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Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

I get the impression that in a corrupt country like that, government officials say no to everything by default, in order to make you bribe them to say yes.

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There is probably more than a little of that.

Then there is the fact that when you're attempting to pull off a genocide of your political opponents so you can get at the oil beneath their land, letting in white do-gooders to build them cool new houses is not exactly #1 on the to-do list.

Plus, any improvement in their living conditions just means the West sends your poor impoverished people less money that you can steal. Look at, say, aid flows to Costa Rica ("not a basket case") vs. pick-your-favorite-usual suspect. If you're a tyrant, miserable people are a rich national resource.

Exactly. Darfur is wretched because the government has a stake in keeping it that way. Anything that threatens to weaken their stakes will in every likelihood meet resistance from the government. Had the government’s intent been to see a thriving and safe Darfur, the crisis wouldn’t exist in the first place. It’s not surprising that any attempt to improve lives in Darfur would be frowned upon.

Be that as it may, it never ceases to amaze me how some nifty startups come up with innovative ideas that discreetly transform the lives of people more than what UN’s billion dollar diplomacy fails to pull off. For example the stoves that helped keep Darfur’s women safe.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/12/27/stoves.darfur...

http://www.darfurstoves.org/

And no bribe was offered? Undertaking a project in an area like that without being willing either to shoot or to bribe government officials strikes me as naive.

Naive or principled? Who knows in this case. Sad reality is that in many parts of the world you've got to factor bribes into your financials.

...in many parts of the world you've got to factor bribes into your financials...

In most parts, and not just to do business.

It's also illegal for a US, Canadian or European company to offer bribes to government officials abroad.

A recent crackdown cost Siemens $1.6 billion, as bribes were apart of their standard system of doing business. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/worldbusiness/21s...

It occurs to me that it would be a fascinating test case if a charity like this one were to be tried for bribery and plead self-defense.

"plead self-defense" to whom? To the govt that you didn't grease correctly? To the govt in your home country that thinks that bribing other govts is wrong?

Note that "self-defense" typically is to prevent grave bodily harm or death and is usually reserved for immediate threats. Not being able to build houses for some poor wretch who will probably live at least a few weeks without the house doesn't qualify.

To the home government. And while self-defense typically connotes imminent grave bodily harm, it is also typically plead only when one is accused of inflicting the same. In a country with rule of law, in non-imminent situations one is expected to seek the help of authorities rather than take matters into his own hands. But when that expectation is clearly unrealistic, then you have an interesting case.

> In a country with rule of law, in non-imminent situations one is expected to seek the help of authorities rather than take matters into his own hands. But when that expectation is clearly unrealistic, then you have an interesting case.

No, you don't. The home govt has decided that bribery is wrong. It's well aware that banning bribery will mean that some poor wretch won't get a house and believes that that's an acceptable price to pay for the benefits of banning bribery.

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