I've been researching the WT and the UN involvement. When i was still in and i first seen the UN letter online, my cognitive dissonance kicked and I told myself it'll be a fake. An apostate lie.
And seeing as no JW I've spoken to has ever heard of it, and flatly deny any involvement "no, they wouldn't do that", I decided to do a little "personal study" of my own. I intend to keep the documents on file so i can show them to my next witness caller on Saturday morning. Please note that i have no interest in spreading "false stories", "slander" or "lies". I am only interested in THE FACTS and EVIDENCE. And i have provided that evidence here.
Ok first off - in 1957 the Watchtower magazine discussed THEOCRATIC WARFARE. In a nutshell, you can lie in order to keep the preaching work going. No, not lie... just withhold information. This is something that if you were to do TO the WT society they would call you a liar. But i guess it's ok when they do it.
TAKE SPECIAL NOTE OF THE FIRST PARAGRAPH ON PAGE 286.
So lets flip this around for a second... suppose your child needs a blood transfusion. You allow him/her to have one. Later, the a JW representative (HLC member) turns up and asks if your child has had one - if we seek to protect our child and ourselves from disfellowshipping and use "theocratic warfare" we would be labelled as liars. But if the WT society does it to escape a prison sentence or interrogation its ok.
In 1991 the Watchtower society contacted the UN's NGO section and applied for membership of it's Department for Public Information. TAKE SPECIAL NOTE AT WHAT ANYONE SIGNING UP HAS TO DO IN ORDER TO BE GRANTED MEMBERSHIP:
Does that sound rather strange? The UN, the wild beast of Revelation that the kings of the nations turn to for peace and security?
For those that found out about the UN involvement, they were, naturally, stumbled. And so they asked their elders. Who were not aware of any UN involvement. Eventually, so many inquiries were being made to elders in congregations around the world that Bethel had to write to the Guardian newspaper that originally ran the exposé story.
Bethel claim it was only to use the UN library. And secondly, that they didn't know that the UN changed their criteria for membership. The first excuse may be true. But even if it was "only to use the library", this directly contradicts their own standing on this issue. See Watchtower 1979 in which it discussed why a Jehovahs Witness could not join the YMCA:
But the second excuse doesn't hold water under scrutiny. The WT society claimed that, unknown to them, the UN changed their wording on the sign up papers and when this was discovered then they withdrew membership.
The UN printed this reply:
Maybe the UN is lying? Well, here is a copy of an annual sign up form (apologies for the poor quality):
Is it a coincidence that the Watchtower society "discovered" this supposed "new wording" the very same year that the Guardian newspaper printed their story? Maybe. But i think not. If this were a court case the evidence presented above would put the WT society in a very difficult position.
But besides all this. WHY did the average JW not know about the UN involvement? If it really were just to use their library facilities they could have printed that in their Watchtowers back in 1991, thereby informing everyone in case accusations came up. And why did most elders not know?