The executive board of Milieudefensie advised then director Donald Pols in 2021 to come public with his far-right past. Marty Smits, chairman of the supervisory board of Milieudefensie, said this on Saturday during the climate organization’s membership meeting in Amsterdam.
“We thought it was privacy-sensitive, personal information that we as an employer could not share freely,” said Smits, who had been aware of Pols’ dark past since 2021. “We certainly advised Donald to seize the moment to do that himself. Unfortunately, that did not happen.”
That Pols was involved in extreme right-wing actions against the abolition of Apartheid in South Africa in the early 1990s was revealed at the beginning of this month by NRC. Shortly afterwards, the entire supervisory board of Milieudefensie decided to resign due to the commotion that had arisen.
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Following the great unrest among members of Milieudefensie – not only because of Pols’ far-right past, but also because of his earlier departure to Tata Steel – the agenda for the members meeting was changed at the last minute. First, former director and current supervisory board chairman Smits took the stage to provide an explanation of the Pols affair. What exactly did directors and supervisors know about his past? And since when did they know that?
Unlike in previous years, journalists were not welcome. “We decided that this week,” a spokesperson told NRC in advance. He did not want to say whether the press was banned from the room because of the commotion surrounding Pols. The meeting could be followed via a link.
Right to shame
Many of the dozens of members present were angry and disappointed about the revealed past of their former director, but there was also understanding. “Who is without sin? That feeling dominates me,” said one of the members. Another: “Everyone has the right to be ashamed. He spent 35 years trying to make up for this. He had the right not to talk about it.”
The understanding of Milieudefensie’s actions in the matter was much smaller. Why didn’t the board immediately make the facts about Pols’ past public as soon as it knew about it? “It is harmful that we as members are not informed about this,” said one attendee, who added that Milieudefensie often accuses large polluting companies of a lack of transparency about the climate impact of their activities. “Then it is strange that you keep this secret yourself.”
“It was not up to us to make that information public,” Supervisory Board Chairman Smits responded. According to him, when Donald Pols applied for a job at Milieudefensie in 2015, one member of the selection committee received “signals” about Pols’ past in South Africa. According to de Volkskrant it concerned the then treasurer of Milieudefensie. “The rest of the selection committee and the board knew nothing at the time,” said Smits.
We were ready to address it. Then we would have had the circus that we have now gone through
At the end of the summer of 2021, Smits, then chairman of the board, was called by Pols himself, as was the new treasurer. They were formally Pols’ employer at that time. The Milieudefensie director said that he was being blackmailed about his past. “Not by a company or a detective from one of the major polluters,” Smits said. “They were people from his personal circle. There were people around him who saw him tackling major polluters and said: you have to dim down.”
Pols told the two directors that as a 19-year-old he had been chairman of the Arikaner Studente Front, according to Smits. “We also knew that a speech by Nelson Mandela had been disrupted.” Pols explicitly distanced himself from those actions and expressed regret. Smits: “As the executive board, we then weighed the interests as carefully as possible and concluded that he could stay on. [als directeur van Milieudefensie]. In our opinion, that was the least bad choice, but it was far from easy and not pleasant.”
Crucial for Milieudefensie
The fact that Pols was allowed to stay on was also because he was “crucial” for the success of Milieudefensie, Smits acknowledged to the members. “At that time, we were just in the process of significantly expanding our pressure on large companies, our support base was growing, we had a lot of influence on legislation and were professionalizing. Donald played a very important role in all these matters. To use a football metaphor: just before the World Cup, people from outside threatened to kick our captain out of the match.”
The board was prepared in 2021 for the information with which Pols was blackmailed to come out, Smits said. “We were ready to address it. Then we would have had the circus that we have gone through now.”
After it was decided that Pols could stay on, the directors did not think it was the employer’s job to inform donors, members and employees about his personal past. Because Pols did not go public with it himself, the whole issue remained under wraps for years. Apart from the three informed (former) directors, virtually no one at Milieudefensie knew about it. Smits: “The circle that knew about it was very small. The vast majority of colleagues on the supervisory board only heard about it last week, just like previous directors and employees.”
It was a “devilish dilemma” for the directors to conceal Pols’ past for years, Smits said. But, he also said: even for Milieudefensie, transparency is “not a goal in itself”. Smits: “If we were transparent about everything in the world, everyone would live in a glass house. And that is terrible.”