March 18, 2006

Volkart reverses stance, takes new assignment

Peace Corps volunteer was abruptly removed after criticizing Bush

By Jennifer Squires
Ashland Daily Tidings

Derek Volkart will leave for a Peace Corps assignment in Paraguay this fall.

The Ashland environmental activist-turned-carpenter was pulled from a two-year volunteer position in Morocco on Feb. 15 after Peace Corps officials read an article in the Daily Tidings about Volkart’s impending departure. That article, published Feb. 13, included what some considered inflammatory statements about the government.

Volkart accepted the placement to do agri-forestry work earlier this month. It starts in September.

“I still wanted to serve,” he said.

Previously, Volkart had said he wouldn’t take another Peace Corps assignment until officials explained why he was removed from the Moroccan position. Volkart had been offered three alternate assignments — all in the Pacific Islands — and turned them down.

“I realized that I couldn’t wait for an answer to why I was removed from Morocco,” Volkart said. “I was not going to get a direct answer.”

E-mail communication between the organization and Volkart included the Peace Corps policies on political expression, contact with media representatives and publication of articles. Peace Corps officials did not cite the specific elements of the article that sparked the cancellation; however, an e-mail from Don Peterson, the Chief of Operations for the Europe, Mediterranean, Asia Region, stated “Peace Corps has rescinded its invitation ... for programmatic and foreign policy concerns.”

The Daily Tidings filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Peace Corps on March 2. The request asks to review Volkart’s file and communications between the officials who decided to pull him from the Moroccan assignment.

Although Volkart is now trying to distance himself from the controversy — he’d rather focus on learning Spanish and preparing for Paraguay — he has been cooperative in the Tidings’ information request. The newspaper expects a response by the end of the month.

“It involves quite a few departments of getting information and going through [it],” said Marianne Manheim, who is handling the request from the Peace Corps FOIA/PA office in Washington, DC. “It’s quite a bit of information.”

The actions of Peace Corps officials after Volkart’s statement in the Tidings, in which he told a reporter his decision to join the Peace Corps was in “response to our current fascist government,” has generated some interest from Peace Corps veterans around the country.

The Tidings article about Volkart’s removal from Morocco was posted on the Moroccan section of the Peace Corps’ Web site as “Derek Volkart removed from Peace Corps assignment after making inflammatory remarks about U.S. policy.”

A handful of former volunteers posted comments about Volkart’s situation. All were critical of the Peace Corps’ decision to remove him.

“It is very sad to see this occurring. Mr. Volkart expresses a view I am sure is shared by many Peace Corps volunteers,” wrote David Meyer. “As a Peace Corps volunteer who served in the sixties because of an absolute belief in the wrongness of my government vis a vis Viet Nam, I am appalled to think that we can no longer express ourselves with freedom.”

Staff writer Jennifer Squires can be reached at 482-3456 x 225 or jsquires@dailytidings.com.