Jehovah's Witnesses remain quite disturbed by the obvious hypocrisy of this episode. An active Jehovah's Witness, known on the Internet as 'Zev' was so disillusioned by it that he developed a website compiling the documented proof of the Watchtower's involvement with the United Nations.
It would be interesting to see what "proofs" the Watchtower organisation provided to the UN in its applications to gain and maintain it’s status as NGO and DPI since 1992, but since they voluntarily resigned without an investigation, the UN has respectfully withheld that information.