Probably depends how you feel about your neighbor. I mean, historically, most societies who keep slaves enslave their neighbors. They’re the easiest ones to get to. A lot of the big slavery kingdoms in West Africa didn’t really consider the people they enslaved and sold to white traders to be like them or their equals. And a lot of the Western African states had large populations of slaves themselves when the Europeans came along. So, as far as the West African kings and caliphs were concerned, selling slaves to European traders was just an extension of the stuff they had been doing all along.
Yeah, but so far they haven’t killed kids with machetes or forced people to rape their families, so I’m thinking there’s a bunch of African guerilla groups/warbands that still have them beat. For now.
ETA : or the East India Company, for that matter.
You really think that? Which do you think is worse?
This board is hilarious sometimes. Honest to God. There aren’t enough rolleyes to describe some of the things offered as reasonable perspectives in these here parts. And it’s not as if this could be a brain fart where Bob just somehow lost track of mass murders and rapes and slavery, since they’ve already been brought up in the thread. Nope, the Tea Party is the worst. Republicans, you see. 
Some good answers here. Thanks for the discussion. I can’t remember who said it up thread but now that I think about in, mercenaries do seem to be more governmental.
Lamar Mundane I started thinking about AQ before I started the thread, but in comparison to some of these other groups, it occurred to me that they’ve got a ways to go before they’re as bad as some of these others groups.
I’m going with whalers and buffalo hunters.
I’m betting the Congo is going to lead the world in the matter of evil NGOs at present. But where government breaks down like it has in the Congo, one wonders whether the meaning of NGO applies. If there is no governmental organization, does the term “non-governmental organization” have the same meaning as it does elsewhere?
When I thought NGOs doing really bad things the East India Company was one that came to mind (certainly worse than Blackwater or the Tea Party which isn’t even a single organization and is purely political.) I’m not sure how it would be classified, but Leopold II controlled the Congo Free State privately, as in it was not subject to Belgian law and was not part of Belgium but his own private colony. Initially he ran it through a “philanthropic” organization, but then dispensed with that after the Berlin Conference and ran it basically directly as a personal royal fiefdom, then he later split the colony into different areas and gave private companies control over those areas so they could squeeze profits out of it for Leopold. It’s hard to classify it though because it wasn’t one specific NGO doing this stuff and then technically after the Berlin Conference while Belgium’s government didn’t control the Free State I guess you could argue it wasn’t controlled by any NGO but was basically an absolute monarchy under the control of (its recognized) monarch, which just puts it back into the category of normal tyranny by a government.
Fuck that shit, I hunt buffaloes on whaleback!
Not that I catch very many . . .
Whatever it was, 'twas pretty awful.
I think so, for this purpose. The governmental / non-governmental distinction was about power in the OP. I don’t think the absence of a government necessarily means non-governmental groups of greater power.
This could easily drift into a discussion on what constitutes a government, now.
Yea, I was going to mention the Congo Free State. Although I’m not sure it counts- it’s in a gray area between ‘government’ and ‘private’ control.
Also- the East India Company? Seriously?
The biggest black mark against British rule in India (either under the Company or later under the Crown) was that they produced horrendous economic stagnation, including serious famines. It must be said though, that they also accomplished a lot of good things (introducing modern science, technology, education, infrastructure, medicine, etc. to the subcontinent). And in terms of repression they were no worse than a lot of the native rulers, and probably better. You can make arguments for or against British colonialism in India, but they hardly enter the ranking as among 'the most evil NGOs in history".
Especially because, aside from the extremely valid points you made, the East India Company was the de facto government of parts of India until 1858 - which is rather at odds with trying to categorise them as a “non-government organisation”.
Organized religion. Especially the kind that makes everyone feel bad and guilty about their basic human instincts and whose mental health advice over the centuries has been inefficiënt at best and deeply unhappiness inducing at worst.
The sadists who randomly distribute viruses to disrupt computer operation.
Crane
I’d probably go with slave traders, but I can’t decide if the Europeans doing the trans-atlantic slave trade were worse than the Arab slave traders, or vice versa. They both pretty much sucked. (Slavery in the Americas was probably more brutal, but the Arab slave trade went on for a lot longer).
I was going to mention Westboro Baptist Church, even if only atrocious in thought instead of deed.
What do you mean “who looks just like you do”?
I can’t tell the difference between a German Jew and a German Catholic not the difference between someone who’s Japanese and someone who’s Korean.
Does that mean atrocities by German Gentiles against German Jews and Japanese against Koreans are somehow worse that atrocities committed by blacks against whites?
Actually, I’d say it was vastly more brutal in the Arab world.
Most of the men were castrated and the women were mostly made into concubines. Obviously both things happened in the Americas, particularly the second part(though not officially) but not remotely to that extent.
That’s why just as many if not more “black” slaves were taken by “Arab” space traders, but since they didn’t reproduce themselves at remotely the same rate there are vastly more “blacks” in the Americas than in the Middle East.,
I remember one story from the Rwandan war crimes tribunal where they lined up all the men, tied the first man in line (Man A) to a chair and made the next man in line (Man B) bite off Man A’s testicles. Then they tied Man B to a chair and made the next man in line (man C) bite off Man B’s testicles. Rinse and repeat.
I remember them declining to prosecute mere rape (that wasn’t systematic) as a war crime even if dozens of girls were raped (in the rape and pillage sense) but rape camps were war crimes because they were a form of genocide or something. It shocked the conscience.